Fixing the Picker: Part II. History

When looking for a new mate, pay attention to their history. 

If they are older than 22, they have been an adult in the real world long enough to develop work habits and thrift habits.  They have had a relationship or two.  They have personal habits and goals.  While it is possible to change and improve ourselves over time, lasting improvement is rarely motivated by outside sources.  Look for someone whose historical interests, attitudes, and habits are consistent with your needs.  There are many clues available in a person's history. 

If they are not yet self-supporting, are they respectful of their supporters and seeking the opportunities that are available to start becoming self supporting? If they are self supporting, is it at a level and with a realistic ambition to move ahead? If they are older than their mid-20s, have they been a job hopper? a corporate climber? a "work until I have a little savings then cause issues and stop working until I'm desparate" type? Are they reaching for a pie in the sky without foundation (the rap artists who have never taken a course in music, music production, english, poetry, artistic management, or financial planning, for example)? Are they barely graduated from high school, yet aspiring to be a doctor or lawyer or engineer? Did they work through summers in college or did they sleep till noon and play computer games all day?

Is their age similar enough to yours that you will be going through the same life stages at the same time, or are they going to want babies at the time you need to be planning retirment (or visa versa)? Are they going to be wanting to travel at the same time you need to decide which nursing home to enter? Are they going to be putting their kids through college at the same time as you're wanting to be finish your own education?  Will they be ending a career while you are just beginning? 

If you met them online, do they spend their lives online? If you met them at a party or bar, are they consumed with partying or bar-hopping? Do they have interests outside the one that brought you together?

Is their energy level exhausting? Do they need rescuing? From themselves or from a situation they chose to get into?

Even if their history is really a non-history, it might have meaning!  Have they managed to get to a ripe, old age without ever making a commitment?  Two examples:

First:  A friend who got to the age of 40-something, without ever being engaged, or even owning his own home.  He had a good job but never stayed in the same company for longer than 5 years, always upwardly mobile, but never in the same location.  He had a good income.  He was interested in women, but not interested in commitment.  When he finally got married, he didn't consider anything about his bride other than that she was cute, the sex was good, and they had lots of fun.  And, as all his friends said, “it’s about time.”  It ended in a few years, after it stopped being so fun.  He is simply not a person who wants a commitment in his life, he wants excitement and change, and he probably should not have listened to his friends. Someday when we’re all in a nursing home, he will be the happy old dude who dates every reasonably healthy woman on his floor and flirts with all the staff. 

Second:  another friend got to the age of 40-something, without having gone through with a wedding (2 broken engagements), never even gommitting to buying a house until he was about 45 years old.  He did have a job, but it was something he drifted into, having gotten there by default after college and never leaving.  He made his way up the ranks because of how long he had been there, and was comfortable with it.  He liked his life.  Go to work, go home, get online and read.  For exercise, he would take long, relaxing walks.  Alone.  His life was perfect and he wanted to share it with a woman, but had waited for so long and rejected so many opportunities, that he felt he deserved a perfect woman to join his perfect life.  He felt he had zero baggage, so she should not have any, either.  The fact that he lived in complacency and preferred isolation so long, spending 40 years without ever making a commitment or changing anything about his life, became his baggage.  He did not recognize it.  He remains single in his mid-50s, and is considering joining a monastery as a second career.  It will make him happy.  His need for solitude, peace and perfection tends to preclude joining as a partner with any other person.  

Moving on with various issues in a person’s history.  The older a person gets, the more you can see their history on their faces.  Do they have telltale signs of a history of hard partying, smoking, over-sunning? If they have stopped these habits, are you willing to live with someone who is suffering from hepetitis, lung cancer, and skin cancer treatments? Or is it a history of over-eating and joint problems? Or a history of anorexia/bulemia and heart/energy problems? In your 20s, you won't see the results, you'll only see the bad habits... but the older you get, the more likely you'll see the results in their faces. Sallow, yellow or gray skin... yellowing teeth, distended stomachs (fatty liver), saggy skin, hearing problems... all battle scars from a youth misspent (or well-lived), but all likely to create lasting baggage. Just know WHICH baggage you're willing to live with.

Do they have a pack of kids already who are hard to support, and promising you that they want to start a NEW pack with you? Are their family, career, financial plans realistic?

Do you see, ANYWHERE on this list, anything about loving thier looks?  That is last because it will change as we age.  It changes based upon what we do now.  Some, particularly bad, looks are a function of bad choices in youth, as previously discussed.  Some looks are correlated to time spent in the salon or gym.  Some are all about the choice to eat excessively or an obsession with not eating at all.  Either choice will have an affect on looks, some good, some bad, but not all will be things we want to live with.
The history that we are building will change our looks, so when we make physical appearance a first priority in a relationship, we are guaranteeing short relationships, as our looks change.  A friend of mine is a perfect example.  She loved men with long hair.  As we became adults, she kept picking men with long hair.  Unfortunately, the responsible professionals tended to have to cut thier hair, at least whlie they were building their professional reputations, so she would fall out of love when they cut their hair, or she wouldn't choose a man with short hair to begin with.  Her relationships were limited as a result.  She would ignore a spotty job history, a volitile "artistic" temperament, a little recreational drug use, if he had the look that she liked.  It took her decades to change this thought process.  Very difficult, frustrating decades for her, as relationship after relatioship failed. 
When we start with looks, we become blind to the rest.  We make excuses for the bad stuff that came with the person who had the right looks, and we hope that their bad relationship history will not repeat itself.  We are usually out of luck on this issue, when we start with looking for the "look".  Stay tuned for Fixing the Picker, Parts III and IV, where we will finally address Money and Physical attraction!