Brae. A gay woman's tale!

As part of my quest to be less lazy regarding finding a relationship I joined plenty of Fish today .. as part of it a personality test is taken … this is what mine said … 

Self-Confidence

As someone with high self-confidence, you feel quite comfortable interacting with other people. Indeed, you find the company of others very stimulating and enjoy meeting new people. Your relaxed demeanor in groups makes people around you comfortable too. Perhaps because you feel comfortable talking about yourself, others tend to enjoy being around you and perceive you as socially competent. 

The confidence that helps you feel comfortable talking to people also spills into your own personal beliefs about yourself. Although you have several strengths, it’s likely that you also acknowledge and accept your weaknesses. But unlike some people, you take full responsibility for your actions—you rarely regret things you’ve done in the past and are not embarrassed easily. 

Perhaps the defining feature that sets you apart from most people is the exceptionally high standards that you set for yourself. Your competence in social gatherings as well as at work should provide ample evidence for this. With these characteristics, it’s very likely that people come to you for advice and generally think of you as someone with leader-like qualities. 

Family Orientation

As someone low in family orientation, you’re not sure whether raising children and developing a family is what you want out of life. If you already have children, you enjoy spending time with them, but may feel somewhat constrained by the stress of being a parent and wish to “cut-loose” more often than you may be able to. If you don’t have children, you’re probably not very sure whether you desire having any in the future. Or, perhaps you’re not ready to settle down into a serious relationship just yet. 

It’s not necessarily that you are opposed to the idea of having a family, it’s just that you’re not convinced that the domestic lifestyle is for you. This sentiment is illustrated by the fact that you don’t particularly enjoy doing things around the house—like cooking and entertaining guests. Instead, you tend to prefer eating out at restaurants and going to clubs and parties. It’s possible that in time you might prefer spending more time at home as you may eventually grow tired of late nights out. However, your voracious appetite for excitement might make staying at home on a weekend night unappealing. 

One thing in particular that sets you apart from more family oriented people is that you tend to be expressive and tend to make your frustrations known to others. In addition, you tend to appreciate spending time with other people and work well with others. In fact, you very much enjoy getting things done, and by attending to familial issues while continuing to get your work done you may find settling down in a traditional romantic relationship stressful and unpleasant.

Self-Control

The self-control personality dimension captures the way in which a person regulates and directs him or herself. Being low in self-control can be both good and bad. Occasionally people may be compelled to follow their intuitions and give in to their temptations, and your degree of self-control makes this likely to happen more often than not. This can be good in circumstances where being relaxed and open are important. However, in situations where it is necessary to be focused and careful, you might find that you do or say things that may be inappropriate. 

As someone who exerts little control over your actions, you may find that you commit social blunders that might offend other people and get yourself in trouble. For example, if you’re given responsibility to work on a project that requires close attention to detail, you may be likely to overlook important details because you have difficulty staying focused. Consequently, you might feel more comfortable delegating such tasks to other people who are more detail oriented. Being able to recognize such characteristics in yourself and having more detail-oriented people do such tasks could be an effective way to manage your own stress level. 

Low self-control may diminish your effectiveness at work. Acting too relaxed can make it difficult for you to focus on projects that require organized sequences of steps or stages. Thus, your ability to accomplish may be inconsistent. Indeed, it’s possible that you might be criticized periodically for being unreliable or unable to “stay within the lines.” Nonetheless, you may still experience many short-lived pleasures and never be thought of as boring.

Openness

As someone high in openness, you have a strong appreciation for beauty, both in art and nature. Indeed, it’s likely that you are easily absorbed in music and art, as well as natural phenomena. Another aspect of your openness is your emotional insight; that is, you probably have good access to and awareness of your own emotions. 

Another aspect of the openness dimension is the tendency to think about abstract concepts and ideas. This thinking style may take the form of artistic and metaphorical use of language, and/or music composition or performance. Thus, it is likely that, either in your work or spare time, you enjoy activities that get your “creative juices” flowing. 

Your tendency to be open-minded can have advantages and disadvantages. For instance, when there are no clear rules about how to approach a particular problem, your openness makes it easier for you to identify new ways to solve problems that might not be very obvious to people that are not as open as you are. In contrast, you may be bored easily in situations that lack high amounts of intellectual stimulation. In such cases, you might have difficulty excelling on projects that do not provide much stimulation or require much creative thinking.

Easygoingness

Easygoingness refers to one’s ability to relax. Based on your score, you appear to “take things as they come” and enjoy having a good time. However, being high in easygoingness also has the potential to produce stress in a number of ways. For example, you may find it difficult to complete tasks thoroughly and efficiently. In this way, being high in easygoingness cannot only make your life difficult, but also the lives of the people around you. Another potential problem with being too high in easygoingness is that it can provide you with gratification in the short-term, but in the long-term provide undesirable consequences. 

High easygoingness, even when not seriously destructive, may also diminish your effectiveness at work, for example. You may find it aversive and difficult to put in all the effort that may sometimes be needed to effectively accomplish certain tasks. For this reason, your colleagues might view you as forgetful and unfocused.

How does your personality affect your love life?

Given the strong degree of confidence that you have, it’s no surprise that you get along well with most people. Indeed, it’s self-confidence that allows people to feel comfortable interacting with others without feeling insecure and vulnerable. For this reason, you shouldn’t have much difficulty in romance, at least not initially. Your social skills will likely help relieve any anxiety your romantic partners might have on those first few dates. However, over time, the high standards that you have for yourself could potentially frustrate your partner. 

As someone who enjoys the excitement of a night on the town and is uncertain about the prospects of settling down in a serious romantic relationship, you would probably be most satisfied in a relationship with someone that shares these qualities. For this reason, you would probably be quite content in a romantic relationship with someone who also enjoys going out to parties and staying-up late at night. Finding yourself in a relationship with someone that wants to cultivate a family in the near future may lead to eventual conflict in the relationship due to different life aspirations.

Because you are more relaxed than most people, you’re probably attracted to most people. However, your free-spirited nature might make being in a relationship with a person that is more rigid than you difficult because you might perceive the person as being too uptight and controlling. For this reason, you may ultimately be most satisfied in a relationship with someone that is shares your level of self-control. 

Your openness probably makes it easy for you to respect and appreciate people that are different from you. However, when it comes to romantic relationships, your openness might make it difficult for you to tolerate people that cannot appreciate diversity as much as you. Therefore, you may be happiest in serious relationships with people that share your open-mindedness. But, your openness might occasionally cause a certain degree of dependency on your end because you may be so open that you easily adopt the preferences and habits of your partners and gradually relinquish things that make you so unique.

Well .. I’ve decided to get back in the saddle (as it were!) and join a couple of online dating sites.

I was taking some time out .. and have found myself getting less and less inclined to meet someone .. I have become lazy, making excuses that my life is too busy etc etc …. when in reality I just could not be bothered with it all.

I had a friend come round last night and over a few cups of tea (honest .. no alcohol was involved) we both seemed to be in exactly the same place .. happy with our lives, pressures of work and in no hurry to meet anyone.

I am a bit cynical about a relationship now .. and I know that I am going to have to do a pretty big mind shift if and when I do meet someone.     However, I think I am prepared to that for the right woman … easy to say, I know and I think I must be infuriating to date as I do not fall in love easily and until I do I am not particularly romantic, kind yes .. romantic no.

I know exactly what I want and maybe I am too much of stickler to the criteria .. but I have compromised on what I wanted before and it didn’t work … I do not want to do that again.

What I want is a woman who is independent, a woman who has a life and would not rely on me for her happiness, a woman who is happy to compromise at times and who can show me her love rather than just mouth the words.   She has to be kind, an animal lover and not to expect me to do all the running around.  I simply won’t.

Most of all, she has to make me laugh, give me peace and understand that sometimes I have to have time on my own to recharge my batteries and my brain.   Someone who will not make great demands on me and who wants to walk beside me as an equal, not to be mothered or cared for.   I also do not want a family.   If someone has grown children, great .. but there is no way I want to raise a child when I am in retirement.

Too much to ask for .. probably … but I will be happier on my own than to compromise any of this.

Let’s see ….   but don’t go buying a hat yet ….

A story, a chapter, a paragraph… a sentence.

In the end we will all be one of these to someone.