A Guide to Stop Viewing Men Through the Lens of Your Checklist

“What’s your type?”

We’ve probably all been asked this question at some point in our lives or another but for me, it began at a fairly young age.

My elementary school memories consist of my friends and I playing games like M.A.S.H. attempting to figure out what our significant others’ hair color, name, career, etc. would be (new memory, unlocked). I took the game annoyingly serious enough to where I’d avoid any boy who wasn’t brown-haired, blue-eyed, and planning on being a police officer in the future. That narrow view on boys only lasted for a few days but, still… not my proudest of moments. 

It’s easy to scoff at my past self and the great lengths I took in order to stick to my “perfect boy” ideals, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that not much has changed. Sure, the question has shifted into more of a “what do you desire in a future spouse?” but just because the question has been redeemed, doesn’t mean my answer has. I still usually respond with ‘I desire this height, this personality type, this age range, this hair color, etc.’… and with that answer in mind, I’ve approached every man I’ve met through this lens. 

The issue with this is that men are so much more than a strikethrough or a checkmark off our list of ideals in a husband. If we desire to be seen with the inherent dignity that we attain, we must also see men in the same light.

So, how can we encounter every man we meet as a gift rather than a pre-conceived expectation towards who they should be? Let’s start with the basics and examine what our lists actually look like in order to see if there’s room for revision:

#1 Revising our lists

I believe there are 2 types of lists we should each have. One of those being a list of non-negotiables and the other being a list of preferences. Let’s break these down. 

1. Non-negotiables

As Christians, we should expect much from the men in our lives because we understand the dignity we’ve been given as daughters and the call we each have to uphold this. While having an exhaustive list of external qualities can be uncalled for – in the same token, settling for anything less than this reverence towards our dignity is not a question. 

It’s noteworthy that we understand this before stepping into the whole “seeing men beyond our list of ideals” because viewing men through the lens of Christ doesn’t mean we should compromise what we deserve. 

So, I’ll make all of our lives easier by creating that list of non-negotiables that every Christian should have for their significant other:

1. Natural respect and obedience towards our boundaries
2. Strength in their faith
3. Seeing and treating us as the gifts that we are
4. A continual call for us to be holier 
5. An understanding of the virtue of chastity & a stride to live it out

Desiring and expecting these things does not make us picky.  We, as women, hold the responsibility to call men on to a higher standard! And at the end of the day, you are NOT asking for too much by doing this. 

B) Preferables

Though we’re called to love everyone we encounter, we’d be lying if we said we meshed perfectly with every single human on this planet. Because of this, it’s necessary that we also have our own personal list of qualities that’ll help us thrive in a relationship with a person. I like to call this a list of “preferables”. These differ from our “non-negotiables” because we understand that without these, a holy relationship would still be possible – even if boy A and girl B are not the most compatible. 

In order to get into the proper headspace and avoid diving into an endless pit of qualities we require men to have, we can start with this question: Highlighting the qualities above (the non-negotiables), ask yourself, is it truly important for this person to be a ‘hiker-type who wears a man bun, listens to indie music and has scruff’? Eh, as attractive as that sounds – probably not. 

Our list of preferences should help lead each other into healthy complementarity with another, not lead us into superficial judgment. 

A personal preference of mine is the quality of timeliness because I value promptness with my whole heart (kinda weird, I know). Would it be possible to in fact date someone who doesn’t have this trait and still continue to lead each other to holiness? Absolutely. Again, the whole point of a personal list is to aid in the ease of your relationship, but also to realize if they don’t possess this quality – this could mean that there’s room for each of you to grow. i.e I can grow in patience and he can grow in discipline. 

Here’s a quick examination that you can take with you as you create your own list of “preferables”:

1. Why is it important to you that they possess this trait? 
2. Is your desire for this trait pure of heart? Is the Lord asking YOU to grow in something? 
3. Are you viewing men who don’t possess these traits as less than?

#2 Understanding flaws

Great! Now that we’ve got our lists of non-negotiables and preferables down, let’s get into what we’re all here for: 

The truth is that we’ll encounter men who won’t possess any or some of the above (personal) qualities. Does this mean we should kick them to the curb and succumb to our culture’s stance on how to solve any boy problem by ✨ ghosting✨  them? As Michael Scott from the office puts it… “No! Gosh! Please, NO!” Let me explain…

A huge product of being raised in the Hallmark and Disney era is that we’ve been brought up to believe that love = perfection. We’re over-saturated with the belief that love should be easy and require minimal effort because “fate” will handle the rest.

Unfortunately, this isn’t what actual love looks like. Love is a choice. It can look like continual correction, second, third & fourth chances, forgiveness, many difficult discussions but ultimately – it’s coming into full acceptance with the fact that no human is perfect and that we need to be patient with each other’s flaws. 

Now, this doesn’t excuse things like infidelity, lust, pornography consumption, etc. because these are more than just “flaws” and require the person to be single and work on these patterns of sin. 

So, the next moment that you find yourself overanalyzing all of the traits a man doesn’t have – be reminded of the call to mercy. 

#3 Enter into friendship

We live in a society that downgrades the beauty of friendship and in turn, views it as a mechanism to escape the intentionality needed when not romantically interested in a person (AKA the friend-zone). The problem with this is that we’ve correlated friendship with punishment. A penalty towards a person who doesn’t fulfill all of our “wants” is not just; friendship should be viewed as a reward, not a consolation prize.

We are called to fall in love with everyone we meet. Whether that be platonically or romantically – it doesn’t make the love any less valuable. Entering into an authentic friendship rather than holding the almost instinctual resentment towards a person for not being “perfect” is the exact remedy needed in order to truly see men in the light that they deserve.

You’d be surprised by all of the beauty you’ll find in someone when you stop viewing them as potential suitors but instead as human beings with passions, goals, dignity, humor, and the list of all of the beautiful qualities they attain… that’s the list that goes on.