Are Women Too Picky?

While working as a hairstylist for 20 years I've had some of the most enlightening and intriguing conversations with my clients. I always enjoyed my clients and the animated and lively conversations that we had.  Needless to say we had some doozies!  Being a hair stylist actually plays a huge part in why I am a relationship coach today.   

 

In one particularly lively conversation, the question came up, are women too picky? And the conversation went wild! As you can imagine, there was a lot to say. One woman said," Preferably I want my man to be 6'4, have a six-pack and be easy on the eyes!"  Another woman chimed in, " I like my man a little rough around the edges, you know, have a little bit of rough neck in him. I don't want a nerd! Oh! And he must be able to dress!"  Someone else yelled over the melee, "AND he's got to have a job and a car!  I don't want a broke man!"  

 

I asked, what about personality?  Do you want him to be honest, caring, and compassionate?  What about him being a good listener, committed, loving and kind? "Well", one woman said, “I do want a man who is loving, honest and faithful too." But what if this honest, faithful compassionate man is not 6'4 with a six pack, then what? Now I, like any other woman, has my ideal, when it comes to a man.  But can holding to our ideals or standards too stringently cause us to miss out on love? I recalled a story my husband told me when we first got together. It involved a young woman he was dated before we met.  

 

He met this young woman on vacation. They struck up a conversation and hung out together.  They even decided to go out when I got back home. Now, I want to say here and maybe I'm a little biased, my husband is a catch. He's handsome, smart, articulate, financially secure, gainfully employed, I mean the list could go on. He loves to travel and loves life!  I have had more new and exciting experiences with him than I have ever had in my life!  So you can imagine my surprise when he told me the reason he stop dating her was drum roll please...........She asked about his shoes!

Now this sounds crazy, I know. But that's why they stopped dating. You see, they went out on a few dates and apparently he wore the same shoes. Not run overshoes, not shoes with holes in them, he just wore the same shoes a whopping two times in a row! So on date number two she asked, "Are you going to wear those shoes again?" And he decided that that was their last date.

Now when I asked my husband why he stopped dating her, his response what that she seemed to be more interested in him wearing the same shoes than getting to actually know him better.  And that was a turn off.  So instead of stringing her along, dragging out the inevitable or playing games, he decided to just make a clean break (integrity, another quality of a good man).

 

Now, I am a woman and I am 99.99% sure this woman has sat with her girlfriends at one point in her life and said, "There are no good men out here!" Yet, when one passed her way, she was concerned about his shoes.  It sounds almost too crazy to be true but it is.  And I think we women probably step over far more potentially wonderful partners than we would care to admit, for superficial reasons.

 So when asked the question "are women to picky"? My answer is yes and no. I think that sometimes we can be far too picky about things that don't matter and not picky enough about the qualities that do matter, when it comes to a man being a good partner. We can focus our energy on things like shoes, clothing, body type and the kind of car he drives which say nothing of a man’s potential to be a loving, compassionate and committed partner.

Where are you too picky about things that don't matter and not picky enough about what does matter?