Here's something to start you thinking.
I'm going to give you a list of 10 qualities that a person might have. Let's see who will be truthful, and tell us which of these would be the most desireable traits in someone you would like to MARRY. Rank these, beginning with the MOST important.
Good looking
Rich or good income
Great body
Intelligent
Good sense of humor
Good dancer
Honest/trustworthy
Tall/short
Smoker/non-smoker
Drinker/non-drinker
So, to be fair, I guess I'd better go first: Intelligent, honest, good sense of humor, tall, good income, non-smoker, drinker, great body, good looking, good dancer.

All right, who has the guts to go next?

Anyone want to add to the list? (only important qualities)

Nonsmoker
Intelligent
honest
sense of humour
great body
tall(hard to be shorter than me at 5ft)
Drinker
good looking
good income
good dancer

Oo I just listed all mr rabbit's top qualities:twisted:

Good sense of humor
Honest/trustworth
Intelligent
Good dancer
good income
What else would a person need?

Patience is also a great quality to have if you plan on having kids. There's only so many times you can grin and say, "Sweetie, I don't think your sister likes being splashed" before it becomes "Cut it out already!".

nice
caring
thoughtful
fun to be around
someone you can talk to
a friend
nonsmoker
looks help, but they dont matter much to me
understanding
trustworthy

Here are some i keep wishing i hadn't overlooked:

not a neat freak
someone that can sleep without an air conditioner blaring through the night
someone that is not obsessed with her hair

otherwise i'm quite happy with my spouse. :razz:

A pulse. Definite bonus having one of those.

Over 90

lottery winner

no kids

health problems

excellent life insurance

no sex drive

Edit: honest I am joking:razz:

Honest/trustworthy
Intelligent
Good sense of humor
Smoker/non-smoker (non-smoker, one of my big pet peeves is bad habits)
Drinker/non-drinker (see above)
Great body
Rich or good income
Good looking
Good dancer
Tall/short

Honest/trustworthy
non-drinker
Good sense of humor
Tall/short
Intelligent
non-smoker
Good looking
Rich or good income
Great body
Good dancer

empathetic
kind

can i slap the people that did not read the whole original post? LOL

I'm loving these answers, even if they aren't following the original list. I DID, after all, say that it was OK to add to the list. I'm noticing one important thing, nobody picked "good looking" as the most important trait, yet the good looking ones are the ones who get the most attention...something to think about. And, Bad manner$ and Jewels...HAHAHAHA!!!!

OK then FTM
Out of the original list Pootsie posted:
1. Honest/trustworthy
2. Intelligent
3. Good sense of humour

The rest are not important. Marriage last a long time, and things like income, looks, smoking/non, drinking/non change over time.

AND I will add, again:
4. Empathetic
5. Kind

Saph
xx

nobody picked "good looking" as the most important trait, yet the good looking ones are the ones who get the most attention...something to think about.
Yes! MrFacey is very popular with the ladies, lots of flirting goes on. It is very difficult to cope with sometimes. There are women who only talk to him and not me. I know his flirting is so harmless but that doesn't make it any easier to cope with!

I'll think about the list, come back and edit :smile:

Good looking 7
Rich or good income 6
Great body 8
Intelligent 3
Good sense of humor 2
Good dancer 10
Honest/trustworthy 1
Tall/short 5
Smoker/non-smoker 4
Drinker/non-drinker 9

I think sense of responsibility should be there too, that would score high for me.

I'm noticing one important thing, nobody picked "good looking" as the most important trait,

Well that is about to change, before you all call me shallow hear me out.


personally Im surprised by how low good looking rated on the posts so far, either everyone is telling fibs, or maybe I am shallow.(don't think I am)



Unless the first contact with your new partner is via the internet or telephone, the first thing you see is them, their looks/appearance.

Lets say you are at a dinner party you have a member of the opposite sex sitting either side of you, both seem friendly, caring good sense of humour, good personality, yet 1 is alot more attractive to you, throughtout the evening they both ask to you dance, which one do you go for ?

Note good looking is in the eye of the beholder, beauty to 1 may be beast to another.

This thread is about how we rate whats important to us in our/a spouse, well to have a spouse that includes sexual contact, and surely dispite having good personality, kind caring etc, surely as humans we have to be sexually attracted to our mate in the visual department, and in my eyes to be sexually attracted to someone I have to find them good looking (my tastes in good looking will probably be different to yours and vice versa)

Good looking doesn't have to be drop dead gorgeous, but pleasing enough for both partners so there is good chemistry there.

I personally find my spouse ( in my eyes) a good looking guy, as we are getting older ( like all of us) wrinkles, in time prob grey hair will appear, poss weight gain etc but that won't change the fact of the attraction.

I hope I have made herself clear here, so you all realise why i'm putting good looking as my number 1.

Good looking
Honest/trustworthy
Good sense of humor
Good dancer
Intelligent
Tall/short
Rich or good income
Great body
Smoker/non-smoker
Drinker/non-drinker


edit: after reading my views, if you still disagree with me, go easy on me :razz:

If many of you disagree with me, please first check that you haven't been one to post on the eye candy thread.:embarrassed:

I think 'good looking' and 'attractive' can be two different things. In the first few seconds you meet someone, you can find them good looking but you wouldn't make wedding plans based on that. Sometimes the second they open their mouth, you find them to be yobbish, or rude, or something, and so they are no longer attractive. Or you could meet someone who doesn't look so special, but who has something about their personality which shines through, and they end up looking attactive to you. You always end up seeing the person under the skin, and judging how attractive they are on that.

That's why I never chose 'good looking' for one of my top qualities in a man, cause for me it doesn't really describe the furture attraction very well. Jewels is, of course, perfectly right when she says that it's just human nature to go for someone you find attractive, but sometimes that just isn't the same as being good looking.

Lol does anybody care if a prospective bf/gf is a good dancer??


I agree that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and that you must find something about them "attractive" in the first few minutes of a meeting, however...
I met mr BunE via a mobile chat site and we had nevre "seen" each other in a pic or in real life until we met after 5 weeks of chat. By that time I liked him so much that he could have looked like Quasimodo and I still would have found him attractive because I found his personality attractive. (luckily the "chemistry" was also there when we met and so it went further)

I'm noticing one important thing, nobody picked "good looking" as the most important trait, yet the good looking ones are the ones who get the most attention...something to think about.

That's probably why I'm single. Not good looking enough. Hehe
/me chuckles XD

personally Im surprised by how low good looking rated on the posts so far, either everyone is telling fibs, or maybe I am shallow.(don't think I am)
Good looking doesn't have to be drop dead gorgeous, but pleasing enough for both partners so there is good chemistry there.

I'm actually struggling with this list, lol. Am I the only one?
Looks are important to me, I won't deny that. But not so much if someone is on the same page as me in religion, personality, etc and isn't the most good looking person in the world. But yes, there needs to be some sort of desirable attraction there. How can you be with someone if you don't desire their looks? Well, that is possible, but for me, I'd need that chemistry.

Personally, I'm finding it hard to play this game, 'cause I find that each person is different (when you meet a guy), and in each person you see something different. And based on that, your ordering would differ too. Maybe I've just lost the plot, lol. That's not to say that I don't know what I want in a guy, 'cause for sure I KNOW what I want. Maybe this would be easier if I had a spouse at the moment, I'd tell you what I see in that person in what order.

But an example of things differing is this:
I met one guy who was incredibly sweet, nice personality, good looking and I was attracted to him too. But his job was so... it was a desirable job, very rewarding, etc. But required him to stay away from home a lot, and there would be NO WAY for me to be with him for half a week. I personally felt I wouldn't be able to deal with this in the long run. I just had to be realistic in who I am as a person and how much I'd want my spouse to be around me. I think that was just too much time away, per week. So in that one case, the job issue was important to me. Whereas normally, I'd mentally put a job down as the less important things - so long as he's got a job and is hard working I'd normally not care. But in that one case, I did.

Wow, I can waffle.. but hopefully that explains why I was struggling with a list, lol. But on a general note, a good personality (all around), being religious and being attracted to the person are important for me.

Edit: Being able to dance is not important to me whatsoever. lol, I can't even dance, XD

Lol does anybody care if a prospective bf/gf is a good dancer??



Edit: Being able to dance is not important to me whatsoever. lol, I can't even dance, XD
wow this thread has certainly opened up a bit.

Re: dancing, I did rate it high, 4th I think, thats because I love to dance, and having a spouse that can dance too means we can share our interest together (plus 1 way of keeping us fit ). Also if he wasn't a good dancer or didn't like to dance, I would feel pretty loney on a dance floor on my own :sad:


edit: I'm not that good at dancing, thats why I rated it high, as if your partner can dance they can carry you through.


/me thinks she may have watched the film DIRTY DANCING too many times as a teenager.

personally Im surprised by how low good looking rated on the posts so far, either everyone is telling fibs, or maybe I am shallow.(don't think I am)


LOL Jewels, I doubt anybody thinks you're shallow!

The original post was desirable traits in someone you want to marry, so I guess I assumed you knew the person already...

If the post was about what attracted you to someone when you first met them, then, yes, the 'good-looking' (subjective as it is) would have ranked in there for me, too.

I didn't actually think my husband was good-looking when I first met him - I thought he looked...interesting...perhaps he was just emitting the right pheremones.

Anyway, I stand by my isk quote:
"I do not love you because you are beautiful. You are beautiful because I love you...":smile:


If many of you disagree with me, please first check that you haven't been one to post on the eye candy thread.:embarrassed:

Hehehe. er.....isn't eye candy just eye candy, not potential marriage material? um....not that I've looked at that thread of course....:rolleyes:

My list is very long.. so.. er.. I'll cut it short
*ahem
most important to least:
--trustworthy
--funny
--kind
--smart
--modest
--eyes/smile/charm
--not a jealous type

I had no time to answer this the other day. I feel I need to defend picking "a good dancer" as one of my choices. Where to start...

If someone can get up and dance it shows confidence and comfort with who they are. It shows they can have fun even if they don't think they are the best dancer. There are different types of dancing. I don't mean knowing how to ballroom dance or clearing the floor and having everyone watch type of dancing. Dancing can take many forms beyond those. Dancing allows an emotional intimacy with the person you are dancing with. We all remember watching a scene in a movie where the director has the characters dance and the room falls away.
Dancing to me means, the person I am dancing with wants to be near me, would rather be right here right now than anywhere else. Dance is also a celebration. Dance spans all ethnic, cultural and religious realms. It is expression in a purer form. Perhaps a better choice would have been for me to say a dancer rather than a "good" dancer. As, like so many of the other choices, "good" would be in the eye of the beholder or more correctly, the perceiver.

Nice points SamIamPa!! I never thought of it like that.

Excellent post Sam. I think why most people don't rate it is because a bad dancer stirs up thoughts of that really sad bloke on the dance floor at a tacky disco :biggrin: Well, it does for me anyway. I totally agree with you.