Day 1: Five Ways to Win My Heart (Warning: Tangents Ahead)

Five Ways To Win My Heart

This list is going to be utterly ridiculous but in my dream world this is my guy.

1. Be British

            Most of the men I am in love with are British. Not that I’ve met any of them in real life, but that’s beside the point. Being British is a surefire why to win my heart. Here’s why:

·         The accent. He could be singing sweet nothings, reading a soup label, reciting poetry, telling me to run or shouting bad news and it wouldn’t make a difference if he had that sweet, sweet accent.

·         When we got married, and we would get married because he would be my true love, we would live in London, the most magical place in the world. Living in London has a lot of advantages the first of course being that it is located on an island and I have already started planning on how to fortify England should we encounter a zombie apocalypse.

(1.    Shut down all ways on and off the island if the infection has not reached England. If the infection has already arrived proceed to step 2.

(2.    Live in a castle. If however, you do not live in a castle that you’ve fortified for any and every apocalypse, gather your supplies and go to a castle that you have previously researched and picked out.

When picking out your castle imagine it being surrounded by zombies and plan accordingly. Does it have a moat? Most zombies can’t swim. How thick are the walls? How high? Does it have a draw bridge that can be lifted? Secret tunnels underneath to leave through and find food or escape through if you are overrun? What is the weapons situation? Does it have a fully stocked armory full of medieval weapons good for chopping off heads? How much square footage? What is it close to? A military base? A hospital? A supermarket? A field full of vegetables? Does it have a clean water source inside the walls not reliant on electricity, such as an ancient well? Do you see any signs of rot, mildew or crumbling stones? Answer these questions and more when searching for your perfect zombie-free hideaway.

This is a perfect example. The only bridge leading to the castle could be easily destroyed and transportation could be supplied by boats. This exact castle is just ruins inside so you would have to do quite a bit of construction to make it comfortable or you could leave it as is if you want a more rugged feel to your apocalypse. If you are on the market for a castle here is a sight that might be useful: http://www.britainexpress.com/gallery.htm?gallery=3 

And just remember not to settle, because you could be stuck there for quite a long time. 

(3.    On the way to your castle pick up any of your friends and your zombie fighting team, which you also should have picked out in advance. If you are a nice person you will stop and rescue people that you see who have not been infected. However, it’s not your job to save them. “If you weren’t smart enough to plan ahead then doom on you! Doom on you. Doom on you. Doom on you.”

If you are living in the castle already, you will have set up a system to notify your friends and zombie fighting team to make their way to the castle. Examples are: a bat signal, a flashing red light accompanied with an alarm or a phone tree.

(4.    There are other steps but that’s for another time and place. Now I will get back to the actual post which was … oh right British men. Zombies can be so distracting.

·         British men have excellent lineage. The man who steals my heart will be the utmost gentleman. He will speak as if Jane Austen was writing his words. Well groomed and tall with a slight curl to his dark brown locks. He won’t actually have to wear period style clothing all the time, but if I ever ask him to he will oblige me ungrudgingly. It will be discovered that he is the long lost son of a duke, lord or baron. Then we will live in his castle and I can easily add a moat and secret underground bunker.

·         A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words

2. Be an Excellent Cook

            I love food so it will be brilliant if he loves cooking and is good at it too. He’ll know lots of exotic recipes and we’ll go shopping for the ingredients at an open-air market. He’ll make bread from scratch and serve me breakfast in bed. We’ll go to cooking classes together, because that’s just what cute couples do. He’ll make special lunches and come deliver them to me at work. He’ll know what wines go with specific foods, which will come in handy when we have huge dinner parties with all our friends. It would be convenient if the zombie apocalypse occurred during one of these dinners, then we wouldn’t need to notify anyone. Also being a good cook will come in handy when our resources are dwindling. Just because it’s an apocalypse doesn’t mean your food has to be bland.

I didn’t really mean to bring up zombies again. It just happened. They must just be on my brain. (If you laughed at that it means you’re awesome.)

3. Be A Reader (But not necessarily well-read)

            It is an absolute MUST that he loves reading. Reading is one of the most important parts of my life. I eat, sleep and breathe books and I think that if I could, I would live in a library. However, I took a quiz on Buzzfeed recently (http://www.buzzfeed.com/ailbhemalone/how-well-read-are-you) and I had only read 19 out of the 155 books on this list! (And I may have even cheated. Did I finish Frankenstein? Did we actually read Gilgamesh in High School or just talk about it?) At first I was embarrassed because I always thought of myself as a big reader, but then I realized this is just one person’s idea of what it means to be well-read and being well-read means different things to different people. I have read a lot of books in my lifetime and even if they are not classics or Pulitzer Prize winners, they are still an important part of me. So that is why he doesn’t necessarily need to be well-read. He only needs to be a lover of books if he wants to love me as well. I don’t even care what he reads, as long as he reads. He can love biographies about long dead conquerors or books only dealing with spies. I mean it would be a plus if we shared some of the same likes (Harry Freaking Potter!) and it would be delightful if he happened to be a Shakespearean scholar who could recite Much Ado About Nothing to me whenever I like, but it’s not a requirement. He just has to read, because one day we’ll have a hammock where we’ll read and drink lemonade on beautiful summer days. Oh! And we’ll put on play readings and he’ll always participate because he knows how much theatre means to me. Also, if he loves books as much as I do he will have no qualms building me a library to rival that of Belle’s in Beauty and the Beast.

4. Be a Travel Enthusiast

            If a guy wants to win my heart he will love to travel. Being rich enough so we can travel whenever we want wouldn’t be bad either. We will want to travel to different kinds of places so we’ll never run out of ideas.

Me: Let’s go to France and eat our weight in pastries.

My Love:  We’ll go to Brazil and look for the Titan Beetle, one of the world’s largest insects.

Me: How about Thailand and ride around on elephants.

My Love: We could go to Finland and sleep in an igloo made of snow and glass.

We will go back and forth choosing our destinations. He’ll come up with places I’ve never even thought of. Being a world class traveler, he’ll always know what to do and we’ll never accidentally offend anyone. At home, we’ll have a giant map of the world and everywhere we go we’ll put a pin. In the end, it won’t matter where we go as long as we go together.

5. Be Understanding (Perhaps the most important)

            If I am ever to fall in love with someone he will not just put up with my crazy, obsessive personality, but embrace it wholeheartedly. He must never judge me for falling in love with characters in books or re-watching Mansfield Park for the millionth time. If I need to recount in minute detail an episode of Doctor Who that we watched together, he will listen and then spend the next hour dissecting it with me. He will never sneer when I read young adult novels or reread picture books from my childhood (Henry Porter’s Balloon Farm. LOVE IT). He will know that I turn into the most quarrelsome, childish, whining brat when I am sick, but he will still bring me soup or cough drops and read aloud to me. When I cry over a book, movie or even a sad commercial he will hold me and tell me that it’s okay (but NEVER that it’s just a book) and let me get tears and snot on his shirt. He’ll accommodate my outrageous number of craft supplies and never ask “Do you really need more glitter?” when we’re out shopping.

In short, he can shake his head when I start to do something stupid, but he won’t say anything too harsh, because if he loves me, he will love all of me, even the crazy, obsessive bits.

After writing this blog post I’ve decided that if these are the requirements I look for in a man, it is quite possible I will die an old maid.