Is it okay to be picky when looking at the long-term?

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I think you can be as picky as you want to be, as long as you realize that no one is going to feel much sympathy if you later complain that you can't find someone who matches you multi-page list of requirements.

Everyone has the right to set their standards however they see fit. Just keep in mind that setting the bar too high means you will have a very difficult time jumping over it.

If you want a flawless model, I hope you're at the gym 6 days a week.

Even better would be to do some eco friendly activity--like removing invasive plants from nature preserves.

As picky as I am, I have no choice but to agree that it's a-okay to be picky when choosing a long term partner.

I've turned down many guys over the years who wanted to date me that I just wasn't that into. Eventually I'll meet the right gay boy and will be in a relationship. I have some rather picky criteria, I suppose.. but at the same time, I spend a fair amount of time and energy working on improving myself (for myself and my work/life/business/athletic goals) so I'm not concerned about becoming less attractive as I age. I'm in about the best shape of my life at 33 years old and intend to continue getting into better shape. My financial situation has improved as well. I mention these things as the blunt reality of the world is that if you're in great physical and financial shape, you'll be attractive to youthful people regardless of the fact that you're getting older.. so work hard on yourself and your finances & be the best you you can be and you won't run into those sorts of difficulties attracting someone in 5-10 years or however long it takes to meet someone you click with.

As others have mentioned, there is a such thing as being too picky, too. There's no such thing as the perfect person out there. So, you may have to make some concessions - ie maybe she's not a singer, but perhaps you can both go out and listen to some amazing singers together. But yeah.. I'm super picky, so maybe not the best one to give that sort of advice. Although if everything feels right about someone there are some things I'd be willing to cross off my list or compromise a bit on. There isn't anyone that I've rejected that I regret rejecting, though, so it's not as if my criteria for attraction have ruled out a wonderful partner or anything.

I'm just waiting for the right one for me & am ever more open to having first date after first date after first date with guys that miiiiight be right for me on my way to meeting someone I click with. Never know.. could happen soon, or not, but regardless I've been chatting with a cute 23yo recently and we're going to go for drinks soon and see how we get along. Maybe something there, maybe nothing, but whatever.. it's just all a part of the process when you're as picky as I am.

I mentioned my age and his to make a point (besides that I've always been attracted to people younger than me) that even though I'm 10 years older, I've gotten myself into pretty good shape and am doing OK w/ work and finances.. so there's no automatic barrier to attracting youthful people as you age - especially if you do the hard work required to counter that. Also, there's the simple fact that there are people opposite to me - that are only attracted to people older and more mature than them. A friend of mine is like that. He's 30 and his manfriend (as he calls him, not his boyfriend lol) is 45. So there's that, too. Plus it's quite common in the hetero dating world for the male to be older and the female younger. Still, if I were you, I'd do what it took to set myself up for the greatest chance of success via health, fitness, and finances. Good luck!

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Picky is important. Picky is good. You intend to spend the rest of your life with this person-- picky is necessary.

Especially when it comes to common interests and, most of all, common goals and common values.

Beauty?? Not so much. It's important that YOU find her attractive. Or at least cute, not paper-bag ugly.

It is completely irrelevant that she fit The Social Standard of Beauty.

Frankly I think guys that highly fit The Social Standard of Male Beauty mildly to moderately repulsive, and the personality trait of putting a high priority on conforming to it repugnant. I've always been drawn to guys outside that standard-- very short, very tall, very skinny, very overweight, abnormally asymmetrical, whatever.

You're marrying a person you're going to live and die with, not a status symbol that's going to prove something about you. I hear "conservative Christian," and that's fine-- Proverbs 31 and Titus 2:3-5 and all that, as long as it works for you both, if that's what you both believe to be right and true. But even then-- she is an independent human being, and one that you're going to swear to love with the same sacrificial love that Christ gave the Church. She's NOT a possession, NOT an accessory to the life you want to have and the person you want to be. That's a fast track to a resentful wife. Don't forget that there's a lot more to the second chapter of the Epistle to Titus than three verses. Pick someone whose self makes you want to love them like that, not someone who turns your penis into a coat-peg 30 times a day or who makes you feel like you finally achieved alpha status when she's leaning on your arm.

If you can get all that in one package, hey great. But that's RARE. I have never seen it happen. If you gotta choose one and let the other ones go, pick the one whose self you'd be glad to sacrifice for, the one whose self your spirit is at peace with.

Here's the rub-- physical beauty fades. No matter who you are, no matter how good you take care of yourself, no matter how much makeup and plastic surgery you pay for-- physical beauty fades. Time takes a toll. Childbearing, for all it adds to beauty in other ways, takes a toll. Sleepless nights with the baby/toddler/kid/teenager take a toll. I'm 38, and I think I'm pretty smokin' for a 38-year-old mother of four, but between 38 years and 4 live births, I'm definitely not model-skinny any more, I've got lines on my face that Oil of Olay ain't gonna fix, my boobs are headed for the equator, and I'm tickled pink about getting back into size 10 blue jeans with only a little muffin top. The size 7s I wore when he proposed are closer to fitting out firstborn daughter than they are to fitting me.

It fades for men too, eventually. It takes longer-- men's bodies really do age like wine, and women's bodies really do age like milk-- but it comes soon enough. Eventually you're gonna be wizened and wrinkled with hair growing out of your ears and nose. Eventually, coffee is gonna dribble down your chin and eggs are gonna slide out the corners of your mouth at breakfast. Eventually, you're gonna develop a bit of a spread, an old man smell, muscles that ain't what they used to be. Eventually, that pesky thing will finally lay down and shut up.

Barring deception, massive trauma, or traumatic brain injury, she's still gonna be her and you're still gonna be you. The bodies?? Not so hot any more. The people inside them?? Sanded and smoothed, or shattered and made sharp, or whatever life dishes you and you dish each other-- but even then, still you and still her.

I've morphed from fiercely independent to broken unBiblical submission to seriously mentally ill to working my way back from that. He's morphed from feminist-pleaser to Red Pill Man to withdrawn tyrant to loving husband to middle-aged over-worked professional who loves his wife even though he's sick of her mental illness. We've both morphed from college kids in our early 20s to parents of a brood entering middle age.

He's still him, I'm still me. If we chose well, that's what's gotten us through the really really bad times. If we chose badly, it might be the cause of a lot of those really really bad times. Remains to be seen-- but he's still him, I'm still me, and we're committed 'til death do us part (or at least until the baby moves out-- she'll reach majority in 14 years, and by then we will be in our 50s and probably not real thrilled with The idea of starting over).

The meeting of minds and souls IS the magic. It's the ONLY magic that lasts.

And yes, obviously you have to date. Or court, or at least talk to girls a lot. There's no other way to figure out what kind of person you really mesh with, and what kind you really don't. And there WILL be a discrepancy between what you THINK and what turns out to be REAL. If you don't have any kind of a relationship with females until you meet The One, you'll either find her by mail order or not at all.

You've raised a really good question and I find it quite interesting.

If you're thinking about long term relationship goals, I think it's important for you to know what your priorities are and the right questions to ask yourself. I'm assuming you'd like to get it right and not settle for anything less than you think you deserve so it's great if you know what the aspects where you can compromise and the stuff that you can accept because you love your partner in order to prevent the likelihood that you'd resort to trying to change the other person and even yourself.