what do you seek to find in a partner
We all know what happens when you lot head to the grocery store without a listing. Y'all cease upwards impulsively grabbing items and leaving with a cart piled total of stuff you didn't really need.
While killing time in the back of a biology class during nursing school, a and so 19-twelvemonth-one-time Elena Murzello used this "grocery list" theory to create a list of characteristics she was looking for in a potential partner. What Murzello didn't realize at the time was that this was the first of many "love lists" she would write — eventually leading her to author The Dear List: A Guide to Getting Who Y'all Desire.
"Without a list, you base of operations your purchases on how hungry you are and finish upward grabbing random items you don't need, like pretzel-covered peanut-butter snacks," writes Murzello in the book. "The reevaluation begins when you stare at your half-full grocery cart every bit you wait in line and realize that you don't really need one-half the stuff that you lot put in your cart. More than often than not, yous forget the i thing yous went shopping for in the outset place because it wasn't and so apparent when you were browsing the shelves."
The analogy makes sense. But applying it to her dating life wasn't a success for Murzello the first time effectually.
"I wrote 55 characteristics and information technology had everything from dark denim jeans, to straight teeth, to 5'11" to half-dozen'3" … all this detail," she told NBC News BETTER. "A calendar month subsequently I ended up meeting my boyfriend at the time and we had a lengthy x-year relationship. It ended when he went to Vegas for a bachelor party and met a girl. The side by side weekend he bankrupt upward with me; in three months they were engaged, in six months they were married, and then they moved into the flat that nosotros lived in together. Needless to say, I was disappointed. I kind of went into a hibernation and I went back to grad school."
How did my list fail me? Did it change? Did he personify the list and and so I inverse? Did I really need a listing? These were the questions that ran through Murzellos head.
"I started to interview single, married, divorced people and asked if they'd ever had a list and all the interviews kind of just accumulated and it became the book," she says. After speaking to more than 100 individuals, she identified the acme iii characteristics that people were looking for or what those who were married appreciated about about their partners. For women those traits were: Sense of humor, smart and honest, and kind. For men: Attractiveness, sense of humor, and intelligence/ambition.
With this research under her belt, Murzello sat downward correct before her 30th birthday and crafted a new list. And there was a articulate development between the characteristics that made the cutting now, versus the ones that her xix-twelvemonth-old self had jotted down x years earlier.
"My listing from my 20s was 55 characteristics — it had a lot of superficial, physical stuff, and my list at 30 kind of took that away because you know what? Looks practice fade," she says. "The things that really matter are those personality-based traits like honesty, trustworthiness, a solid family and friend base of operations, that kind of stuff lasts. I'1000 still partial to night denim jeans, but if you don't own a pair we'll get yous some."
You need to know who y'all are before you tin can know what you desire
The book was written five years agone. And since then, some of the married couples she interviewed have divorced. The mutual denominator Murzello identified between them? They didn't know themselves, she says.
"I observe that some people don't know themselves enough to be in a relationship, to commit to another person. When people who don't know themselves go together, you either have to grow together or you grow apart and that'south what I found; a lot of these couples were growing apart because they but didn't know what they wanted and who they were."
What nearly the couples who stayed together? "They are very decisive with their list, and they weren't willing to compromise. They had deal breakers. Like a healthy lifestyle or having a family … you can't exist sitting on the fence. Those couples really got down to the nitty gritty and said this is where I won't compromise and this is why nosotros're lasting because we still take organized religion in those few characteristics that really drive us through."
How to Create Your Ain Love Listing
Murzello developed the list as a tool to help people really define what information technology is they're looking for in a romantic partner.
"The honey list is a listing of characteristics and qualities y'all are looking for in a potential mate," says Murzello. When it comes to the length of your list, less is more, she says. With 55 characteristics her offset fourth dimension around she casted likewise wide of a net, which didn't permit her to be as decisive as she should of been. "Equally I'm pairing it down and being more than and more than decisive with what I want, I can meet a person and say, 'Are you right for me? No, yous're off.'"
Ready to give it a endeavor for yourself? Murzello walks us through her 4-stride procedure to putting pen to paper and writing your own love listing.
- Plan
Be mentally prepared and take an open up frame of mind. Take your time and be alone when writing your list. Really reverberate on your needs versus your wants, says Murzello.
- Do
Now it'southward fourth dimension to write your listing. Put your pen to paper and list out all of the characteristics/qualities you are looking for in a potential mate. "At that place are no rules and its amend if you think 'bluish heaven' versus very narrow," says Murzello. Don't censor yourself at present, you'll parse out your list in the next stride.
Some questions to consider: What are your deal breakers? How exercise yous value certain characteristics on your listing? Will you allow exterior influences (family, friends) to dictate what is on your list? Utilise your experiences, both bad and good, to your reward, Murzello recommends. Take the bad characteristics and add them to your "no" column and add together the good characteristics of people that you've met to the "yeah" column.
- Edit
At present is the time to clarify your list. Take out duplicates, couple themes together and delete unnecessary characteristics. An easy way to begin to tailor your list it to keep in mind the Irish potato Soup versus Lobster theory, Murzello says.
"Why would y'all go for something bland like spud soup when you could potentially club a lobster? Something unique, something you really want," she says. "It's beingness actually clear near what you want and really going for someone who is right for you lot versus someone who makes you feel safe. Those couples that are in divorce mode right at present, a lot of them in their younger years thought 'I want to become married, here's a person, I'll get married to them,' whether they were right or non. It's near paring downwardly to someone who is actually special for y'all."
Why would you go for something bland like potato soup when y'all could potentially order a lobster?
- Act
One time you have your list, it's time to become out in that location and meet people. Refer to your list often and revise it as you learn more than about yourself and what you want in a potential partner.
"The final slice of the puzzle is having the list, merely letting it go into the universe and being able to recognize when the characteristics popular up and when they don't," says Murzello. "Living in the moment is getting out there and not existence afraid to see what'southward there. Requite people a chance, but you don't want to give people likewise many chances. Recognize it for what information technology is and be able to be confident in your decision in what is right for you, and know information technology's okay to walk abroad when it's not right. Which is hard to practice."
Remember: Information technology'south an ongoing practice — non a finite list
"It's a really interesting process at all ages. In your 20s you have to figure yourself out and you lot want to take a general baseline. So you put it out there and then you explore, you run into people, there's lots of trial and fault, and then you start paring down the list," says Murzello. "You make up one's mind some things aren't important or that you need to add something else. As you evolve as a person, yous volition have a different list. As you get older priorities change, and information technology might be helpful to have a concrete list because you tend to forget the things that are important to yous. Or you'll encounter someone and realize, 'I do not like this quality at all.' It'southward a quick procedure of emptying."
Since revising her love list, Murzello says dating has been more fun. "I've concentrated more on personality traits that are of import and become more stringent on deal-breakers," she says. "I don't want people to waste matter my time and vice versa, and so I've learned to move on quickly."
Which puts the terminal line of her book into practice: "You cannot control what happens to yous, good or bad; you tin can only control your own reactions."
And having a dear list in your dorsum pocket may just help you react more authentically (and snag your perfect mate in the process).
Side by side: How often practice the happiest couples have sex? (It'due south less than you lot think)
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Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/how-use-love-list-find-your-ideal-romantic-partner-ncna847641
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