To my next boyfriend:

You must not:

• Have a girlfriend.
• Have a girl who thinks she’s your girlfriend.
• Have a psycho ex-girlfriend.
• Have a psycho friend who is a girl and would like to be your girlfriend. (And for that matter, have a psycho friend who is not a girl and would like to be your lover.)
• Have a boyfriend.
• Have any lover whatsoever.
• Be a smoker, an alcoholic, or a drug user.
• Be married. This means if you were married, you need to be completely divorced from your wife; no longer living together; having no property you share.
• Be cheap. You don’t have to buy expensive things or pay for everything all the time, but damn, I had better not be finding myself paying for all your beers while I am kicking your ass* on the Golden Tee game that I happen to be paying for, too.
• Be jealous. But who isn’t a little jealous? Just understand that I like to chat people up, but if you are paying attention to me, then I won’t stray away from you. (Example: I was out with a guy I was dating and he paid no attention to me at all, conversing solely with his pal. I was bored, so I started talking to the person next to me. I got in trouble for this. That’s utterly stupid in my opinion.) I like being social, but I like being social with the person I am out with.

You must:

• Have a car. I already dated that car-less fella, and whilst charming you may be, it gets really old to have to gather up your ass from your friend’s pad that you’ve been crashing at for the past six months.
• Be smart. But not so smart that you make me feel dumb.
• Be fun. (With me). I have dated people that are the most fun people in the world…when they are with anyone but me. Then when spending time with me, they got all serious and weird. And then they’d go out and be all fun again. Weird.
• Like Pearl Jam and movies and going to see live bands. (The live bands can be in any venue, though I prefer small ones. 930 Club is as big as I like to go.)
• Love dogs and be okay with the fact that I will pet almost every dog I come across. You must either join in the petting, or stand faithfully by as I do it. You must not make any snide comments about the heavy petting that I like to do.
• Smell yummy. I recommend Issey Miyake or one from Mont Blanc that smells awesome. But go light on the cologne. A co-worker douses himself in it and his essence remains all day. And it smells bad.
• Love my friends and my family. But that’s easy, I think.
  

* My ex would laugh at this as he regularly left me on the putting green, or swimming around a water hazard, in Golden Tee. I think I may have beat him twice.