ClueChick: real clues from a real chick

In response to yesterday's post, aaron wrote that he used to have a set of criteria in people he was looking for, but after finding several people who fit those criteria but with whom the relationship ended badly, making him question those things he thought he wanted.

This is an excellent point: Often enough, the things we think we want turn out to be all wrong for us. This leads to the womanwho chases "bad boys" and then bemoans the way she iss treated in that relationship. Or to the man who wants only tall, beautiful blondes but finds them vapid and boring after the initial shimmer has worn off.

It's important to think about what you want in a relationship, whether serious or casual. If you don't know what you want, you'll have a difficult time finding it, though, I'll admit, not impossible. Additionally, if you find something, it'll be hard for you to know if it's the sort of thing you're looking for. It's very useful to know, in a general way, what you want.

On the other hand, it's not useful to limit yourself to too narrow a set of options. If you only want a woman between 5'4" and 5'6" with long hair who runs marathons and reads Chaucer, you're limiting yourself a lot. And many of those characteristics may not actually be relevant to the success of your interaction.

So it pays to make note of the things that you like in friends and former lovers. What are personality traits that worked for you? What didn't? Learning what works and moving on from there is a much more successful strategy than banging your head against the wall.