I took a Kaplan class a couple of years ago to study for the GRE and one of the main strategies I learned was that you had to eliminate all the wrong answers in order to find the right one. You can’t expect the right answer to just pop out at you until you weed out all the crap.

So that lead me to think about dating.

I’m not the kind of person that immediately knows what I want. I mean, I can’t even decide on a design for this blog. ( By the way, would you all still love me if I made the background light pink?) But with each guy I date, I have a better idea of what kind of person it is I’m looking for by knowing what is it I don’t want.

1. First and foremost I cannot be with someone who is an unadventurous eater. A person who is unadventurous with food is ultimately unadventurous in bed…er…I mean life.

2. I can’t date someone who is cheap. I don’t have a problem with paying for meals and treating my date but I have issues with guys who don’t take you out once in a while. And only doing that on birthdays and valentines doesn’t count! I’m spoiled because my ex was very generous in that department. But now I know I don’t do cheap.

3. Frat boys. Or guys who look like frat boys. I’m sure they are perfectly nice but I can’t date a man who thinks it is perfectly normal to wear a giant foam hand to sporting events. That is not okay.

4. Anger management issues. It is not okay to curse or yell at a girl. Ever. I don’t curse at you so why should you talk to me like you’re a missing cast member of a Scorcese movie?

5. No sense of humor. I think that one speaks for itself.

6. Doesn’t own a passport. Again, I correlate wanderlust with a lust for life.

7. A person who doesn’t like dancing. Woe to the man who dates me and doesn’t like dancing. How can you not like to dance? What if I played you Sexy Back?

8. A man who doesn’t find pleasure in watching me eat.

This is a small list so far but the most important thing I learned is that the person you want to grow old with is the person who reminds you how to stay young.