Dream about the man you want to fall in love with
My roommate once made me lie down on the couch and imagine my dream man.
(written in early 2012 after a breakup)
Last night my roommate came home to find me sprawled out on the couch, my face stuffed in its arm. Though I’ve been handling the breakup relatively well, every once in awhile she’ll recognize a halo of melancholy lingering above me. That night, I was thinking of my breakup from two weeks before, especially after getting text messages from an old ex from the past asking me to join him for drinks. I found myself reading our text exchanges from the last few weeks together and trying to dissect what exactly went wrong in between the I love you’s and I miss you’s.
I lamented, “he was so wonderful, I truly enjoyed his company. I miss him.” We rarely fought, there was always something for us to talk about and the affection was consistent throughout. Still, I was ignoring all the things that were wrong with our union, the fact that we didn’t want the same things in the long run and that with him I had become someone I didn’t like. The reality was that I had wanted it to end and didn’t have the balls to do it myself, though it was inevitable.
Vivian consoled me. She spoke wisely, telling me that he came at the right time when I needed him most. That he’d given me the love I was seeking and shown me how to love in return. I got what I needed and I could move on. It’s true, I hadn’t loved like that in years, if ever at all. She said that though I wasn’t ready for it to end, it would’ve happened anyway and the next time I loved it would be bigger and bolder and stronger than ever before. Then she made a suggestion that might sound strange to some.
She told me to lie back and imagine the man I’d one day see myself with.
To me this was absurd because the only man on my mind was this one. Typically when I get out of a relationship I am aware that I should seek someone else who can give me all of the things that were lacking in the previous relationship, whether it’s mental stimulation, affection, attention or physical satisfaction.
This wasn’t the case here, as with him I was completely satisfied on all fronts, to the point that there were less than two instances in which I found myself even mildly attracted to someone else during the time we were together. How could she expect me to think of someone else, to conjure an image of another man and leave this one in the shadows? I realized then that I hadn’t imagined my dream man in years. Every time there was a man I met along the way who stayed on my mind, he became a symbol of my expectations of men.
This meant that I wanted the ambition and loyalty of the A, the spontaneity and curiosity of the K, the intelligence and principles of the R, and the tenderness and honesty of the other A. It had been years since I’d laid back, closed my eyes and envisioned my dream man who could have all those traits and more.
As an insecure adolescent who read too many books and spent a lot of time by myself, I used to fantasize about my dream man regularly. At the time he was less evolved, as I was inexperienced and didn’t totally know what I wanted or what was good for me.
He was mysterious then, a studious type who kept to himself and went against the grain. Someone like Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye , my childhood crush. Nowadays, I don’t know who this man is. Maybe someone more like Howard Roark, who I recently fell in love with in The Fountainhead.
But characters in books rarely exist in real life, and should remain between the pages they’re written into if anything.
There’s also the fact that I might want a person, but with that person I would also want a certain kind of relationship. I’d want someone who likes exploring the world with me and isn’t afraid of taking risks. Even if I seem afraid, he’ll nudge me to go forward and I’d do the same for him as I know that’s what he would expect of me. He’s someone that would happily talk to everyone around him and not make decisions according to their status or social standing. When we go places, he’d be just as pleased staying in a dive as he would staying somewhere exquisite. He must be able to go to both extremes.
He wouldn’t want to plan everything and is OK flying by the seat of his pants and making decisions according to our mood, whether it’s what we are doing on the weekend or how we will spend a weeklong vacation. He takes control with logistics like booking the hotel, because I suck at logistics, and he let’s me organize the fun things like which restaurants to visit. He also looks after all household accounting and is a budgeting whiz. My ideal man would look forward to meeting the people that are important to me and if he doesn’t like them, he will either tolerate them in small doses and be respectful or he will let me go off with them on my own time and occasionally join in because it’s his duty☺
When things go wrong, he won’t close up. He will sense that I’m upset about something and ask me what’s wrong. Trust me, there are men out there who can tell and who do ask, and I’ve been lucky enough to date them. When I snap at him for some reason that has nothing to do with him but which I take out on him anyway, like all women and men are prone to doing at some point in time, he will not take it too personally and will ask me WTF my problem is like any human has the right to do. But then we will kiss and make up and life will go on.
He will love kids. He will see children and gravitate towards them like the brilliant, innocent things they are. He will want them one day and maybe that will be with me. He will be family oriented and value his siblings and parents. He won’t be too close to them and he won’t expect me to talk to his mom on the phone everyday but he won’t think it’s weird if I call her up to say hi, either.
He will be hardworking, determined and dedicated. He’s the kind of guy everyone looks up to for his business savvy and deep knowledge on what’s important to him. He will be passionate in that sense, somewhat consumed by his work but able to use the OFF switch when it comes to his personal life. I am not seeking a workaholic, which is what I’ve been drawn to in the past. There will be no more of that because I refuse to play second fiddle to a bank account or title.
I imagine a few different futures for us. One is together in either our old age or in our late 30s in a cottage or old wooden house in a field far off out of town. People visit, we throw dinners, there’s lots of music and love and candlelit laughter. Another life is as yuppies in the city, throwing trendy dinner parties for our young stylish friends amid clinking glass and sudden bursts of disorderly laughter.
Then there’s the part where we have children but somehow do our best to stay young at heart. We would feed off the youthfulness of our children and take them along on our adventures. We’ll be inspired by them and vice versa, doing everything possible to make them happy— like playing sports and music. He will be talented or athletic or intelligent or all and our children would admire him for everything he could teach them.
This man is nothing like my ex. He is nothing like any one person I have dated before. But he is my dream man, and my mind and heart have given me permission to want more for myself.
There is nothing mediocre about the person I will build my life with. He will want to look after his body and we will do it together if it’s necessary to motivate us. Best of all, he will be fearless. He will not be afraid of seeking complete and utter happiness, he will not be afraid of things falling apart because he will have me beside him to help pick up the broken pieces and create a collage more beautiful than anything we’d previously had. He will not be afraid of the unknown. Our future.
