I’m a 25, almost 26F. I knew I wasn’t the most easygoing when it came to dating, but recently I’ve started to realize after a conversation with a friend who was brutally honest my standards are way too high, but I don’t know how or if I should lower them. I’m 5’9”, so I would prefer a man taller than that, preferably over 6 feet. I work in a very lucrative field and actually have 2 jobs, so I’d prefer a man make equal to or more money than me, slightly less is fine if it’s a potentially lucrative field or situationally dependent temporary brokeness (getting a master’s or PhD in a good field, for example, but still being financially literate.) I would also like him to largely agree with me politically, have the same (non)religious beliefs, be reasonably fit and in shape (I am, too- need a gym buddy) and of course, be attractive to me physically (that includes having hair.) I’d like him to encourage my hobbies and not get jealous when I’m out with friends and be a worldly, well traveled individual. I’m also childfree so not having any children or wanting them is important too. This is where it gets tricky- I’d also prefer that he not be addicted to adult movies, gambling/sports betting, video games, alcohol, or any sort of drugs. Additionally, I’d like him to be open to the idea of waiting at least a year to be intimate, and potentially sleeping in separate beds/rooms or houses. My friend told me I’m not looking for a man, I’m looking for a mannequin or a fantasy world and I lost it. Are my expectations really that unrealistic?


33 comments

  3. Far less than 1% of men would meet all of those qualifications. There’s nothing wrong with having high standards, as long as you understand you’ll probably be looking for years.

  4. I think political beliefs and family plans are the two items you should be set on, everything else needs flexibility

  5. Remove the “must be rich” part and the “no sex for a year” part and your standards are fine.

    You’d be more likely to win the lottery than find a man who was all of that AND totally fine with not having sex for a year. Unless he’s extremely religious, that’s just not based in reality. One exception would be finding an asexual man, so there is still a chance, but come to terms that you may never find this person. And if you do, they very well might not want you back. My guy is all of these things on your list, but I make a lot of money, so like 3x as much as him. You need to decide which things are actually important and which things you can let slide.

  6. > Additionally, I’d like him to be open to the idea of waiting at least a year to be intimate, and potentially sleeping in separate beds/rooms or houses.

    Everything sounded reasonable until I got to this part

  7. As an exercise in realism, you should take some time to work out how many men in your age group would actually meet all those requirements. I doubt there’s a way to find percentage of men who would be willing to wait a year for sex but just knowing how people are, I’d suggest simply estimating it at less than 1% of the ones who meet all the rest of your requirements. You’re asking for what the manosphere guys would consider the top 1% and the manosphere guys are actually right about those guys having plenty of options.

    That doesn’t mean it’s not possible. I found one who is all those things besides childfree and we’re perfect for each other. Though it was more like a few months before sex (for other reasons, not because either of us specifically demanded to wait). But you better be on your A game in basically all areas. Your looks, your personality, your social skills, etc and you will still have to also have the luck to encounter and be compatible with the guy.

    I would also suggest that you aren’t quite on that A game yet or else you would already have these guys as dating options and wouldn’t need the harsh reality check from your friend.

    So get to work on being the best version of yourself possible, put yourself out there as much as you can, and be prepared for it to take a long time or perhaps never happen.

    Or find a way to be a bit more relaxed. Ultimately it’s your choice. If it’s more important to you to find exactly the guy you described then you shouldn’t compromise your standards. If it’s more important to you to find *someone* as long as they’re a reasonablely good fit for you, then be more open minded.

  8. Your expectations are so unrealistic that if you actually found some man to go along with this, I guarantee they would be having a different relationship with you than you would think you’re having with them.

    Also, you have more rules than a strict religion. It leads me to believe you have no idea how anything is supposed to work at all at a base human to human level. I recommend that you seek the help of a professional and talk through your feelings of control. Best of luck.

  9. Everything sounded pretty reasonable until you said waiting a year to be intimate. I would image A guy of that status would just get bored and go sleep with anyone else since he’d be a rich model

  10. Most the last ones are difficult depending on your meaning. Are they still allowed to gamble and watch p*rn sometimes, or never? But the not being intimate for a year, that’s gonna kill you. Almost no man will agree to that except for very religious ones and even not then

  12. In my opinion, you can hold any standard that you meet yourself. If you are educated and make good money, I think it’s fine to also want that in a partner. If you’re in good shape, you can also want that. If you have no addictions, you can also want that. And so forth.

    I think a man who is financially responsible and has no addictions should be the norm lol. As someone who has dated a genuine video game addict (spent his entire inheritance on loot boxes for various games), and also a gambling/porn addict, these were miserable relationships that jeopardized my own future.

    Narrowing so specifically to height will be difficult, as the average man isn’t over 6ft. I say this as a 5’2 woman who has dated men as short as 5’4 and as tall as 6’4. Both of those guys were outliers, the average height I’ve dated is around 5’8.

    You start getting *very* specific over the waiting for intimacy aspect. A year is very specific, and might be too limiting. Why a year? Can you ensure other boundaries that still make you feel safe? I set the boundary that we need to be in an exclusive relationship **and** both get tested for STDs. All of my exes never had an issue with this, especially because it benefitted both our sexual health.

    I would decide what is a non-negotiable and what you can compromise on. If he has a stable career and also wants to wait for intimacy but is bald, that seems like you might lose out on a great partner. Same if he has zero addictions and wants to move slowly with intimacy but is your same height.

  13. You aren’t completely lost, but you’re confusing high ideals with standards. Go out in the world and meet people and see what encourages you to be a better person and you can tolerate. There’s a lot of beauty in imperfection, it would be hard to fall in love with people without any flaws.

  14. Don’t think there is anything wrong with having high standard, you like what you like as long as you accept you may not find it . 

    But yeah the chances of finding a man who possesses all of this is gonna be hard. First finding someone with all of these qualities woudnt be easy, and then add on the fact that once you find them they actually have to want to be with you. You are describing a man that would likely have alot of options too, so the no sex thing for a while might impact that as well.  

    I think you should ask yourself why certain things on your list are mandatory and not simply preferences, like what if they are same height  as you or 5’10 instead of 6 foot, or they don’t go to the gym but are not overweight? 

    But like i said, you know what you want, no harm in chasing it as long as you also learn how to be comfortable single for a while or potentially for life 

  17. It sounds like you just want to find a male version of yourself.

    You have to understand that people have differences, even in perfect relationships. Someone is going to tick some of your boxes, but practically no one is going to tick all of them.

    Agreeing politically and religiously, being on the same page with not wanting kids, and obviously at least finding him attractive, sound like the deal breakers, and the rest are “nice to haves”.

    The no sex for a year and living separately is completely wild too.

  18. When I first started reading, I thought it was all pretty reasonable but after reading your entire list, I agree with your friend.

    I think there are some non-compromising variables. I think wanting someone who is financially literate, has a decent job, no drugs/alcohol in moderation are all reasonable. Some of the others you could be more flexible on because chances are you won’t find someone with that entire criteria, but you might find someone that vibes well with you but doesn’t check off everything you thought you need. Sometimes having a partner with different perspectives can grow us as a person.

  19. Why would the person you describe, being non-religious and otherwise a 10/10 amazing catch, be okay with waiting a *year* to be intimate, and live in separate rooms (a very odd desire for how you otherwise describe yourself)? Along with not having any vices at all? Your friend is right, you want a fantasy.

    Who do you think would check all those boxes in terms of their own physical and mental traits as well as their desires of the relationship matching yours?

    The only type of person it seems like would fit would be someone asexual or with very non-traditional goals with intimacy. Is that okay with you? But also super odd that you specifically call out them not being jealous while you are out being “worldly” but expect them to wait ages to be intimate. Sounds like a kink.

    This is so unrealistic it makes you seem like a troll honestly.

  20. No offense as I’m sure you’re great, but what would make a man with those qualifications want to wait a year to have sex when there are plenty of high quality women that don’t need the extended hiatus from intimacy? The rest of it just seems like a high standards which is fine when looking for a long term relationship, but that’s some real uniform hunting you’ve set for yourself

  21. Lol “here’s where it gets tricky” yup 😂 if you stopped sooner it wouldn’t have been impossible , but if you’re expecting one person to check every single box the odds are slim to none.

  22. If you are building a life with someone, you definitely want someone with similar goals and lifestyle. I think it’s good to have an idea or a list of things you think you want, but you gotta be flexible with them. Life can change things so quickly. Your potential partner may not have everything on your list right now, but are they goal-oriented? Are they willing to work together with you? Could you build the life you want together?

    I dated someone who was everything on my list and was still unhappy. Stayed with them for 4 years because “he’s everything on my list”. Later, met my now husband who was some of the things I wanted at the time, but I enjoyed his personality and we had fun together. We worked together to build it into this amazing thing. Been married for 13 years, together for 15. Life has changed so much during that time and neither of us are what we were in the beginning.

    Don’t get too stuck on superficial things that can change. Focus on what you like about those aspects that you listed. Why do you like a tall guy? Is it because you want to feel protected? Could a shorter guy still give you that feeling? Why do you want a guy that makes around the same salary as you? Are you worried about being taken for granted? So what you are really looking for is someone you can trust financially and be fiscally responsible? Could that come with time and guidance? As long as someone is willing to learn and grow, you can get what you want as long as you are willing to grow and be flexible as well.

  24. It sounds like you want to date yourself in male form. 😂 And not ever sleep with them.

  27. I say this with respect and consideration of your preferences: height doesn’t matter nearly as much as you’ve been lead to believe.

    Seeking a man who’s specifically over 6 feet tall is going to really limit who you consider an option for dating. Men around your height (or shorter) aren’t any less of an option.They could even be someone right for you, especially if they meet your other standards related to no addictions, and making a decent amount of money.

    Lastly, you might want to ease up on the video games thing. Plenty of men (and women) enjoy them for various reasons, and they are a legitimate form of entertainment. Just my $0.02.

  28. My longest, happiest relationship was with a 5 ft 7 man who made less than half what I did and was going bald. But he was kind and thoughtful, and he made me laugh all the time.

    Unfortunately it ended because he really struggled with basic adulting – paying bills, cleaning up after himself (to the point where there was a mouse infestation), forgetting to renew his driver’s license, etc. I loved him, but I didn’t want to be someone’s mom.

    But those were three really good years.

  29. For the first half I thought this was fairly reasonable (minus the height thing). The ending I think is where I have to agree that yeah you’ll have trouble finding this.

    Not sleeping together for at least a year and not sleeping in the same room/potentially living separately forever is where you’ll have a really hard time. Is there a particular reason these are dealbreakers for you? It sounds more like you want a best friend rather than a boyfriend?

  31. So running through some data. Let’s just assume that you’re only looking for males 25-35. I’m using some very unscientific, back of the napkin math here. But this should be…. close enough. I’m also going to assume pure statistical variance, I understand that some of these correlate, but none of them correlate perfectly or let’s face it, strongly.

    About 20% of males in that age range meet your criteria for height.

    18% of males make over 100k. We’ll pretend that’s your income criteria, although it’s not even clear if that’s sufficient.

    25% of males are either Definitely Liberal, or Extremely Liberal.

    40% of males meet your criteria for a lack of religious inclinations.

    28% of males are Underweight or Normal Weight according to BMI. Because I’m sure that you’d consider say, an NFL linebacker to meet the criteria for a “Good body” despite them being Obese according to BMI, let’s be very generous and say 40% of men meet your criteria for physical appearance.

    Only 70% of men have either no, or mild hair loss in the 25-35 age range.

    Let’s also say that 10% of men have Jealousy issues, Porn Addiction, Sports Betting Addiction, Video Game Addiction, and about 20% abuse Alcohol, and 20% abuse various drugs.

    Lastly, about 45% of men aged 25-35 have fathered at least one child.

    And frankly, I’m not even going to try to calculate “Percentage of men who are okay with waiting a year for sex” and “Percentage of men who are okay with sleeping in a separate room than their partner”. But if we want to be very generous to you, let’s say that half of guys are okay with those two pieces.

    So calculating all of that, that would mean .01164% of all men aged 25-35 in America would meet your criteria.

    Or, given the pool of American Men aged 25-35 being approximately 24,500,000, that means that 2,851 men in the entire nation meet your criteria.

    About half of men 25-35 are currently in a serious relationship at any given time. Another significant chunk of men are in casual relationships, actively not interested in a relationship, or might be interested in a relationship, but they’re not interested in you, a woman. Because they’re homosexual or otherwise unattracted to women.

    So that might be 86% of the 2,851 men in this country who are uninterested in you for any number of reasons. So your dating pool is 14% of the remainder. Or about 399 guys.

    Do you think a national dating pool that could fit in a typical freshman class auditorium is reasonable?

    Edit: A fun fact after some more calculations.

    400 men meet your criteria. There’s around 900 billionaires in the United States. Which means statistically, you’re over twice as likely to bump into a billionaire than someone who is single, looking to date, and meets all of your criteria.

  32. You’re trying to build-a-bear a human. I’d say yes, this list is a little too literal.

    You can have high standards, but the way these are set is finite over trivial things. Some are important, for example, political and religious values, but not wanting someone into videogames comes across as… idk. Too much???

  33. I don’t think your criteria are ‘too high,’ but I do think a lot of what you’re listing are traits rather than indicators of someone’s actual character or long‑term compatibility.

    Wanting someone childfree, aligned politically and religiously, financially literate, not dealing with addictions, supportive of your lifestyle, and emotionally secure, those are all reasonable. Those are values and lifestyle alignment, and they matter.

    Where things get complicated is when every preference becomes a requirement: height, income level, hair, fitness, travel experience, no video games, no alcohol, waiting a year for intimacy, separate bedrooms, etc. None of those are unreasonable on their own, but when they’re all combined, the number of people who meet every single one becomes extremely small.

    It’s not that you’re asking for something unrealistic, it’s that the list is filtering based on surface traits instead of the qualities that actually determine whether someone is a good partner, like emotional availability, communication, reliability, and how they treat you day‑to‑day.

    It doesn’t mean you need to lower your standards. It just means it might help to separate what’s a true non‑negotiable (values, lifestyle, character) from what’s a preference. That way you keep the important things without accidentally eliminating people who could be a great match.

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