This is what I do when I wake before the rest of the family

[mahogany]

I hope you all play along with this one, and if you have people on your f/l with time to kill, send ‘em on over, I want to hear from them too.

Consider the top five or ten qualities that you look for in a partner, and mentally order them in terms of importance. These can be personality traits, values, or physical characteristics - whatever happens to be important to you.

[Poll #928592]

Comments

[dan4th.livejournal.com]

Hi. Browsed in at random, so I have no idea what context I'm interjecting this into, but:

Except for "so physically unattractive that I am uncomfortable being near them", I prefer people I work with to be not my type -- because it's awkward if I'm utterly crushing on my coworkers. However, I really need to be physically attracted to a mate, and I enjoy having attractive friends, so that's the main difference.

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...your comment raises a few interesting questions for me. They're kind of personal, so feel free not to answer if I'm being too intrusive.

I'm curious to know if the fact that you enjoy having physically attractive friends is more because you consciously (or perhaps subconsciously) pursue the friendship of attactive people, or more because you happen to have an attractive circle of friends, and when you think about it, you consider it a nice bonus.

I'm also wondering if you're considering all of your friends (I'm assuming here that you have friends of both genders) in this comment, or if you're considering the one gender to which you're predominantly attracted.

The final thing I'm curious about is whether you find yourself attracted to some of your friends (but not necessarily crushing in a major way), or whether you find them attractive, but not necessarily in a way that particularly appeals to you. Do you even make that distinction?

[dan4th.livejournal.com]

1. I enjoy being around attractive people, so whether it's conscious or unconscious, I make more of an effort to get to know someone who is attractive than someone who is not attractive. Therefore, my friends tend to be people I find attractive.

2. I'm bisexual.

3. I have currently or have had in the past crushes on most of my friends. Many of them, as I've gotten to know them better, have been moved into the "attractive but not attracted to" category as I find things about them that makes us completely unsuitable as matches. And sometimes the opposite: people who I didn't find initially attractive will seem more attractive after I get to know them better.

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

I would say that most people on some level seek the frienship of people they find attractive. In my case, I would say it's probably subconscious.

My personal tastes in attractiveness might not necessarily fall within what's generally considered classical good looks, but my group of friends is pretty attractive by my standards. The funny thing is that I've met a lot of my friends online in the last few years, having limited or no knowledge of their looks until we meet, and even then, I've ended up with an attractive circle of friends.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

With a civilian co-worker, I want them to be competent, forward-thinking, and to stay the hell out of my way and not tell me all about their personal lives.

In a military co-worker I still want the competence and forward-thinking, but since you eventually have to live together, I want some of the same qualities I'd want in a mate (consideration, intelligence, range of interest, generosity, etc).

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

Good point. A military career certainly would change the nature of a colleague relationship. I imagine it would be similar for a police officer, or fire ighter, or any similar career where there is a strong sense of comeraderie, and the necessity of being able to completely trust and rely on one's colleagues.

[lovejunk.livejournal.com]

If I am spending large amounts of time with someone- mate, friend, close colleague- I need to get along with them well, and for me, it's almost always going to be the same list of criteria. Any serious romantic relationship I've had were with guys who were also good friends.

In a boss or employee, I feel I need people who complement my strengths/weaknesses, which means I'm willing to put up with a lot of annoyances if I know that person fulfills a role I can't.

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

For me an employee definitely has to fill a role that I can't. I tend to look up to my superiors in the sense that I'm always imagining that I will be in their shoes someday, so I'm looking for commonality, and ways of working on the strong areas of mine that overlap with theirs.

[daisan.livejournal.com]

There's some overlap with all my lists: I like intelligent people who care about the world, and I seek them in any capacity (mentor, employee, friend, etc.) But there's a couple things that are singular about my mate. I must be strongly physically attracted to them, whereas that totally doesn't matter in a boss or employee. And I care much more that my mate and my employee have the highest respect for me and my opinion, but this isn't really important in a friend or colleague (not in the top 5, for instance.)

I'd be very curious as to what exact traits people consider most important in these people. There's got to be at least 2 out of the 5 that are common to all relationships. Like trustworthiness, for instance. You absolutely couldn't relate to anyone without that.

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

For my the common trait would be integrity and a resourcefulness. I've met people lacking in those traits, and I find myself unable to relate to them in any capacity.

I think one of the reasons that I look for similar characteristics in a mate and mentor/superior has to do with how I view marriage. I see one of the primary functions of a life partner as being inspiring, supporting and nurturing the growth (in all areas) of the other person, so that we become better people as the result of the relationship. In a mentor or superior, I see the function, but the growth applies more narrowly to my career rather than to me as a whole.

In an assistant, I'm really looking for someone that is strong in my weak areas, so I can concentrate on my strengths, since that's going to get me where I need to go.

And in friends, I'm looking for people that can really broaden my horizons. People that know who they are and what they stand for, and can defend their view points (sycophants really creep me out), but are open minded at the same time. A high degree of intelligence is important to me in friends since my friendships revolve more around interesting discussions than shared activities. The one thing that has changed since I've become a parent, is that if my friends happen to have children, a commonality in our values in parenting has become important. Usually common values aren't necessarily that important to me in friendships as long as the person has integrity, but I think my views on parenting are so strong, that if we differ too much, then the friendship has to stay at a superficial level.

[kake]

One thing that's very important to me in a partner is that they're nice to me when I'm tired or unhappy.

It's also somewhat important in colleagues/employers, since, well, if you have to spend a lot of time with people, it's good to have those people be ones who know how not to make bad days worse.

It's less important when it comes to friends, since (like pretty much everyone) I have many more friends than partners, so if someone's not so great at the being-nice-when-I'm-tired, that's OK, because there are other people who can do that.

I really dislike arguments (I do like discussion though), so “not being argumentative” is important in all categories.

Incidentally, reading some of the comments here was rather confusing at first, since “mate” also means “friend” in British English :)

[kake]

One thing that's very important to me in a partner is that they're nice to me when I'm tired or unhappy.

Oh, and possibly part of the reason for this being so important is that my ex-husband was rather bad at it.

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

Drat! I hadn't thought of that. I probably should have used the word partner. I wanted to make sure that my language was inclusive to everyone on my friends list, or that might happen to stop by.