“I would marry a “Girl With Skills” tomorrow, if one would have me. She’s patient, reliable, hard-working, and passionate about ideas. When she loves you, she loves with a special passion emanating from her joy that someone loves her for her brain, body, and soul at the same time without rejecting any of the three. She’s the woman you want to mother your children, because she patiently will run them to 21 extra-curricular activities, just so they can have a better life. Sure, you have to make sure her work-aholic tendencies or occasionally overly analytical heart don’t get the best of her. And yes, it is not fun to have her put your skills on trial, or to dispassionately analyze you. But once you pass those tests, she’s a wonderful woman to have on your side.”

By my understanding, GreekPhysique’s claim is that these types of girls don’t get asked out. Just like the “Nice Guy” is always the “friend who is so sweet” or the one you can “talk to about anything”, these “Girls with Skills” are the ones that guys like to hang out with but never ask out. Here is my question though: if I fall into this category, why do I still have guys asking me out? It’s not that I don’t have guys asking, it’s that for one reason or another, my answer is “hell no!” You’re 30 and still live at home? Uh, no. You have an AWFUL relationship with your mother? Definitely not. You can’t hold down a job (for reasons other than legitimate medical problems or some type of family emergency)? Not a chance. When I ask if you are a Christian, your answer is “Isn’t everyone who lives in America a Christian?” *buzzer sound* (Lest we forget the Steak n’ Shake Stalker incident. Thank God he never got up the guts to call. If he asked now, I’d laugh and walk away.) Or, in a lot of cases, we just aren’t compatible. He lives for rock climbing and I’m terrified of heights. He wants to be a missionary in Africa and while I love traveling, I like living in the U.S. (Most of the time.) He is *majorly* into computers and I can blog, check email, and know a tiny bit of technical stuff. Or something in our personalities conflict so that conversation is strained and awkward.

My problem is not the quantity of men. But I have standards. I have asked people I trust if they are unreasonable and the answer is always no.Ā  Are these the men that I scare off? It makes absolutely no sense to me. The strong, confident, Christian men who know how to treat a woman I scare off but the random guys on the street who yell at me from the car, they have no problem. Is it because they are used to rejection and figure “What the hell?”

I have been told by various people that I would make the perfect wife. (To which I reply “Have you seen my attempts at cooking?”) I am *definitely* not perfect. Far from it. And I don’t expect my hypothetical man to be either. If I want grace and understanding when I screw up, I better be giving it out when others do. (Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.) But that doesn’t mean that I’m willing to look past major character flaws or simple incompatibility.

So I guess my question is this: do nice guys get the incompatible girls asking them out too? Because the way my “nice guy friends” talk, they *never* get asked out. What do you all look for when you’re looking for a significant other? Would you date a ‘Girl with Skills’ or a ‘Nice Guy’? What makes or breaks a potential relationship for you?

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No, I’m not re-thinking my “I don’t see myself married” stance. Even if “Mr. Right” did come along, I wouldn’t know what to do with him. “You’re great but that whole marriage thing……”

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