I'm such a chick. Honestly I am a complete sucker for a good old fashioned love story. I'm not huge on my friends telling me about the unmentionable things they have done to a guy whos name they don't remember. That tends to not sit right with me, but when I hear a story of someone falling in love and they tell you how it grew over time, and now they feel that person is part of them. I'm a sucker. There's just something about that feeling, and hearing someone that has fell in love, it means it is possible, just. It's not easy though, even when you are in love, but the best things never are. It's what makes them so worth while in the first place!
Let me introduce you to Jennifer Cox. A travel writer, who is extremely good at her job. In fact, she put everything into her job, which lead to other parts of her life not getting the attention it may of needed. She basically got tired of falling for all the wrong guys. Her relationship of five years fell apart when she found out that he had cheated on her for most of it. She tried everything to keep him happy, and interested. It just wasn't enough for him. He sounded like a keeper to me! Anyway she reached the brave decision, that she was going to search the world, and when I say the world, I mean the world for her Mr Right. The guy who makes her heart stop, and makes her feel happy beyond belief. What every girl wants right?
"I was 100 percent sure of that," Cox was saying Tuesday afternoon in Seattle. "I never doubted that for a single moment. There was no reason for me to be that convinced -- it's not like I'm stunningly good looking -- but I believed I had hit upon a universal truth in human life. My successful job had been my real relationship, so if I made finding a partner my full-time job, then it was bound to happen. And travel had always brought wonderful things into my life."
This would become the best seller in Britain "Around the World in 80 dates". Her search for the perfect man. She used her contacts from her already extensive travelling to find men who were looking for the same thing. I mean we all know at least one person who would be up for that, don't we? This wasn't about having a bunch of one night stands, this was a serious search for the man of her dreams, and she was going to prove she would go to the ends of the earth to find him.
"If I was just looking for sex, I could have stayed in London; it's easy for a woman to find a casual relationship," the 39-year-old writer says. "I wanted, very literally, the opposite of that. I wanted to take the time to have a real relationship. Besides, I am too shy about being naked with a stranger. I also knew that if I let that happen, I would feel incredibly confused and disappointed in myself. You need your self-esteem and self-respect if you're going to date 80 men when everyone else is teasing you about it. I knew I was doing the right thing."
This trip took alot of organising. First of all she had to decide which men she would date and where. She had to organise flights, and hotels, it was a well planned operation. She also had to have a clear idea of what she wanted. She had her "Soul Mate Job Description" which basically described the kind of man she was looking for. She also took a long hard look at herself, and where she had failed before. Where previous relationships had gone wrong, and why. How she could improve. This is what her friends from around the world used to find her potential men.
"It wasn't long before Cox embarked upon a Soul Mate odyssey that would take her to 18 countries on four continents in the harried space of six months and cost her something in the neighborhood of $10,000, consuming all the company largesse that came her way when she quit her job as head of public relations in the British branch of Lonely Planet Publications.
The dates started with Henk in Amsterdam, moved on to Frank in Efteling, Holland, where the love seeker barely escaped with her stand against one-night stands still intact.
There was the dream date with the delectable Anders on a floating sauna in Sweden under the Midnight Sun. There was the nightmare date with Paul in Beijing, where a relaxing encounter at a foot massage place turned into unexpected wart surgery and where the flummoxed Cox was presented with the offending imperfection after scalpel removal. She promptly popped the bloody little wart into her pocket and immediately recognized that as a major faux pas in the annals of international dating."
She did find her perfect man. Date 55. It was love at first sight. There was an instant attraction that neither of them could deny. She did carry on with her dates though. She felt she had started something and had to finish it. She did finish it, but 18 months later, she is still with date 55. I guess it goes to show if you want something badly enough, you will get it.