Tell Me Something I Don't Know

"When you're dating, what should you look for? Middos! Watch how he talks to the waiter, for instance . . ." 

I've heard more than one shiur about what to look for when dating, and what I find rather adorable is the assumption that, apparently, all the ill-mannered men are single. Or that all the ill-mannered women are single. Or that what is really important to every single single is proper comportment. 

One of my frustrations, as a single, is that all singles are considered the same. To the rest of the world, we are all the same sort of person, and we are all looking for the same sort of person. 

I like to think of myself as a specific individual who, yes, is looking for a nice guy, amongst other things. But I was always looking for a nice guy; I don't need a speaker to tell me what to look for. Chances are if "middos" wasn't the first on a person's list, being told by a random lecturer that that should be a factor won't change the listener's dating strategy all that much. 

Do these speakers think nice people are so ubiquitous? I have panic attacks because when I am finally introduced to an actual nice guy (a phenomenon that occurs perhaps once every 18 months) I feel as though I am supposed to marry him, even though there isn't a shred of any other shared similarity. 

So speakers tell me the obvious, repeatedly: Look for a nice guy, refusing to acknowledge that not all single people are identical. Again, if we were, would we be single? We would have paired off with a fellow drone from the mothership eons ago.

Some people are looking for looks. Some people are looking for money. Some people want someone to take care of, some people want someone to take care of them. Some people want cool, some people want nerdy. Some people are looking for a fellow jerk. Hey, it's a big world out there, and I've dated just a fraction of it. If everything is bashert, than there is someone out there for all the Star Wars villains too.