The perfect man…

So with Valentine’s over for another year (thank god!) I decided that perhaps this year I should consider getting a head start in the man department.

As I’ve gotten older, with several relationships now under my belt – I now have a pretty good idea about what I’m after. Or perhaps I have more of an idea about what I’m NOT after.

My first serious relationship, and also my longest, was with a dairy farmer who lived in the Garden Route. In retrospect, maybe some warning bells should have started ringing at this point for the future of my romantic pursuits. Of course, at the time I was completely oblivious to the strangeness of my taste in men, and fell head over heels for Dairy Farmer.

Every school holiday in my matric year I would hop on a plane and head across to the farm. He’d be up at the crack of dawn for work, and as I awoke around 9am, he would come in all tanned, glistening and flexed up from the physical labour. (Actually, I’m getting a bit worked up just typing all of that out – maybe I haven’t learnt much).

After heading off to London together for a gap year, I learnt that you can’t take the farm out of the farmer, and it was over. Since then, Dairy Farmer has had an illegitimate child with a woman approaching 40 – so it’s probably best that I got away from that one.

The second serious boyfriend had a teeny tiny substance abuse problem (I later discovered that he polished off a bottle of vodka every night). Scary, that in the society we live in, I could have dated a raging alcoholic for almost a year and not picked up on it. His favourite party trick was crushing a raw egg in his mouth, followed by a shot of tequila, swallowing the contents of his mouth and spitting the shell out into the tot glass. I thought it was brilliant.

I only discovered that his habits were beyond recreational ages after the relationship ended, when he asked to meet for coffee, as part of his rehabilitation process involved apologising to the people he had hurt along the way. Crazy.

The third serious boyfriend was most notable for his highly questionable sexual orientation. Although the poor boy probably is straight, his raging metrosexual behaviour led most to believe the contrary. He used to order cosmopolitans when we went out for drinks, he called his mother ‘Mumsy’ and drove a distinctly pink-ish Renault Clio. He used to peroxide his hair and thought that Erasure was the heat. My god… what was I thinking?!?

The fourth serious boyfriend, I can’t really fault. There was nothing glaringly wrong with him. He was a boys boy, with a gentle heart, awesome family and fantastic enthusiasm and outlook on life. After a year and a half I decided I was bored and broke his heart.

Now… number five, my most recent, Italian ex boyfriend. This one was truly a mystery. I honestly have absolutely no idea what I saw in this one. When we eventually broke up my mom literally brought out the champagne. I think this relationship was karma’s way of getting back at me for the way I treated Boyfriend No. 4 – by making me somehow attracted to a boy who was fundamentally offensive in every possible way.

So what have I learnt from it all…

Alcoholic, metrosexual dairy farmers are definitely not for me!