I don’t know how we got here. It was supposed to be a quiet Friday with the girls but we ended up loud and tipsy before eight. We were in a deep heated conversation when this guy walked into the club and Maya tried to whisper,”Now that is my type!” He was tall and light skin and quite easy on the eyes. He was good looking but I couldn’t say he was my type.
‘What is my type?’ I asked myself wondering how this concept of ‘my type’ came to be. It took me back to that time in high school when I used to pray for my “future husband”, can you believe that? At thirteen year old should have better things to worry about than to pray for her future husband. At that age she doesn’t even know if she wants to get married let alone her type of partner and yet she was praying for her future husband. That doesn’t sit right with me. It’s like it’s drilled in us from our younger days that ladies are meant to get married and have kids. I can’t even blame my mum for this, it is societal.
Tall, dark and handsome, that’s what we used to pray for and I now believe it was hugely influenced by Hollywood. Fuck hollywood by the way because it gave us unrealistic expectations about love and relationships. It didn’t help that our parents and teachers didn’t talk to us about these things so what reference did we have, fucking hollywood! A girl is walking on her way to class then she bumps into a boy, her books fall all over the place and the boy helps her collect the books and walks her to class and they live happily ever after, so much bullshit!
Do you have a type? Looking back, I kinda did. I was going for emotionally unavailable people. That way I won’t be surprised when they left. See, the primary man in my life wasn’t there much and when he came around, he never stayed long. So, that’s what I expected. For the men in my life to always leave hence why I always went for the emotionally unavailable ones. I was guaranteed that they’ll always leave.
It is not uncommon to be drawn to a certain ‘type of person’ based on their physical traits or personality. It could be all you know. An acquaintance of mine has always had a savior complex when it comes to the guys she attracts. She always likes that she is needed which makes her feel wanted. That’s probably how she interprets love.
Our experiences play a huge role on the type of partners we are attracted to. We are always attracted to our parents in our partners even when we don’t know it. Because it’s all we know. That is the type of love we first get exposed to so we end up looking for that type of love growing up. I read about someone who stayed in an abusive relationship because that is how the relationship between her parents was. To her she interpreted the slaps and blows as love. ‘If he didn’t love me, he wouldn’t beat me’.
We all have types. The one that is easy to point out is the physical traits. The complicated one is the character traits and one may not easily know until it’s too late. The reason why I say don’t date your type is because you could be repeating the same pattern of toxic traits unknowingly. Give others a chance. Instead of focusing on the dad that was barely there why not focus on the mum who was always around.
Most times the first thing we are attracted to is the physical traits but that shouldn’t be the thing that attracts you to a partner. I came to learn to keep physical traits aside and write the top[ four things you’d want in a partner. They say, ‘do not judge a book by it’s cover’. With the same energy, just because someone isn’t tall, dark and handsome doesn’t mean they aren’t kind, honest and loving.
I challenge you today to give that person who isn’t your type a chance. You might be surprised at how much you fit in together. For me, I broke my toxic behaviour of dating emotionally unavailable men and gave a chance to someone who was emotionally available and chose to be with me wholly. This way I didn’t have a choice but to be all in and actually work on making it work. And the irony is, he’s kinda similar to my mum.
There are instances though that you should date your type. If you like women with big bodies then don’t date a petite lady and ask them to grow big and vise versa. If you want a rich man, don’t go for the broke nigga and shame him for being broke. You get the drift, right?
So this is a sign to give that person a chance. Yes, YOU!
