All our lives, we ladies fantasize about “The One”. From early girlhood all the way through the 20’s, we sigh over Disney princes and the stereotypical chick-flick hunks, yearning for a romance such as those so beautifully portrayed in classics like Pride and Prejudice.

I can’t remember a time I didn’t think that Aladdin was super-cute, and I can fondly recall when I developed my first celeb-crush on Channing Tatum (I first saw him in She’s the Man. Classic.).

I don’t know about y’all, but I have a list. Yes, a list. I won’t lay every item on that list out for y’all today (maybe another time), but here’s a few of the highlights:

1. Strong Christian. Duh. And he can’t be a Christian in name only. No; he’s gotta show it in the way he talks, in his actions.

13. Tall, Dark, and Handsome. Not a must, but a desirable quality.

14. A foreign accent would be nice. Even just a nice, country, Southern accent. Accents are very attractive to me.

15. He’s gotta be able to understand my sense of humor. I’ve got a quirky kind of cynical humor, so we’ve got to be totally in-step on that.

16. He’s gotta be loyal. Completely, totally, and devastatingly loyal devotion to me and me only (with God first, naturally).

19. Intelligence and wit. I’m a fast thinker, and I like to verbally spar with people, so if he can keep up with that, then he’s a keeper.

These are just to name a few. The list goes on for quite a while, but you get the jist.

The thing is, though, when I finally started falling, the list kindof when out the window.

I didn’t care that his humor wasn’t exactly like mine. He doesn’t get all of my jokes, but he laughs anyways. I appreciate that.

I didn’t care that he doesn’t have an accent. I mean, he’s great at impersonations and adopting an accent, but no, he wasn’t born with one. Sigh.

But as I ignored the fact that he didn’t meet these items on the list, I began lowering my other pre-reqs, the necessary ones. Like loyalty. And faith.

Finally, I gave him the one thing I had promised to hold; something I had been holding in reserve for the first guy who bewitched my heart and captured my soul. My first kiss.

Not to say that it wasn’t a good first kiss; on the contrary, it was quite wonderful. I willingly gave it to him, ignoring one very important detail: The fact that he was committed to another.

Now, before you go and judge me, hear me out. He claims that he’s in an “open relationship” with the girl, that while he’s “committed” to her, he’s not at the same time. It’s all very confusing and frankly, a bit strange to me.

Now, I haven’t felt this way before, but I think that I have a problem: I’m not entirely sure, but I believe that I have begun my approach to the edge of that age-old precipice, that canyon where so many have fallen before. I feel my heart tugging, begging me, pleading with me to take that fatal last step, to go plunging into the dark unknown head-first, tumbling head-over-heels in an eternal plummet through empty air, where I can only be saved by the cushion of his requited adoration waiting for me at the bottom.

My toes dangle over the edge, but as I peer into that dark canyon, I can’t tell if he’s waiting for me at the bottom, or whether that, upon impact, my heart will shatter into a million glinting pieces of jagged glass, made sharp by the tragedy of unrequited commitment. I know that after such a dreadful cataclysm, I won’t ever quite be whole again, regardless of the dedication and tears that go into repairing that broken thing that had once been my vibrant, red heart, beating no more with the hope of tomorrow but slowly chuffing and wheezing alone, inexorably clinging to the pain of the past.

I feel like I have slipped over the precipice at the insistent urging of my heart, but I caught myself on the edge, clinging with desperate fingers to the only anchor that could save me from such devastating heartbreak. My fingers weaken, however; I never was any good at rock climbing.

I know my time is limited; my strength can only hold out for so long, and still he has not made it clear how he feels to me about me.

We dreamed of falling in love, but we never stopped to actually consider how terribly frightening that great plunge really is. And we never thought that guys would fail to consider these fears that we ladies face.

He is totally ignorant to the thin line I am walking, that I am at the brink – nay, that I am clinging desperately to find any purchase to save myself from falling. And he can’t even see that I am reaching out for an answer.

Thus, I am lead inexorably to this conclusion:

Guys are dumb.