Seriously Single - Part I: The Partner Checklist.

It’s weird getting to the age where a partner becomes more important than the partner you had when you were 15. It’s even stranger getting to the point where they are almost (but not quite) as important as your best friends.


For years your main entertainment, distractions, amusements, communication, hobbies, sports, and whole life in general have been around your best friends and naturally, what they think. You grow up with these friends liking all the same stuff as each other. You like the same songs, ‘Smile’ jeans (80’s style of teen jeans in South Australia), the same make up, the same shops, the same sunglasses, and buckle bags (teen hand bags in South Australia). Your friend’s opinions are huge because they know you well and you believe in them and hope that they believe in you enough to steer you right. Your choice in kissing partner can be almost the first and only time that you notice that you may differ from your friends in likes and dislikes and thank God really.


This is where the perfect partner checklist comes in. Everybody has had one let’s face it. Although we have all seen the results of those that didn’t have one haven’t we? Huh? Hmm nasty. Just a few basic aspects is all it takes. It can go something like this, must be:

• Attractive but not too beautiful,

• a good kisser,

• intelligent,

• not too tall,

• not too short,

• not too skinny,

• definitely not fat,

• cultured (but not more than me),

• sensitive,

• good in bed with a reasonable sex drive,

• not possessive,

• easy going,

• secure (in self not necessarily financially, I’m not shallow),

• have a good sense of humour (must be funny, must amuse me),

• generous,

• well read,

• likes movies,

• definitely not a nerd,

• kind,

• likes good music,

• popular,

• a potentially good parent and finally,

• friends must like!!

It’s true. You can meet someone who fits all the selection criteria, have several dates, sex and good kissing and then a grave thought hits you. What if the friends don’t like this person? Because you start that falling in love stuff where your whole focus is on them and how perfect they are yet you know that there is that little but very important cliché out there, “Love is blind.” We know this cliché is true and valid because we have seen it happen to our own friends and more importantly to Julia Roberts when she married that man with big hair, Lyle bloody Lovett. What the hell was she thinking? He has to have a big dick! There is no other explanation.


Now the rules around friend acceptance and like of the new love commences with the best friend. If she likes and approves it is almost enough, afterwards you can move on to the other best friends and then other more casual friends and the rest, well who cares about the rest.


So you set up a best friend meets new love, summit. Drinks rather than dinner or coffee is always the better way to go because if it becomes evident immediately that they are not going to get on, or that she hates the new love, you can all get drunk and make out it doesn’t matter. If on the other hand it is a screaming success you can all get drunk in celebration. The bizarre thing you do when at this soirée is notice for the first time the faults.


‘Oh God he is slurping beer, loudly.’


‘He said something wanky, did he really say that? Make out he didn’t.’


‘Hate that shirt he’s wearing tonight. Geez, who dresses him anyway?’


‘Oh God, is that a booger, wipe it.’


And he is staring at you like you’re crackers because he has noticed all evening that you have been incessantly gawking at him closely and assessing him the whole time and occasionally kicking him under the table. Your best friend is also a bit perplexed but understands because she is your best friend. She also knows that no matter what she says to you about him when he goes for the first slash of the evening, (which you hope happens early so you can get her opinion and relax or plan the dump) is that you will know if she’s lying. If she says he’s great and she doesn’t really think so, you’ll know and she knows you’ll know so the pressure is on for all. The new love knows he is on trial and that the best friend is both judge and jury, and you are stressed because this is your dating future with this person. It shouldn’t be this way but it is. I don’t care how much you like/love this person, once your best friend tells you he’s crap. You think so too. It changes everything.


That is why, as you get older and listen to your friends heart over a particular person they’re seeing and know and understand that he is different from the others, that she is more serious about this one, that you learn to like and accept her new love for her or lie really, really well if you dislike him.

You look for all the good points and ignore the bad because there has to be something good there if your best friend thinks so. Unless (there is always an ‘unless’ in every scenario), you think he is really bad for her (beats women, has a mullet haircut, loves Lionel Richie), then you never stop telling her because at the end of the day you really care about her and want the best for her and because you are acquainted with the cliché, ‘love is blind.’ You have to be her eyes sometimes.

The Single Girls Guide