Judge Me: I Am the Crazy Lady With Arbitrary Dating "Rules"

A while back I completely blew off a one-word text from a guy I have every reason to think is a decent human being. I rationalized it by telling myself that "sup?" does not a conversation make. Since this is a guy I don't really know too well, I'm pretty certain that's that. So now I'm a huge jerk! And the truth is, if he did text me again? There's no way I'd answer, since who keeps after a jerk who blows them off?

Because I have arbitrary dating rules.
Yes! Men, the very real chance that you could say something innocuous and suddenly be out of luck actually does exist! And I'm like the president of that or something. I guess I'm confessing this because if I end up all alone and die at the age of 90 in my apartment and am found three days later half eaten by wild dogs, I'd like there to be at least some explanation as to why beyond, "must have been a huge lady-juicebox!" We all have things we look for and try to avoid when we're dating, but this is beyond realizing you don't like someone: this is the mental system I use to vet guys I actually like. A lot, in some cases. I have Big Red Flags that are deal-breakers, and what makes the situation so pernicious is that to my logical mind all of them make perfectly rational sense.

For starters, I blow off guys who don't make all the moves initially because I've had so many that want nothing more than to be dragged by the hand through their lives. At points I was given the job of being the sole emotionally functional member of a two-person relationship, of being the emotional wherewithal for two grown-up people, or of dragging another person out of a depression single-handedly, a task I failed at spectacularly, not being able to rescue two drowning people at the same time. I know! Unfair to compare the two. Obviously, the two poles here are far from each other. But if you can't pick a restaurant then my mind is afraid it'll have to be me taking care of everything, and everyone, all the time. It's full-on Sookie-Stackhouse's-fairy-godmother "he will steal your light!!"- style panic.

Same goes for any guy who says he's "super tight with my family" or "family's so important to me." I pass over those profiles or completely reject those matches when I'm online. Some guys have been super-close to their families, so much so that they would not even entertain for a second that I have a perfectly good reason for not being in contact with mine. Not that I brought it up, but it became a weight they could hold over my head when they wanted to make me feel smaller than them. I've found the "family is part of you" crowd doesn't always understand that "so is a tumor."

I am particularly terrified of the ones who say "I want a wife" or "I feel like I should be married" or "I thought I'd be married by now." They usually have a perfectly-set-up life that they would like to just drop a woman into, and it seems from the outside that any one will do. The problem is usually that I don't fit into the specific shape they're carved out for this imaginary woman. So they try to shove me into it as hard as they can. Sometimes with their fists.

Who wouldn't want to try to avoid that?

The thing is, I think I've come up with a test no one can pass.

So now what?



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