My sister (18f) and I (23f) had a discussion about our standards when it comes to relationships. She said mine are too high, but I personally disagree, so here I am. I’d like to know your opinions, and if you need any clarification, feel free to ask a question.
I’ll try to make this as clear as possible.
Here’s the list:
-Someone in my age range (21–26 y.o.)
-Working towards being economically independent. Depending on their age and academic background, they don’t need to have a full-time job yet.
-Mature, empathetic, emotionally intelligent, and a good communicator (we can work on some of these things together).
-Sharing the same political values
-Not religious.
-At least one hobby in common (obv this is more of a preference than a requirement).
-No drugs or excessive alcohol use (I’d prefer if they didn’t smoke, but it’s not a deal-breaker).
-Curious and active (I like traveling, trying traditional food, visiting museums, going on nature hikes, and experiencing new things, and I’d like my partner to share that with me).
-Bonus: I don’t like “desperate” lustful men, the kind of man who follow hundreds of Instagram or OF models and constantly like and comment on their posts.
I think that covers the basics. Physical appearance is a bit tricky. Of course, there are some traits I find particularly attractive, but I don’t really have a strict “type.” If I really like someone’s personality, I become extremely attracted to them. As long as they have a healthy body, are well-groomed, and know how to dress, that’s enough for me. I don’t like people who look sloppy lol.
My sister thinks my standards are too high in general but especially because I want someone who's emotional intelligent and with similar political beliefs. But I’m sorry, I don’t want a man who doesn't like me calling myself a feminism or who thinks being gay is “unnatural.” I’m not compromising on that. And if that means I’ll be single forever, so be it.
PS: Everything I’m looking for in a partner are things I either already achieved/embody myself or am actively working towards. That’s why I feel comfortable expecting the same from someone else.
30 comments
Everything you want is completely reasonable and possible. You are definitely better off being content with yourself than being with someone who brings negativity to your life.
I’d say, your sister is lacking standards and might be afraid of being alone.
I’m content by myself and simply have no use for anyone who treats me worse than I would treat them.
I think ur standards are well defined and very normal. You live once so why settle for less than what you want? It will make you make miserable and resentful thinking what if you can get better and so on. That said, I was like you and have high standards, my advice is be lax on 1-2 things as long as they are close to fitting the standard you want but not quite. Ex: I’m dating an older girl than my original standards would like, but she’s amazing so it’s something I can compromise on and doesn’t bother me anymore after getting to know her. So keep them up but often give chances to others who aren’t too far! You’ll probably get some advice from annoyed people to drop them cuz they are too high and so on but those are the same people divorcing and living myserable just for the sake of having someone by their side. It’s better to be alone than in bad company
It’s not a high standard. If a man is just trying to convince you otherwise, they are just saying it to make you settle because they can’t give that to you.
You are asking for some pretty basic things it’s just that modern dating culture is kinda a mess right now that such demands seem not basic anymore. However, I will say that there are many out there looking for the same things you are so don’t settle.
Your standards don’t look too out there in theory, but in practice it can be different. You can find a guy who’s mature, empathetic and all but then he’s not curious and active enough.
It also depends on what you mean by healthy body. Does he need to have a 6 pack? or is not being fat ok?
Your standards are bare minimum imo. The only one that’s beyond that is the hobbies, since depending on your hobbies it may be difficult.
I’d say the most unrealistic of your standards is the age preference. Wanting to date exclusively older men when you’re just starting college (or at that age) seems like a reach when you’ve presumably not even begun your adult life yet. Definitely not unheard of or impossible, but if you’re expecting your partner to be more mature and possibly have a solid footing in life already, why wouldn’t they expect the same? Everything else seems very reasonable and preference-based
These standards are actually perfectly reasonable, grounded. If you look in the right places, I think it’s very easy to find men who fit those requirements. Especially given that as you said, looks aren’t a decisive factor.
I think it would be unreasonable if you started including some other requirements that are more shallow, and common nowadays. Such as making x amount of money, having a car, being x amount of tall, having a phenomenal gym body, etc…
If anything, if those really are all the standards you’re setting, then I see it as a big green flag for you. You’re looking for exactly the right things
Exactly my standards and I’m a guy. Keep at it. Agree that you may not find someone to share hobbies as long as you can both appreciate it or maybe learn to participate in each other’s hobbies.
The only one I don’t get is Age. You say you’re 18 and want someone in a similar age (which you kind of do) but then only want people of drinking age? Most fresh 21s are going to be going to bars and shit and those in their mid 20s probably don’t want someone under 21 either.
Having standards aren’t actually the issue, it’s being able to assess people to those standards that take time and effort. For example, you can’t just assess whether someone is “emotionally intelligent” in one or two meetings. So how do you keep a person who fits your standards interested and motivated? That’s the hard part. So often times we find ourselves dropping standards due to fomo.
Added note: you say you’re 18, but you want to date older men (21-26). How is that in your age group?
Your standards are fairly basic when looking for a long term relationship. Finding a long term good match is hard and can take a long time.
Question is do you want quantity or quality?
If you only care about having a higher quantity of men to date, yes your standards will rule out options.
If you’re dating for a happy marriage, Take your time, get it right. It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make. Learn to be stay ok staying single until you find the right person. Many people settle out of fear, loneliness and dating fatigue. They usually regret giving up and divorce in 7 years.
I think your standards are perfectly reasonable.
It will mean that you cut out a significant portion of the guys that will try to chat you up but that’s what standards are for.
I don’t know how mature your sister is but ignoring important factors like political alignment (which these days actually means your moral compass and value system) and whether they are emotionally intelligent is like signing up for trouble.
Your sister can date whenever she wants and deal with the negative consequences of not paying attention to the important things you’ve decided are your own standards.
I’d say the hobby and travel stuff may be less important in the longterm but you may find that you and the person you are with find ways to share your time that you hadn’t known you’d be into before meeting them.
Very reasonable. Not high at all. It sounds like your sister is immature and seeing as she’s 18, it makes sense why’d she’s immature.
No way are they too high, those are like the basic standards. Any guy outside of those is just some selfish bastard or loser who won’t know how to cherish or love his woman like she deserves, and you can forget trying to find a good husband without any higher standards than that
26M here, I think your standards are entirely reasonable. If you settle for less, you maybe haunted by a sense of regret. You’re also super young. So to have that kinda mindset is a blessing. As this will greatly matter on the type of people you date. I would suggest being really good friends with someone you end up dating. People will obviously lie about political values just to sleep with you (loser behavior). So if you really know someone, all the risk gets eliminated in a big relief kinda way. I know women who would put up with all kinda BS just because they’re emotionally and financially invested with someone who just wanted to sleep with them and now are trapped in a miserable cycle. I feel sad for them. But, good luck out there!
Not high at all. You’re just looking for a normal person!
At first I thought “oh boy, here we go a list”, but I concur with the others it’s reasonable. I would add though, realistically speaking, you will more likely find your guy who fits the bill when they’re older. Men just tend to mature in that manner, they grow up, lose their rough edges, etc. as every year passes.
And to add to the realism: men are humans too, they will sometimes drop a shoe.
lol, your list of standards are incredibly simple/basic. It sounds like what you’d expect out of most regular adults.
You didn’t even list any things about physical features. What type of guys is your sister dating?
I think this list is perfectly reasonable (and it matches everything I look for in a potential boyfriend as well). You should never have to apologize for wanting any of these things – especially if you embody these traits yourself.
I think that the problem might be in these feeling like a checklist. Either yes or no, you do leave some leeway that’s true, but it feels as if thats on text only, not what you do in real life. The note at the end about feminism and gays etc. Is weird and seems thrown on top of everything else you said without much corelation, is it based on past experience that you have issues with this? A person might be against an ideology but not necessarily hateful towards other people, but rather kind despite his mindset. I think that’s one kind of emotional maturity out there that may not be obvious?
Edit: as far as I know when you like a person you just do, even if lifestyles don’t match. I heard of many healthy and stable relationships where the partners are very different but experience those together and appreciate that the other person has their position in life yet they spend time and effort on you out of love.
As an average guy, i can say your standards, at least for emotional, hobbies and academic/job are all reasonable and pretty common. Tbh guys with 1 or two of those traits usually have most or all of the other traits. Now, appearance standards may be holding you back/ the men you are looking for may be timid to approach in public. Like i know for me, i have a lot of those traits, and especially with the emotional intelligence, i would not approach a woman in public just because i know if i were a woman i would be weirded out.
Depends on the practical application. Everybody says they want a good communicator, but that means something different for everyone. I know some people who consider good communication to require something bordering on mind reading. I have a friend who considers every guy as she dates to be a bad communicator, which in practice means that the men disagree with her on some issues and give pushback.
I think they are pretty basic requirements,,,,
Crazy how you just described me aha
Jk
At first I thought this was gonna be one of those Austin interviews with girls I see on yt about their standards and it’s like: 6’5, 25-27yo, makes 300k a year and it’s like 0.02% of the men in the US.
But after reading, I think you standards are good. Lowering them would lead to your dissatisfaction and frustration most likely.
I face the same situation sometimes, I think to myself that my standards might be too high, but really, I’d rather just not be with someone who can’t meet my standards which, like yours, I look upon as basic and as of someone who respect themselves. And when such a person comes along, you’ll know it.
Keep your head up, queen, don’t want that crown to fall.
Actually I would say the part your sister is calling out about having similar political beliefs, or more specifically core values is the MOST important thing.
It’s important to make the distinction between the two though. Political beliefs can be fluid based on convincing arguments. But to convince someone to change their political beliefs you need to convince them by leveraging their core values. And this is critically important, because if you and your significant other have the same core values, then any argument you have is about what path to use to get to the same goal.
If you have incompatible core values, then not only will you have arguments about how to reach a given goal, but your arguments will be about reaching entirely different goals, which often won’t be possible to win, because to win you would need to convince your partner that a fundamental part of their beliefs is wrong.
The former is an argument that can come up all the time in a healthy relationship and actually make the relationship stronger if you both show good conflict management skills.
The latter will very often result in a deal breaker that ends the relationship.
So yes I think paying attention to core values is extremely important. Someone’s political beliefs are a good first estimate for their core values, but it is often good to go explore deeper before writing someone off on political beliefs alone, as WHY they have a particular political belief is important to figuring out their actual core values.
Searching for people with compatible core values however DOES shrink your dating pool, which some people would consider bad, but I do believe that it will result in much better quality relationships.
Your standards are definitely not too high, I’m an emotionally intelligent man and want a woman who is also the same as me and has at least 1 hobby the same as me.
You’ve basically just described my standards as well so I don’t think they’re too high.
i believe you don’t have any standards at 18 that’s why she called yours high
Just gonna go against the grain here and point some stuff out that could be too much, depending on some specifics.
– Is the age a dealbreaker? For example, if you met a man that met all those standards but he was 20 or 27yo (or even 19 or 28), would that be a dealbreaker? The age gap wouldn’t be that big and it will matter less as you age, so just take that into consideration.
– Is religion a deal breaker? I’m not religious, but as long as a woman has the same values as me it doesn’t matter if she is religious or not. If you met a guy that met all you other standards and had the same values as you *but he was religious*, would that be a deal breaker?
– What is “excessive” alcohol use? Off course no one wants to date an alcoholic, but “excessive” is very subjective. So it’s hard to say if this is reasonable or not.
– Please don’t take too much offence with what I’m about to say, but between the “travel” and “economically independent” points, you do come across as a bit privileged. The economy is in the crapper. A person could be doing everything right and still struggle financially at 35 and not really have the opportunity to travel, much less if they are in their early 20s.
That’s pretty much all I can think of. Ironically, the one that you said “we can work on some of these” is the one that I think should be a deal breaker. At least mature and empathetic, IMO; but lack of good communication will just bring headaches and potentially heart aches as well.
I have a partner who fits all of these except drug use. He is a smoker, but that’s not an issue for me at all. I found him at 28. It’s totally possible and I don’t think these are unreasonable at all. I didn’t have my standards so figured out at that age, and could’ve avoided wasting a lot of time with the wrong people.
Everything you want is great the issue is so many men in that generation have been deprogrammed for growth and are more than ever mostly consumer targets being targeted young to be addicted to certain cultures and defer their aspirations, experiences with girls, and maturity for later in life because they feel a certain confidence that it will work out. This coupled with a bad market and pay for that age range it becomes really tough