MY BROTHER-IN-LAW has a list of 20 things he's looking for in a woman and he refuses to marry anyone who doesn't fulfil all 20 requirements. He won't tell us what's on the list, but the two who have come closest to winning his heart (scoring 19 and 18 respectively) were a Norwegian Christian fundamentalist living in the Arctic and a former Miss Teen Nepal.
Guessing what these 20 commandments are has become something of a family pastime, but given the evidence, we're assuming that one of his criteria is that his future wife must come from a country beginning with 'N'.
I always thought my brother-in-l
aw was being a tad inflexible with his 20-or-nothing stance, but that's before I came across an American woman whose lonely hearts posting on the internet site Craigslist makes him look about as picky as Casanova.
The anonymous, thirtysomething New Yorker has no fewer than 38 demands that must be met before she can even contemplate a relationship. Amazingly, she doesn't think she's hard to please.
Miss NY's posting starts by saying she's tried everything to find a man, without success: "But with so many people out there, at least ONE guy can match this. I know he's out there. My standards are exacting, but they're not too much to ask. Life is too short to compromise yourself. Here is what I am looking for. It's not much."
She starts with "non-smoker", which is fair enough, and Point 3 insists that Mr Right mustn't live more than five subway stops from her (which rules out a great many of the Earth's male population, but hey, nobody likes a long commute). However, it doesn't take long for her to get very, very particular indeed.
By Point 4 – a stage at which most of us might perhaps be outlining our political, religious or ethical standpoints – she's saying "must not be opposed to wicker furniture". This is closely followed by "name must not begin with an R, a J, or a B (Js are negotiable; Rs are not. Bs should consider that if they treat a cat nicely, it will respond accordingly; but if you scare it by approaching too fast, of course it will attack)"; "must own more than three items from The North Face jacket line but no more than five"; "must be home from 2pm-6pm on Saturdays to receive packages; bonus points if you're an eBay power seller too!"
Miss NY reaches Point 32 before she decides "NO FELONS!!!" and then immediately follows that up with "must have all limbs, no quads (not biased, just poor past experience)".
This is a woman who won't contemplate life with a man who likes vanilla scented candles, yet she optimistically ends with: "I know the guy for me is out there. I've come so close to finding him in perfect form so many times. If you are this guy, or know this guy, PLEASE contact me. I am willing to make a few sacrifices, but not many."
Seriously, sweetie, you've nearly found this paragon "so many times"? Then what are you still doing on dating sites? You say you're willing to compromise, but it doesn't sound like it to me.
When I was ten I wrote a list a bit like this. It started out with "must have brown eyes" and pretty much ended up with "must have been born in Liverpool on 18 June, 1942 and be called Paul McCartney". I scrapped the list and waited another couple of decades before trying again.
This time, I was slightly more flexible and, I must admit, writing down what I was looking for definitely helped me recognise the right man when I finally met him. But in the intervening years I'd actually learned something – like how it doesn't matter if he prefers dark chocolate to milk (Miss NY's Point 36), because if you like milk and he likes dark, you'll never argue over the chocolate box. It's called complementing each other.
Miss NY is hurtling towards middle age, but she's still stuck in a ten-year-old's mindset. She never mentions her hopes, fears or beliefs; she's more interested in clothes, mobile phones and Facebook.
Perhaps, eventually, she'll find a man. I just hope, for his sake, he knows to "PUT the lid DOWN. Animals have better manners than most men" and that "toilet paper must go over, NEVER under, when placed in the dispenser". Because in Miss NY's world, that way madness lies.
