Boys, boys, boys.

So I was looking through my stuff the other day, and I found a list from a couple years ago with all the attributes I want in a husband. Call me a girl, but I've always like doing these kinds of lists, the same way I like taking personality tests on the internet--they're just something to do. So, I have since updated the list (since the last one was written when I was 17 and I knew everything and was so in touch with my emotions, enough to write gems like "makes me smile even when I'm down" and "likes to watch chick flicks").

So, here it goes...Things I want in a Future Husband:

1. A guy that realizes the importance of the gospel in a marriage.

One of the reasons I have a testimony of the gospel is my parent’s marriage. There is no way that these two people should be married after 30 years together. If you ask them how their marriage has stayed together, they’ll tell you, without hesitation, that it’s because of their faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And while the couples that put the gospel first might not always have the edgiest or coolest lives, they’re always the happiest couples I know.

2. A man that’s smarter than me.

I need a guy that can keep me on my toes, intellectually and mentally. I don’t mean to make myself out to be this incredible person that guys simply can’t measure up to, but intelligence is just such a huge turn on. True story: I’d been ready to break up with this guy I’d been dating for something like 2 weeks. On the night I’d psyched myself up to do it, he explained to me how macroeconomics worked—I was so attracted to him in that moment that we dated for another month.

3. A man.

You know why women like Don Draper? Because he’s a man. A manly, brawny, square-jawed, manly man. He’s not a boy. He’s a man. That’s what I want. Not Don Draper-I’d kill myself. But a man. Not a guy. Not a dude. A man.

4. Someone who appreciates what it means to create and appreciates creativity.

I don’t need to marry an artist, musician, or a writer. But I do need someone who appreciates what it means to me to create, mostly in the form of writing. Creativity, writing especially, is such an odd beast because there’s no real way to quantify its success. And in the end, it’s very possibly that what you’ve spent hours and hours driving yourself crazy over won’t mean anything to anyone else but you. I need someone that can understand that I love to write, and need to write, and that I love art, and need to be around art, and that I like losing myself in my own creativity and in the creativity of others, and I need to do it every once in a while.

5. Someone who can make me laugh.

This pretty much goes without saying. One of my biggest joys in life is making people laugh. I’m not saying I’m good at it, but it’s one of life’s biggest highs, I think. So to marry a guy I couldn’t make laugh or that couldn’t make me laugh would just be stupid. Plus, growing up in the family I did, I learned that humor is a whole lot more than just making people laugh, it’s kind of a way of life. You can get by without a lot of things if you’re able to laugh about it.

6. I want an attractive man.

I don’t have a type, physically. I’ve liked some pretty odd-looking characters in my day. There are a few basics, though. He has to be taller than me. This is paramount. Taller than me and thicker than me. I can’t be the biggest one in the relationship. I need to know that my husband could beat me in an arm-wrestling competition or carry me across a river should our oxen fail. I blame this on growing up with three brothers. Other than that, I’m pretty open, actually. Facial tattoos are kind of gross. I’ll say no facial tattoos.

7. I want a guy who likes kids.

I think how a person interacts with children says a lot about them. Your knowledge of fine wines or the fact that you spend your weekend reading vintage books in a vintage bookstore doesn’t mean anything to a kid. Relating to and interacting with a kid requires a certain meekness, I think, and a disregard for how you’re being perceived. Children can’t validate you. People who like children and choose to spend their time with children, in my experience, are the generous souls, the people you want to hang on to.

8. A man that can make me feel like a girl (woman?)

I’ve never been a girly girl, per se. I grew up a tomboy and then molded into something caught between the mall, the gym, and the library. But I LOVE being a girl, or a woman, or whatever you want to call it. Makeup, clothes, hair, shoes, chick flicks, batting eyelashes, femininity, I love all of it. When a guy can make me feel like girl as well as a comedian or an intellectual or a writer or whatever other labels I might like to assign myself, it’s a great feeling.

9. A man that fits the scenarios.

There are certain scenarios, I think, that every girl runs through her head when she starts thinking about a guy. I don’t know why we do it. It’s probably irrational. In any case, there are a few choice scenarios I have, like meeting the family, being in a foreign country with that person, WILL THIS MAN BE ABLE TO HANDLE ME WHEN I’M PREGNANT? That kind of stuff.

10. A man that can deal with me.

I’m a weird person. At least I feel like I’m weird. I don’t operate in relationships the way a lot of other people do, I feel. Relationships are a strange business. And I need a man that can understand that I would never really be a normal girlfriend or wife. In fact, I would never be a girlfriend. I hate that word, and same goes for ‘boyfriend.’ I need a man that will get that I need to be able to feel independent, and I need to be able to nurture something or else I will explode, and that I’ll never be the one to make the first move, and that I will bottle everything up until I’ve rationalized it away or killed it with logic, and that I will get bored with any life I life before too long, and that I crave being alone sometimes, and that I have routines I haven’t broken since I was in high school, and that I could go for a year without seeing him and be totally fine but that I would be more than happy to drive across the country to spend a day with him, and that I’m totally and completely addicted to carbonation, and that I am just flat out weird sometimes.

Anywho, those are the basics. For the record, I can't wait to get married. I mean, I CAN. I love being single and having the world as my oyster and all that jazz, but I also know that my husband and I are gonna have a pretty friggin incredible life. Annnd that's all I got.

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