Check!

My good friend and co-worker Tess has recently become my dating consultant. Back in the day, before she was married, she was what I like to refer to as the "pied piper of men." She had skill. So she's got some good advice. One of the most important ones I've collected from her is this:

Throw out the checklist.

The longer we're out in the dating world, the longer our list becomes. We start to realize "I could never date a guy who's passive," "I need someone with direction," "I want him to be outgoing," blah, blah, blah. Let's remember here kids....we're the single ones, which means we don't actually know what we want in a husband. I'm sure if we talked to all our married friends, most of them didn't get "everything they wanted" but they still love their spouses.

Of course we want to keep the most important things, but everything else prevents us from finding the hidden gems of the world. I'm done hearing my friends say "he's just so quiet" or "he watches Family Guy" or "I've never seen him bear his testimony" before anyone's even gone on a date. Well...ya know what? I'm shy in huge groups of people, I can be painfully blunt, and 90% of the time I'm thinking sexual innuendos during a perfectly innocent conversation...but I'm still kinda awesome right? I mean...you are reading my blog.

So Tess has recommended that I throw out my checklist of ridiculousity (real word) until (insert boy) and I are discussing marriage. Which is exactly what I intend to do, because the way I see it...dating isn't marriage. It's dating. Which is supposed to be fun, so why would I complicate it with a checklist? Especially when I've never even had a real conversation with the guy.

I got lists at work. That's good enough.