We All Just Date The Same Person Over And Over

What's your type? Apparently we are all meant to have one as this question is chimed all over the world from friend to friend, lover to lover, dater to datee. But why do we have to have, "a type"? Can't we just feel it out as we go along? Maybe NOT having a type is, in many ways, better.

When asked, "so, what do you look for?" has anyone ever given a truly honest answer to this? Surely most people respond with something along the lines of,
"Well, someone who I'm attracted to, who can make me laugh, intelligent, polite, easy to get along with..."
SNORE! It's the generic answer. If we were being honest this list might instead include traits such as, "not a wanker", "amazing in bed", "won't decide every night, that seeing friends is better than seeing me", "someone I can introduce to my judgemental friends with a sense of ease". No. Pretty, smart and funny will apparently suffice.

The people who live up to these traits seems to be...well...everybody. I am yet to have a friend describe to me the new boy/girl in their life as, "he/she is a fat, ugly dickhead, who's as sharp as a spoon and the only one laughing at their own jokes". Thinking about it though, I'd be rather interested to meet them if they were described to me in that way.  Anyway, that aside, my point here is that all of these traits are very much up to interpretation. That is to say - every partner of my friends I have had described to me has not, by any means, been the attractive, intelligent, hilarious person they were made out to be in the advertisement to me.

But despite the inevitable clichés in the response to the question of, "what's your type?" Maybe it would be better if we didn't have any sort of pre-conceived ideas of what our future mate is to be like. I come to this conclusion for a couple of reasons:

1) It means that, without noticing, we could be writing people off right from the get-go without giving them a second thought when, who knows, it COULD have led to something more.
2) If we are in the position of having to wonder "who's my type", I think it's safe to say that you are therefore single. Most single people have been in a relationship before, but for whatever reason - these have failed. Maybe, due to the ideas we all have about what makes a suitable mate - we are choosing the same type of person over and over and over again. Maybe, just maybe, this is why the relationships keep failing.

Is it possible that due to the ideas we already have about who we want to date, that we are just dating the same person over and over. The same guy/girl, just in a different, new, shiny wrapper. Without changing any of our specifics are we getting involved in a relationship time and time again that is just doomed?

I myself have probably been guilty of doing this. From the offset, I have been told by a lot of people that I am "too picky". I tend to automatically (embarrassing to admit), skip over the guys that I don't think are amazingly attractive. Shallow? Maybe, but my view is - the initial attraction has to be there. If you don't have the want to see them naked - what's the point?

But beyond that, I seem to have a pretty clear picture in my head of what I would like any future boyfriend to look like. But why? It's not worked before so why should it work this time around.

I'm not saying that we should all date that creepy guy who seems interested but who looks about as appealing to date as Berlusconi. I am however saying that maybe we should broaden our horizons. Maybe we shouldn't write people off as soon as we realise they don't fall into the usual crowd that we tend to go for. It could turn into a beautiful beautiful thing...or it could crash and burn. Either way - we won't know until we try.

P.S. Totally off-topic, but I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas yesterday :)