Other People's Logic - Your RMV

This topic comes courtesy of Justin, one of my favourite people to bump into when I’m running the streets. If you live in Toronto and you don’t know about tdot.tv, head over there (after you read this post) and check it out. Thank me later.

I was watching this video this morning. I thought it was interesting, it certainly made my head spin a bit, but I had another post for today in mind so I filed it under pending blog posts and went about my business. But my mind just kept running back to it so I figured the universe was trying to tell me to write about it today.

For whatever reason I wasn’t able to embed the video in here so I’ll give you the highlights. It’s called “Why You Must Know your RMV Before Dating”. Your RMV is your “relationship market value” – all my business majors can understand that one. Basically the idea is that you must first assess what you are (note that – what you are, not who you are) before you can assess what you want in a partner. Are you a fatty? Then you have no right expecting to land a man who is in shape. Do you have a successful career? Then yes, you may have a financially stable man. Do you have kids? Yes? Then no you may not have an unencumbered man. And on and on she goes.

Now let me be fair and say that she’s not as harsh as I’m making her sound. She does say, quite rationally, that if you are a couch potato and you’re looking for Mr. Universe 2009 there will be a disconnect.  “He values physical fitness and you don’t”. Reasonable enough, right? But there’s something about this whole concept that offends me. It’s the…commercialization of relationships, I guess. All this emphasis on what we are and what we have and what we can rationally expect our partners to be and have just makes me sad. It doesn’t leave much room for organic attraction, does it? If we all approach dating this way, where will we ever find another King Edward and Wallis Simpson? Another Romeo and Juliet? Those are kind of overblown examples, but you get what I mean.

Now if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you should be calling me a hypocrite right now. And it’s true that I don’t know many people who have more rules, guidelines, and codes for dating than I do. But in my defense, none of them have much to do with how a man looks on paper. 

Case in point: A few months ago I was chatting with a girlfriend about a man I had my eye on. The first three questions she asked me were what he does for a living, does he have a car, and whom does he live with? My answers? I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know. I don’t ask those questions because I don’t see what real relevance they have to my life at the beginning of a relationship.  What is relevant to me is the intangible things; does he have manners (always my first question!), is he funny, is he smart (whether he’s educated or not), does he have similar values and tastes, does he have pets? Those things matter to me and I don’t much like compromising on them. But the other stuff to me just smacks of riding someone else’s coattails. What do I need a rich man for if not to get him to buy me something? What good does a bodybuilder do me other than to lift me up and carry me around? As long as I feel that each of us can hold our on in a relationship; that we’re each contributing and trying on an equal level (and that has nothing to do with financial contribution), I think the rest of it can fall into place.

The thing about this way of thinking is this: Isn’t it just a little too easy to find a man who matches my level of education, my income level, and  lives in as nice a neighbourhood as I do but is a complete asshole? I think it’s a bit of putting the cart before the horse. What someone looks like on paper doesn’t mean much to me. I know I sure as hell don’t look good on paper and a man who subscribes to the RMV way of thinking will surely pass me by.  But he’ll be missing out.