What are you looking for when you’re perusing JDate? Looks? Age? Education?  Success? And how strict are you about those ideals? I’ll tell you that the more flexible you are about what’s important to you the faster and easier you’ll be impressed.

My friend Julie cares about where a guy went to college and how many years he graduated in and what he majored in. If I were a guy I wouldn’t meet Julie’s standards because it took me five years to graduate from UCLA and I majored in Women’s Studies. She admitted that she wouldn’t even have dated Steven Spielberg because he never did graduate from Long Beach State (okay, okay, he eventually received an honorary degree). At a certain point all these silly ideals need to disappear. I guess Julie isn’t desperate enough to meet someone yet because when you are truly ready to meet your Beshert you’ll put your superficial wants aside and focus on the truly important stuff. Intelligence is important, but level of education maybe shouldn’t be.

Am I attracted to my husband and do I think he’s dashingly handsome? Sure. But that alone wasn’t going to get us this far. He had to have other, more important traits to get us to where we are today. He respects me, loves his parents, is nice to strangers on the street, is smart, is hysterically funny and we have a lot in common. In addition, we have a lot that we don’t have in common which makes life a lot more interesting. We enjoy watching American Idol together but I’ve had to learn to love the Dallas Mavericks. And to top it all off we have great conversations. Looks fade but you’re going to have to talk to your spouse for the rest of your life!

So make your list – goodness knows I had mine! – but be able to adjust and appreciate what’s right in front of you.