The Perfect Guy criteria

When I hear my male friends talk about what they want in a girl and the conversation starts with "big boobs, no-strings-attached sex" etc. I get genuinely frustrated and often jump in with "If you want to have this shallow, sexist conversation, go and have it somewhere else!" But I have to confess that we girls do the same thing. We just yearn for the more romantic and Mills&Boon type and we are a lot less 'shallow' - most of the time.

I recently found one of my diaries and I found that I had written down the things I wanted in men after watching Pride & Prejudice and falling in love with Mr. Darcy many times through the film. The diary entry is from 12th June 2009:

1. He must love me
2. He should be able to rise above arguments and no matter how hard the going gets, he should always love me and care about me
3. He should have the kind of personality that he considers everything I say and listens to my feelings, problems and tries his best to meet my needs
4. He should be good looking – otherwise it may be hard for me to be attracted to him

Since then I've had the chance to experience a relationship like mine and Adam's and things have changed. It is also funny looking back at this and seeing that Adam didn't meet any of these. Maybe he did love me, but he didn't prove it. He didn't manage to rise above arguments and cheated when the going got hard. He did listen to everything I said, but he didn't "listen" to my feelings. And he definitely wasn't good looking yet I was attracted to him. I wasn't attracted to him at first sight, but soon afterwards we had a lot of physical attraction between the two of us. The 16-year-old me didn't think it was possible.

I've decided to write down new criteria for my perfect guy - or my next guy.

1. He has to be faithful. It's funny how I never even considered this before, but now it is the first thing on my list. This means trust. Without trust we can't be happy together.
2. He has to love me and I have to love him back
3. I have to be physically attracted to him but it doesn't mean he has to be good-looking
4. He should treat me - take me out, buy me presents and surprise me. I don't expect him to spend much, but little things, like flowers and days out to the park
5. He should let me know when he misses me. I hated not knowing how Adam was feeling when we were apart as he wouldn't contact me much at all. I want the next guy to call me when he misses me, text me all the time and want to see me when I'm not around
6. He should be willing to work hard for 'us'. When the going gets hard I want him to not just give up, but keep trying to work things out.
7. He has to listen to me. We should have debates and arguments and he should let me win at times and then laugh about it afterwards. He shouldn't let his ego get in the way of our happiness
8. He has to be secure in himself, but he also has to make me feel secure about our relationship. He shouldn't flirt with other girls or compare me to other girls.
9. He should be open to talking about his feelings, our future and our relationship
10. We should be able to make each other laugh, but he should also be able to cry in front of me
11. Nothing should be awkward between us. This will take time, but I want us to be able to talk about anything at all
12. He should be man enough to make me feel safe, but he should also have a 'soft' side which makes me feel special. He should be up for doing stupid things like letting me play with his hair, paint my nails, watch girly movies/shows with me (especially endless re-runs of Desperate Housewives!)

These are all the ones I can think of and the list has more than doubled in the past three years! But it also means that I've learnt so much in that time.