The other day I read an article in a woman’s magazine about the ideal man and I must admit that I was impressed. The man described was a man that even I would like to be. He was honest and trustworthy, people oriented, loved children, generous, compelling and strong.

It was the kind of man that would make a good hero. In fact, minus a few barroom brawls and shooting an occasional bad guy, he existed in the movies. He was the Lone Ranger, the Cisco Kid, The Rifleman and Marshall Dillon. These were the men the article described. They were rugged, tough and distantly attractive. There was no doubt of their character or moral fiber. The stood for all the right things and would fight to correct the things that were wrong.

I thought the article pretty much described even my idea of the ideal man except for one thing—after thinking about it for a while I decided that I wouldn’t want to be that man but I’d want him for a friend, a leader or even as a father. My envy ended there and I believe a lot of women’s wants would be changed if they ever managed to capture this man because they would go to an early grave dying of shear boredom.

This is not an idle thought. It is based of years of simple observation of relationships between men and women including my own. Over the years, I have watched the women and the men the sexes choose and most of them do not fit the mold of ideal romantic partnerships as expressed by the popular media. Most don’t fit the molds, not because they don’t exist, they do, but because as much stability, character and uprightness any man brings to a relationship without a little bit of soul or grit, it is all for naught.

During my relatively brief years on this planet the one thing I have discovered about humankind is our contradiction of spirit and flesh and our willingness to subordinate one for the other in the belief that by avoiding one we can ensure the other, when in reality the opposite is more likely to be true. In the morality based upon Judeo-Christian principles happiness is often a compromise. What is considered ethical and polite in this country is often considered silly and foolish in other cultures. Still, in the area of women’s rights, the United States is considered to be enlightened.

In my opinion, neither men nor women have any true idea of what makes them happy in a relationship. I believe they are influenced by the media, their friends, their religions and even their families, but even with that amount of input, there are too many people who are in unhappy relationships because of the choices they have made.

I have observed that often the happiest relationships are often those where the partners seem to be mismatched according to some public balance that is inscribed somewhere in our unconsciousness. We judge couples and wonder “how could she be with him?” or how could he be with her?” We see men of less than sterling character coupled with women who would be considered perfect mates and vice versa.

I have watched men whom I believed to the be the perfect husband or boyfriend become engrossed with women that I know are no good for them, but they remain together. I have quit question why it happened and accepted that it happens.
On the other hand I have watched the marriages made in heaven dissolve into bitterness, infidelity, hostility and rage even though the couple remains together in a relationship that is dead except no one has buried it yet. It is the perfect man aligned with the perfect woman. Yet, somehow it does not seem to work.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon your view point human beings tend to be contrary in their natures and never seem to follow the prudent path or often find that the most prudent path is path that leads nowhere except to boredom, dissatisfaction and tiredness. After viewing the ways of mate selection, I fully believe there is no ideal man or woman who will make the perfect mate.

Relationships are like plants they must be nurtured constantly in order for them to grow productively. In addition, too much of a good thing is an ultimate ticket to death of the soul. Unfortunately, I feel that these articles designed especially for women are way off base. They are pointing to ideals that are only possible in the movies and fiction.

Relationships are not made by ideal men or women, they are made by men and women who have ideals and are willing to change, work and do what ever is necessary for the relationship to be a success.

I have to agree with the comments you've expressed here..

ideal men as listed in the magazine are ideal because they have been invented and given the qualities that someone has considered to be the necessary requirements for an ideal or perfect partner...

meanwhile back here on earth, we are only human and as such, have human qualities, not being perfect comes with being human...

what we look for in a partner, I think comes down to personal choice...the qualities we look for are those that each individual feels they need, to build a solid, lasting relationship...and no two people will be searching for those exact same qualities...

I think today, too many women and men place too much importance on the outer physical attraction, and are following trends set by, as you stated, their friends, their environment and the media, when choosing their partner...I'm not saying physical attraction is not important, it is, but more important to me, is the attraction or the meeting of the body/mind/soul as a package...for a relationship to last it needs more that a mutual physical enjoyment and appreciaition of each other..and as you also stated, it needs love, care and time invested in it, to keep it alive...like all things in life, it is a learning experience and it comes with no guarantee of success....that part is up to us...

K

yeap!!! she was reading bout me again .........well it cool
hahahahahaha!!!!!!

Boy we are on the same page here! These are creations of the movies and bruised hearts. We think this is what we want, but reality and common sense show us different. It is no crime to want an attractive partner, but it what we choose as attractive that makes the difference. Let's say this now and get it out of the way. No one looks for and physically unattractrive partner. Beauty is natures of way of stimulating the procreation process. However, procreation and lasting relationships are two different things and require different things, with relationships being more complex and demanding. Hell, I'd marry that man they describe in magazines! However, when it comes down to it, we should make selections based on what is good for us and not what is good to us.

Ra

;)

I have to agree yet again...

pick any magazine off a rack and flip through it...they are usually 90% visual stimulation, 10% information, if you're lucky...they are full of "beautiful people"..movie stars, models, etc...people who are very easy on the eye to look at...but what type of person are they underneath all that window dressing?...

oh it's great if you are beautiful on the outside and even greater if you can attract a partner who is all that too...but the majority are not "movie star" quality, so does that make us not beautiful enough... no it does not...the world is full of beautiful people, you just have to look for the one who is beautiful (in every way) to you and if you have luck on your side, you'll find him/her....

beautiful is a woman who will sit up all night and rock a sick child to sleep...it's a man who'll take time to play ball in the backyard with his kids....it's that old couple still holding hands and laughing together after 60 years..it's so many everyday examples...

so many times you see couples who will not look past the physical attraction...and thats great for a while, but then when they are not making love, what do they do?....some of them have no idea how to communicate in any other way...and so, the relationship breaks down...the sad thing is by this time for many, there are children involved...

children of today need to be taught how to be stimulated from the heart and the mind, not by the visual image of beauty they see...they need to hit the history books and learn about some of the true meanings of beauty....

read some poetry from Maya Angelou....or pick up a book and read about the life of Mother Theresa..read a speech by Martin Luther King....the list is endless...


K

Perfection is a goal, not a state. It is goal that is never acheived, but should be pursued with passion. If we set up our lives according the magazines and movies, like you pointed out, our lives will be shallow indeed.

There is no denying a physical attraction but we must go deeper than the surface to find real beauty. Is there are perfect man? I say yes, and that perfect man is the one who is still a work in progress. The same is true for a woman. She is not there, but she is trying to get there.

That is where our perfection lies--in the quest to improve.

Ra

;)

My friends and I debated this just this sunday over dinner, of course the male in this group tried to convince us that the perfect man was an abstraction of our imagination. And if as Amun Ra desicribes, the perfact man is always perfecting himself than Our male friend would be correct.

I think the perfact man can be actualized if one adjust her thinking that if the man fits the need in that moment, then he is the perfect man, than any man can be the perfect man.

But how many of us live truely in that moment. And how many only have one need that needs to be met? I have descided that I must first learn what are my most important needs/wants that I need/want met by a male partner and be thankful for what extra comes with him.

perfect: b: satisfying all requirements

:love:

The Right Now Man is much the same as the Right Now Woman--under thge right circumstances they all are the perfect man and woman, but when it comes to living with a partner, day in and day out, is there a perfect man or woman? Or, is it really a work in progress. For myself, I fall so far short of perfection that just getting to "okay" is an everyday quest for me, but I try. I don't believe they exist and are always a work in progress.

On the other hand, sometimes close is good enough, if we are willing to accept short-comings--our own as well as theirs. Sometimes we find the perfection we seek only to find that our own imperfection hinders the relationship. Either way, when it comes to relationships, I certainly believe it is a perfecting process and getting there is what makes the relationship grow and strengthens it.

Ra

:heart:

Kemetstry

I don't know if I'd bored by the perfect man..but I wonder if I know what the perfect man needs to have to be perfect according to me...as we grow we change so what may be perfect when we are say, 20 years old, may not be what we consider perfect at 30, 40 , 50....and I think if we as women expect a man to be perfect, then don't we owe it to the man to be his idea of the perfect woman?

K

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said perfection is a goal not a state...

K

It's an ever moving target--it changes as we change--what I wanted in my teens I certainly want no part of now, atleast not all of it. My idea of perfection seems less stringent than my early years as I have learned to look inside at others and myself--when you say it changes with age, I think that is an understatement--it literally is unrecognizable as we age--I have some physical ideals, but they are fantasy and I know it--I have mental ideals and they are the same and I know that also--when we both know it--we are on the path to perfection--whether we make it or not depends on how closely we will look at ourselves before we look at someone else--Ra

:)

I have to agree....

and in reality, for me anyway, an ideal man, such as the one in the movies or the magazine, with all honesty, would drive me completely nuts!

there would be no challenge, no discussions, no ups and downs, just plain sailing, living perfectly...and I don't think that would be for me....life would be just "too" perfect...

K

It is human nature to want and expect more. There is no getting around that unless we are completely selfless in which casw we would be dead because we would have no survival instinct--we either adapt or we die and we are adapting constantly--Ra

:)

Does the perfect wo/man exist?

...Well I could say no, because no matter how wonderful someone is there is always going to be something about that person that gets on your nerves. So if we are going to define perfect as objectively flawless, no, that person does not exist.

However, I would say perfection is a subjective thing. What I find attractive you may find annoying or even ugly and vice versa. I believe there are people out there who are perfectly suited for one another, not because they are both perfect individuals, but because they just seem to fit perfectly together, and if those same two people were with different partners it wouldn't work. I agree whole-heartedly that perfection is a journey and not a destination. I don't expect more from a man than what I can bring to the table. I'm still growing and learning and and the right man for me will have to be doing the same. It's like Lauryn Hill said, "Anything that's not growing is dead." A good relationship is when two people are able to continue growing in the same direction.

Discussions like this remind me of something a classmate's grandfather said when I was in college. He was saying that he enjoys talking with young people and he often talks to the young men and women in his church. He said they were talking about relationships and one young woman started making that old familiar complaint that we've all heard way too many times that there weren't any "good men" around. He said he didn't argue with her; he just told her okay, but when that good man shows up, what makes you so sure he's getting a good woman?

A lot of times we have this long list of attributes we expect our mates to have and we can't even live up to our own standards. When you meet that wo/man who has everything on your checklist will you have everything on their checklist? I read books and they say you should envision what you want in a mate, write it down, pray on it and be exact, etc. I can't be bothered with all that. Instead I write down the qualities that I admire in a person and then take a self-inventory and see how I am doing. When we fall into the trap of saying things like all men are dogs or all women are gold diggers we invite those negative experiences into our lives. When I was falling into a rut where I seemed to constantly attract the same type of men and go through similar drama in each relationship I had to do some self-examination. I can be honest and say that I found it difficult not to just label all men in one way and just say F it. It was a hard thing to do but I had to get a little distance from the situation and say okay what beliefs do I have and what behavior do I exhibit that keeps putting me in this situation and how can I work on changing these things about myself. It was much easier to just place the blame on the men in my life for the things they did and ignore my own culpability. It's easy to play the victim, but it's not always easy to recognize the ways we contribute to our own victimization.

You nailed that one. We always tend forget what we bring to the equation. We are imperfect people lookingfor perfection in someone else. Hardly seems fair. I agree with you. Life is a growing experience and it should be so until the moment we die. If we are not learning and trying to becomebetter then we are just exisiting--not living.

I sure know that I ain't "a bag of chips and all of that". I can name my faults off so well that it makes me tired to know myself so well. It wasn't always like this, but as I grew and learned the first thing I discovered is how little I knew and how little time I had to know it.

Still, we need to to at least start on solid ground by picking some one of solid character male or female. After that, it's up to us.

Ra

;)

You covered in a single post, everything I had been thinking while reading over the other posts. I particularly agree with your statements:

"I believe there are people out there who are perfectly suited for one another, not because they are both perfect individuals, but because they just seem to fit perfectly together, and if those same two people were with different partners it wouldn't work...A good relationship is when two people are able to continue growing in the same direction."

I have nothing to add. It was a pleasure reading your apt points. Welcome aboard.

Nia Maishani

likewise !!!

I found it intersting that thIS link came up when i keyed in "the perfect black man" (although it can be applied to ALL me)n. I constantly say that I am not "looking." Well I have to rephrase that statement and say that I am not eernestly looking."

Reading this made me think of my (almost) impossible expectations of the men I have been involved with. Not expectations of monetary things and the comfot that it could buy. Becasue I was more than comfortable "struggling" to "make it" to a status suitable to us both. I did not mind working two and three jobs in my second marriage (the only one that counted really) becasue my husband chose to make the military his career. And after our "departure from one another's "every day lives" (for we still remain freinds to this day) my expectations were the same for the few "deep" relationshisp I becme involved in.

I too have come to the conclusions that, 1.st there is not perfect man, and 2nmd if there were such ennigma, we would, truthfully, bery happy wioth one another.

When Amun Ra states in ( i have taken the liberty to number the paragraphs)

§3 thought the article pretty much described even my idea of the ideal man except for one thing—after thinking about it for a while I decided that I wouldn’t want to be that man but I’d want him for a friend, a leader or even as a father. My envy ended there and I believe a lot of women’s wants would be changed if they ever managed to capture this man because they would go to an early grave dying of shear boredom.

I think she meant to say that she would NOT want that man as her man but rather as a freind. Oh sure , those atributes desribed in paragraph 1 and 2 arer ok "if you got it like that." But in all honestly, as she states.. I would die of boredom.

I dont want a man who does no need to grow. And the PERFECT MAN" perfect man leaves no room for that.

I found it intersting that link came up when i keyed in
GOOGLE DOT COM "the perfect black man" (although it can be applied to ALL men)


I HAVE ALSO SHARED IT WITH THE MY SISTERS FROM

http://groups.msn.com/BPSOTHER50GROUP/
sistah chat

(i first want to give you >> Amun-Ra (Reason and Rationality) acknowledgement for bringing this thread to focus. For I am constantly and growin weary hearing this from our sistahs about :

1.Finding their perfect man - and of all places here in the net NOT THAT YOU CANT'

2. Looking for the pefect man and complaining about not finding him (here in the net)


MY FAVORITE THING TO REMEMBER IS?>>>>
IF OU BUILD IT .. THEY WILL COME.

self...love thy self!

told ya i could not type .. ha ha
I meant that

I WOULD NO BE HAPPY WITH THE PERFECT MAN>
WHERE IS THE CORNER

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

forgive me I am new.. but bear with me.. got the gift of gab.. and yep just like Ms Dupree I gottau se it >>>


Kim (Super Moderator) says>>>> I think it shows how pathetic some are that they would be bored by the ideal man. I know if the ideal woman came up and saidI would love to be with you. Believe me, I would not be bored one bit. I would in fact, rejoice!
_______

and you will be living in denial Brother
.. Sorry I had to say it.

As a woman. We are NOT ideal. We are WHO WE ARE and.. CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD EXCEPT BY OUR PERMISSION. (nikki G )
That would be a pedastal type thang.

Think. If the wonmen in your lives .. were perfect.. what would this represent. NOT KNOWING YOU, and just talkin ga guess..

AS A BROTHER YOU WILL. WITHOUT A DOUBT GO THRU CHANGES WITH...........OH WELL.. JUST THE **** O FTHE **** WORLD
(no Offense)
Imangine.. A perfect woman (when ya need someones to haveya back)
1. Wold not mess up her dang close knuckin with the man tryin to steal ya ridfe
2. A PERFECT WOMAN. WOnt wanna get freakyt cause she may mess up her haior
3. A perfect woman. when it come time to defen you her peoiople and her family.. will not let SPIT come out her mouth IN FRAUSYTRATION ADN DAMNATION ON THE VERY PEOPLE WHO HOLDIN "HER " famiLY BACK.

A perfect woman.. BROTHER KEM wpould no be capable o fchangin with the many facets of our people/.


a perfect mate??
i think not
I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO HAVE MY DSAMN BACKL.. HE AINT GOTT ABE PERFECT ABOUT NOHING..

thank yall



I am new.. but bear with me.. got the gift of gab.. and yep just like Ms Dupree I gott ause it >>>

Hopefully we are all still striving to get there . . it is the quest for perfection that shows the way; unfortunately, it is a race that never ends and for those who see the race as over, let us hope that we never have them sit in judgement of any for none will liev up to their expectations--Ra

:)