Don’t Date a Guy Who Travels

I swear, this isn’t a giant personal ad for myself. I’d like to think of myself in many of the ways I talk about here but it’s just not so. I’ve admired many men who have traveled, including those in my own family, and have taken much of this from the lives of others.

I just thought that guys should get their fair shot in this whole don’t date such and such issue as well.

Don’t date a guy who travels…

Don’t date a guy who travels. He may seem exotic, interesting and different from the norm but don’t date him because his heart will never fully belong to you. His heart belongs to the people, not the places, that he has seen.

Don’t date a guy who travels because your trivial dramatic problems will not seem all that important as he’s contemplating how to change the globe, how to alleviate suffering, how to be a peacemaker.

Don’t date a guy who travels, he’ll take you places you might never have envisioned yourself going. He’ll show you the beauty and the sadness that lives in our world, he’ll teach you to rejoice in the wonder but he won’t sugarcoat the brutality.

Don’t date him, he’ll take you on a walk down the street to talk rather than on an expensive date. He’ll tell you about his travel and that’s all he’ll want to talk about, it has become an integral part of who he is and he’ll never shake it.

Don’t date him because you’ll never know fully what’s going on in his head. Unlike typical guys, he doesn’t have the “nothing box” where he doesn’t think of anything at all. He’s constantly thinking about the next step of his journey, about what he hopes to accomplish before he leaves this Earth.

Don’t date a guy who travels, he’ll never give you the house, the dog, the picket fence. He feels trapped by that idea and will rebel against the norm. His idea of settling down is defined by a lack of boundaries, not in setting them.

Don’t date him because, he won’t play games with you and won’t put up with yours. He’s lived his life by being straight forward and going for what he wants. He’s got enough confidence to take the risk of putting himself out there and he can handle disappointment.

Don’t date him, he might have a favorite sports team and may make sacrifices to watch the game, but he’ll never be “one of the guys” unless he’s with his own kind. Even then, the game will be low on the agenda list as he catches up with friends from other hemispheres.

Don’t date a guy who travels because he knows that living abroad is awesome, but not something to be glorified. There will be long layovers, stressful taxi rides, language barriers, pick-pockets, and little sleep.

Do date him, because he’ll open your eyes to new ways of thinking, to new issues and concerns, to new joys and cultures.

Date him because people and not places are his home. You will be his treasure, his prize, his love. He will be faithful to you across vast distances and time zones.

Date him because your dreams will become part of his. He’ll take joy in your independence but will be there for you when you need him to and he’ll relish the idea of being a help to you, and you to him.

Date him because he’s empathetic, but not blind to multiple sides of the story. He’s compassionate but doesn’t give his heart away to just anything. He’s spontaneous but not carefree.

Date him because there will be times when he needs to be encouraged,  when he needs to know that someone is there beside him. He’ll treasure you above all the trinkets and stories that he’s accumulated over the years.