The 'future spouse' list

A while back my best friend encouraged me to make a ‘future spouse’ list. You know the kind where you list all the qualities that you look for in a partner. Yeah, that list. Everyone needs to have some idea of what they are looking for and making this list, she explained, is like ‘praying with fine print’.

I don’t believe that this list will magically manifest itself if I burn it, put it under my pillow for a week or send it off into the internet… I don’t believe you can ‘order a soul mate from the universe’.

I also don’t believe that God will cater to all of my wants. I know that He will provide me with what I need.  This list isn't so much as a checklist or a rigid document to guide my future, as it is a reminder of what I learned about myself and about relationships.

I found the notes of Marilyn Graman, author of There is NO PRINCE and Other Truths Your Mother Never Told You quite useful and decided to shape my own list according to her mini-lists. It’s a great way to distinguish between what really matters and allows you to get clear about what you want in a partner.

Here goes:

Some Ex-perience

I have written this post about five times. I deleted it about 5 times.

I have been making amends this past year. It has been an arduous and testing experience of clearing the baggage of my past and learning to be honest with myself and with others. It has also been one of the most liberating and rewarding experiences of my life that has helped put me in a position to be of maximum use to the people around me.

This week, I had to make an amend to my ex.

Stalking is only one letter away from talking...

I am a self-confessed Facebook stalker.

Being single, I find this one of the greatest forms of easy entertainment on those lonely nights. Who doesn’t find themselves mindlessly clicking away from time to time? I don’t necessarily mean spying, just checking up on your friends from time to time out of curiosity.

I prefer to think of this activity as "research" or as I like to call it Facestalking. I find it pretty amazing that the ability to access information can lead us to find people in way that we never had before. We can find so much information on a person by simply typing a name into Google and hitting the search button. We have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.

Researchers at the University of Missouri School of Journalism have proved that online stalking, scientifically speaking, feels good. By monitoring students while they navigated Facebook and measuring physiological responses associated with motivation and emotion, the researchers found that the students derived the most pleasure from activities described as "social searching" or what they call "goal-oriented surveillance" (how cool is that!) that involved visiting another friend's profile page, reading their Wall posts, perusing their photos, checking out the events they'd recently attended.

So, why am I telling you all this? 

My date with Number 5

My dating life has turned into a slow churn, understandable for the amount of work I have been swamped with. I have been throwing myself into many different projects and I have been relatively nonchalant about the need to find my Prince Charming at this moment.

My dating service has not been too preoccupied and notified me that I would be receiving a call from Number 5 last week. Our conversation over the phone was nothing to write home about but we decided to meet on Tuesday as I was in Cape Town the weekend. Busy as always.

Here is what I knew beforehand: He is a 32 year old who lives in Johannesburg. He owns his own IT company. He loves reading, being outdoors, Latin and ballroom dancing and he was described as being an ‘energetic and outgoing personality, a real gem’. He is English. Never been married. No kids. (Yeah! No kids!)