The Perfect man

Women love shopping. OK. Most women thrive on shopping. And why not- even experts say shopping is therapeutic. When it comes to shopping, most women will have come across and biblically follow the adage, ‘if it doesn’t fit, don’t buy’, some advice that has saved them ending up with pieces they cannot wear a month later. The difficult part comes when the same wisdom is applied to their search for partners, resulting in tragic results and conclusions- women are impossible to please.

There is an Internet joke about a store that has husbands for sale. The store has six floors and the attributes of the men increase as a shopper ascends the flights. By the time the shopper is on the fifth floor, the deal is already too good. The men there have jobs, love the Lord, love kids, are drop-dead gorgeous, help with the housework, and have a strong romantic streak. One particular shopper goes on to the sixth floor and there finds a sign that reads: Floor 6 – You are visitor 4,363,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store. Watch your step as you exit the building, and have a nice day!

The bit about women being impossible to please- I don’t know, but one thing I know is that if such a store exists, then all the women who have walked on this planet would have gone through there at one point of their lives, shopping list in hand, with the majority finding themselves on the sixth floor, and still hoping to find that perfect man who fills their dream.
Forget women’s fascination with the bad-boy-cum-jerk phenomenon. Deep inside, all women are longing for that man who will treat them like the queens they believe they are, and any man who even comes close to such a description will find himself in very high demand.

But do perfect men exist? At 29, and still single, Rosemary is a wiser woman than she was a few years ago. She has been searching for Mr. Right, and so far he seems not to be in Kenya. There is a story of a man who went all over the world searching for Mrs. Right. When he finally found the woman who perfectly fit the description he was looking for, she told him that she was also out searching for Mr. Right and it sure wasn’t him.

We all have ideals of the kind of partners we think we need. Women in particular have been known to go through their search for lifetime partners armed with a shopping list of ‘have to’ and ‘absolutely not’ characteristics. Funny, financially stable, five feet tall, dark and handsome… Some, have, amidst the rubble, unearthed their gem. Many women will testify to having kissed enough frogs hoping that hidden beneath was the prince who would match them to the sunset, only to discover that WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) is not just for desktop publishing. It can also apply to men.

Not every woman will be lucky to find the man who maps her childhood mental beau. And even when she is ready to give him time to grow up and style up under her tutelage, many realize that a man may not be that ready to be molded and adapted into whatever shape she wants him to. That does not mean that there are no men who will be forever grateful for the role the women in their lives have played to transform them (and their houses) from the resulting state due to bachelorhood.

Ditching a list though does not mean giving up any standards and facing life with an empty slate and open mind. Wisdom tells that if you do not know what you want, then when it comes you will not recognize it and you will settle for anything. It rather means being open to the mysterious, unpredictable nature of love. A list may more than often hold you being a self-preservation tool, knowing full well no one will ever fulfill it.

So what is so wrong with settling for nothing but the best? We cannot begrudge these women, who often have had experiences of being shortchanged on what they got at the end of their wedding night, or whatever variation we have made of that.
“I always had too much faith in men but they always disappointed me. I am yet to meet a man who makes me happy. I am starting to think he does not exist,” says Rosemary.

We can try and understand their plight as they search of the perfect man, only too discover that he will never come with all the trappings you need him to and even when he does, often the packaging is all so wrong you may fail to recognise him. It is only those who have the patience to scour beneath the mismatched clothes, the nose-mining fingers, loud belching, the funny accent, the weird hairstyle and body odour problem, who may brandish their had earned trophy of frog-turned prince.

As the passionate pursuit for the beau to sweep her off her feet intensifies, more women realize that they have run full circle, have reached that stage when age is approximated- downwards, and are still to find their nest to roost. May be this should be the time women should get back to themselves and gauge how they rate as partners before they can rate others.

This though is not to discourage all those women who are armed with a list of ‘have-to’ and ‘absolutely-not’ characteristics of the man who will keep them warm in old age (if it lasts that long).
The sad fact at the end of the day is that perfect men never existed and if they did, they went extinct a number of millennia ago.
“I realized men will never be exactly how I want them. And neither will I be what they want. It is about being patient with him and him with you,” says Rosemary.

For even when you think you found him, you will find that he comes more in raw material form, and it is only hard work and persistent belief and faith in him that will give you what you have been searching for. Perfection does not create a perfect bond, love does. And the fun is not in getting there, it is in the journey of growth and transformation for the two of you.