Let's make a deal.

[constance]

I've been walking this week, trying to get Leory and me back in condition before I end up like Jabba the Hutt, massive and sluglike and stuck chained to a sulky slave girl in a metal bikini top. And I have to say this about my walks: I am so glad I didn't have to move elsewhere to find a job, because while you know how much my house rocks (no, it does, really), what you may not know is that my neighborhood rocks too. It's what you sort of knew neighborhoods were like before urban decay and white flight and anonymous suburbia blighted the land, but don't get to see much nowadays on account of the blight. People are out gardening, and they stop you to chat and to thrust unidentified flower bulbs in your hands, and tell you that the house across the street from you is the oldest house in Macon and used to be a trading post and Jefferson once slept there, and discuss dogs, and ask you if YOU GOT A GODDAMNED PARKING TICKET TOO, and they are on their porches drinking iced tea, and sitting on the stoops of their apartment buildings, and walking and running and playing soccer in the streets.

I am so happy to be here. I wish you were here, too. Everybody should live in a neighborhood like this.

:::

I read a post the other day out in free-range blogland, someone asking her readers to post their relationship dealbreakers. She got hundreds of comments, ranging from the preposterous (a man who once cried "tallyho!" during the crucial moment in bed -- I would kind of like this, though it might tend to set me off into giggles) to the shallow (there are a surprising number of people who would never in a million years date a man with back hair) to the quite sensible (no abusers, if you please). And I've been thinking off and on about my own dealbreakers ever since, but to tell you the truth I don't really have but a couple and they aren't very interesting. I much prefer thinking about the dealmakers, you know, the things I have a knee-jerk attraction to in people. Some of them are these:

• Pale skinny dark-haired possibly-bespectacled big-nosed people (hence my conviction that Adrian Brody and Angelica Huston are two of the sexiest people in the universe). Also in the looks department, I like prematurely grey hair, crows-feet, and long bony hands.



• inherent kindness: the sort that seems to flow naturally and has no ulterior motive



• curiosity/enthusiasm: I don't care so much about a person's IQ -- well, okay, that's not exactly true. My point is, though, that while constantly-peppy cheerleader types get on my nerves a bit, I like questing souls better than static ones, and that's more important to me than measurable intelligence. It delights me more, to see that someone is capable of being delighted.



• expert-level skills: sort of related to the point above. Bonus points if they're able to do something that I cannot. Like particle physics, or walking in stilettos, or phrenology.



• subtle-but-genuine nonconformity: as a subtle but ironclad iconoclast, I love people who aren't in the least interested in conventionality for conventionality's sake. But I also like those people who pick their battles, you know? People equally uninterested in unconventionality for unconventionality's sake. It's a fine line, but it's there.



• bookworminess: It'd be nice but not necessary to overlap in reading material; what I really like, though, is people who understand why exactly it is that I cannot go to bed without having read something during the day, or who are drawn irresistibly to my bookshelves because they must know what's on them.

There are probably more. But my dog is reminding me, quite forcefully, that I have not fed him, and so I go to feed. But I'm wondering. What are some of your dealmakers?

Comments

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

curiosity/enthusiasm: I don't care so much about a person's IQ -- well, okay, that's not exactly true. My point is, though, that while constantly-peppy cheerleader types get on my nerves a bit, I like questing souls better than static ones, and that's more important to me than measurable intelligence. It delights me more, to see that someone is capable of being delighted.

Yes! People who are excited about life and interested in things. People who don't just accept and navigate their way through but who investigate out of pure curiosity. Yes, yes!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

You know one of the things I was thinking of as I wrote this? Hahaha, the post you made about the guy who made a cake substituting Cadbury eggs for real ones. Remember him?

Hypothesis: This is going to be SO AWESOME! (Or words to that effect) I nearly exploded with happiness reading his post.

[aubrem.livejournal.com]

Haha! That guy was great - I remember him. I don't think I made that post though - who was it? It must be someone we both read - Laurel maybe? Now this is going to drive me crazy!

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

It was me! I think I got a couple of comments from people who said they'd like to date a guy like that.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Huh! I could've sworn it was A. Sorry about that! :D

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

I am another fan of this quality. One of the things I appreciate most about Emerson is his ability to find the interest in all sort sof arcane subjects, and also to explain them, sometimes at great length. Last weekend when we were wandering around three states in our rental car, I was starting to feel a bit spaced out behind the wheel, so I asked him to talk to me. He spent the rest of the evening telling me the life of Mohammed, his wives, his children, the wars of his successors.... It was fascinating, and I knew he could have continued for another hour. I adore this about him.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

You are very lucky. But then, he is very lucky too. :)

When I first moved to Macon, I talked on the phone to a friend once a week for several months. She was a hockey nut and did most of the talking, about hockey stats and players and teams, and I lived in the country where cell phone reception wasn't very good, so I would drive into town once a week and sit in a parking lot somewhere. I'd talk sometimes, but mostly I'd listen to her talk about hockey, with real love in her voice.

It was incredibly soothing, and it helped me gain my footing as I was trying to settle myself (and not exactly succeeding) into an unfamiliar life in an unfamiliar part of the country.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I find prematurely grey hair very sexy as well!

I am irresistably attracted to senses of humor, cleverness with words, competence with hands, and above all, anyone who seems interested in me.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I'm attracted to all those things too, but they all have caveats, for me. (The sense of humor has to be one I can appreciate. I'm kind of put off by the showy salesman kind of glibness, or by someone who wields words like a weapon. And I tend to bolt like a skittish carthorse when anyone displays direct interest in me, though like the carthorse, I eventually get winded and slow down and resume dreaming about apples and comfy stables.)

[myweddingornot.livejournal.com]

OOOH OOOOh~ I totally agree with your list, but have to add the ability to laugh at the bad situations in life.

I caught the end of one of those horrible dating shows a couple of years ago, and can't get out of my mind the man who gave the woman a couple of presents during a candlelight picnic and accidentally lit one on fire. His first reaction was to laugh at it.

mmmm....dreamy.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Oh! Yes! Laughing at one's own misfortunes is a big one for me (though laughing at others' is definitely not! :D). I'd have crushed on the burning gift guy, a little, too.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

I love lists of people's dealmakers! You and I so would be competing for the same men! Or maybe not- mine don't have to be pale, so we could probably work out a swarthy=mine, pale=yours sort of deal. :D And your description of "subtle-but-genuine nonconformity" is fabulous.

I've been thinking about this since I read it last night, and it's really interesting to note the stuff on my wishlist list that I got, versus the stuff that I didn't get, and how that feels, 16 years and seven days into it. Mostly I feel grateful that I scored my top two, which are a compatible sense of humor and the natural ability to do stupid, kid-like things like have fiercely competitive hopscotch tournaments or pretend to be a flesh-eating giant worm from the Amazon without going into that "Oh, now I'm going to make an effort to tap into my 'inner child' and have some 'good, childlike fun!" self-conscious scene. I still remember my ultimate dealmaking moment; we were both working at the health food store, and Dennis had just dragged several pallets of watermelons out to the front of the store. I hopped onto the empty pallet jack as he started pulling it back to the storeroom. When we got there, he said, "Time to get off the float, pageant queen!" and I was happily dumbfounded, because that's exactly what I'd been silently playing, and he'd been so busy navigating the narrow aisles that I didn't think he'd even had a chance to note my waving and preening. :)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I remember a conversation with you a while back about fixating on similar physical types -- which kind of rocks! Especially since you are both married and an entire country's width away and therefore cannot steal those tall skinny dark-haired guys away from me (I do prefer pale, but swarthy is perfectly acceptable, and definitely better than blond). Because those guys they are swarmig all over me, and I would hate to give any of them up, you know.

One of the best things about the post I mentioned was the enormous number of people who posted their dealbreakers and then went on to say things like "my husband/wife is at least five of these things, and we've been happily married for 25 years." It's heartening to be reminded that compatibility lists don't figure quite so much when confronted with the reality of spending 50 years with someone you love.

I agree about compatible senses of humor, definitely. And I also find that instinctive childlike quality endlessly seductive. I'm glad you and Dennis got together, pageant queen! :D:D:D

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

Inherent kindness: the sort that seems to flow naturally and has no ulterior motive. This is top of my list. I've only fallen in love once, and the moment I realised it was when I observed him by chance in an act of spontaneous, self-sacrificial kindness towards a stranger. It was a shocker, I can tell you!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, I know. It doesn't matter who it is or where it is, just watching such things happen makes me go all melty inside. :)

How are you feeling???

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

Much better! Managing to work and feeling fairly normal now. Unfortunately I'm working this weekend or I'd ask what you were doing on Sunday.

[aliciamasters.livejournal.com]

My husband and I knew each other for a couple years before our first date; we worked together. On that date, we went back to his apartment after the movie, and the first thing I checked out was his bookshelf. He had a well-worn copy of Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator, and he said, "Every time I look at it, I remember when I found it for the first time. I was so excited to realize that the adventure hadn't ended, but was just beginning. I keep it for that." That was it.

Seventeen years later, we're still happy.