I seem to be having the abnormally great luck of stumbling upon every needy male in Canberra.

Notice I said, 'Male', because that is their gender. Not 'Man' because that, well it just wouldn't be true. I'm particularly fond of of men. And the concept of a man is something that is quite dear to me. I'd like a Man. A real one. One that isn't entierly perfect and isn't too nice and doesn't always open doors for me, particularly if I want to open those doors myself.

A concept that I have great difficulty describing and explaining to my girlfriends, is that of the guy who is 'too' nice. He's the guy that all your friends love and think you should be with. And he's the guy you could take to meet your mother, within an hour of meeting and know for absolute certain that she'll adore him as much as everyone else does. He's charming, in the sense that he's sweet and chivalrous and knows how to treat a girl. He's practically perfect in every single way -

...Except he has no balls.

And that is part of the problem.

In order to explain this a little better, I'll give you a quick rundown of my perfect man:
1. He's not perfect. He has some definate bad habits, like most people and is not ashamed to admit these. These habits include: Loud bodily functions, leaving the seat up, being a grumpy old git (even though he's in his 20's), being deliberately argumentative etc. The perfect man would, when giving you a rundown of his 'bad' habits would include travesties such as drinking out of the carton and having high expectations of himself. I'm sure that these can be causes of great concern for some people - I'm not one of them.
2. He doesn't push the money thing. I really, really, really can't stand that. Oh great. You'll pay for my drinks! I will now shamelessly throw myself at you! Take me, Take me now! There are some men for whom paying for things, just comes naturally. Those men are also the ones who don't talk about it. Their mothers raised them right. Because there's no point being a gentleman and doing that sort of thing, if you deem it necessary to make sure I know about it. And telling me your going to do it, will not make me any more inclined to date you. It will, instead, not only make me feel bought, but it'll start to get old...verrrry quickly.
3. He makes decisions. He makes the first move. If its moving too fast or its a move I don't appreciate, I'll say so. But every single man I've come across lately, doesn't excel at decision making. I've had to make the first move, 5 dates down the track for the past 3 men I've been seeing. Now, some would say they're shy. Ok. I just call it bad luck on my part. I can be a pretty loud, dominant sort of person. But like any girl I like a guy with a dominant side. Sometimes I want to indulge my inner social cliche and have a man who'll take control of a situation and be the Man that natural order says he should be. There are, granted, times when this also gets annoying, but a complete lack of it? -Shudder-

At the moment I'm in one of those 'THIS FEELS LIKE I'M BASHING MY HEAD AGAINST A BRICK WALL' kind of conversations with one such male. This'll take concentration...Updates soon.