He's Going to Be A Terrible Father

In high school, my softball coach told me that a batter’s only decision is not to swing. Every time the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand you should be looking for a homerun. Swing for the fence until something stops you. Apparently, I thought that would be a great idea in my dating life. Instead of getting to know a guy then developing a crush, I choose to dive in head first until I learn that he is a drug dealer…or worse, that he wears a visor.

With only a creepy observation from a far, I can calculate our compatibility. Observe:

Oh, he’s tall. That’s nice. He’s a good guy…wearing a fanny pack. Man I love a guy in a fanny pack. And TOMS. I love TOMS. Is that a precious blue-eyed child on his shoulders? I want one of those. He has blue eyes. I have blue eyes. We’re like blue-eyed soul mates…like that Carey Brother’s song. Holy schnikes, he’s playing basketball. He could coach their Little Dribbler team, since we are getting married.  Ummm hi, are those JCrew jeans? Of course they are. My soulmate only wears JCrew. He’s going to look great in that JCrew suit at our wedding where he croons the sweet sweet sounds of Bublè at me while dancing the perfectly choreographed steps of our first dace….after we read 1 Corinthians together, duh. We are Christians, it’s a given. He loves Jesus. I love Jesus. We would be the cutest married couple ever. We’re totally getting married. Three blonde children. All five of us sitting on the front pew of our church where he is an elder and we lead a married couple’s class for engaged couples because our marriage is so healthy. It’s full of great sex and deep conversation and dancing in the kitchen after a lovely meal that I have cooked, while he washes the dishes with a smile on his face in our precious house on our precious street where all of our friends live that throw great dinner parties and also have great sex and deep conversation and the wives get pedicures while the men go golfing. One day, we will drop our kids off for our anniversary and travel to Europe to backpack through Italy (with our matching fanny packs).  Gosh, he’s perfect for me. We are totally getting married.

That entire thought took about three seconds. Which is why I have mentally married upwards of 500 dudes.

But I have found the antidote to my mental marriage plague. It’s called “he’s going to be a terrible father”.  

Any time you are on the verge of falling in love with someone you met 2 minutes ago because he’s doing something super great like loving children…you can use this tactic. Simply name a terrible trait that he may or may not have out loud. It must be out loud to stop your brain from vomiting soul mate ooze everywhere. I have composed a list of some of my favorites:

-He’s going to be a drug dealer.

-He is going to get fat and wear white wife beaters.

-He doesn’t know who Mike Singletary is.

-He has tiny carney hands.

-His breath will perpetually smell like stale beer.

-He punted a puppy once.

-He blows his nose in the shower.

-His idea of a date is taking you to CiCi’s.

-He thinks Dutch Ovens at bedtime are funny…

-Once, when a child dropped a stuffed animal at his feet, he punched the kid.

-He hates Food Network.

-He has mom issues.

-He wears socks and sandals.

But seriously, he’s going to be a terrible father.