This is difficult.......

It seems lately that everyone around me is getting exactly what I want. It feels like quite a few of the people I know are either finding that special someone or are finally discovering that that person was there all along. It's not that I'm not happy for my friends, or that I don't want them to be happy. It's just that I want something like that too. It's hard not to be at least a little envious, a little jealous.

Finding that person isn't happening for me, though. Everytime I think I've found someone I could really like, whose company I really enjoy, and who I could see myself spending absolutely ridiculous amounts of time with, it never seems to work out the way I wish it would. And I am at a complete loss as to why that is.

It had gotten to the point that I thought maybe I was just looking for and paying attention to the wrong type of man. So, I decided that, for a few months, I'd just consider every man I met as someone with "potential." And I do mean everyone. Even the ones who seemed unlikely. Even the ones that were the polar opposite of everything I thought I wanted. This little experiment proved something to me. I wasn't wrong about what I want. I know this because even though I could see good qualities that I'd previously ignored in men I wouldn't normally give a second thought to, it was still the same things as always that really made me sit up and take notice.

Namely: high intelligence, creativity, sarcastic humor, the ability to make me laugh, very liberal political views, an independence from religion (or at least not requiring me to believe), a strong love of music, art and literature, being easy to talk to, a playful nature, being able to rationally disagree without demeaning another's views, and a sense of fairness.

Ok, so I obviously know what I want. So, why then, when I find a man that possesses most of these qualities, does nothing ever come of it?