I do not want to fix someone. I’m too busy working on myself. I wouldn’t want to date someone who isn’t doing the same, who doesn’t see the value in growth. I’m not here to hold someone’s hand while they learn how to grow up. I’m not a pre-school teacher; I’m not a therapist. A man is not an art project to be cut up into little pieces and glued back together. You’re your own fixer-upper, honey; do with that what you will.

I don’t want to date someone indifferent to themselves or to me. Is it an oddity that I don’t want to be treated like crap? I do not have time to hopelessly await someone’s phone call; I do not have time to place heaps of unwarranted blame on myself when someone or something seemingly ‘disappears.’ I don’t have the time to jump through hoops to prove that I am worthy of someone’s affections, and even if I did have the time? That’s not how I would spend it.

Which is why, when given the choice, I want to date a Good Guy. I want someone who is a real, flawed human being – someone who, despite those flaws, makes the conscious, ongoing effort to act benevolently toward the people around him. Someone who is capable of letting go of whatever Grave Injustices were done to him, who doesn’t blame the world for his misfortunes. Someone who respects himself, who wants to be with someone who will treat him the way he deserves to be treated. Someone who is nice but not a doormat, someone who is confident but not an asshole.

So, to the ladies who want assholes, keep them. I’ll take the sane, emotionally stable man any day.