Upon entering college, I've found myself in the middle of an unfamiliar situation: one in which people my age, girls and boys alike, search desperately for a romantic companion, for varying lengths of engagement. I admit that I, too, have searched for a romantic partner in the past, but not at all with the determination and rigor that my friends put themselves through. So I decided to reevaluate my poor, lonely situation. And I found the answer to be quite blunt.

I want a husband.

I want a husband whose attraction rests not on his looks (which would probably be endearing to me nonetheless), but on his intelligence, compassion, and integrity. Because let’s face it, we’re both going to get old one day. I would hope that he would, in turn, love me for more than what he would consider my good looks, as nothing scares me more than a future full of anti-wrinkle cream and devoid of sweatpants.

I want a husband who will support me financially and emotionally. But only if he can. To be honest, I’d settle for just emotionally. I can figure out finances. I am in college looking for a career, after all.

I want a husband who will listen to my ideas and give me honest advice. I have friends who will sometimes offer me a compliment now and then, but I don’t think that’s enough. I want someone who will know me well enough to give me valuable insight into my next project, or actually read my writing and give me feedback, or let me know whether or not it’s a good idea to microwave ice cream to make it softer.

I want a husband who will cuddle with me at night when it gets cold. Other bedroom activities would probably be okay too, but cuddling is the most important. What if the heater turns off in mid-December? You can’t just rely on a friend to lend you their body heat for a night. This would be an important duty left solely to my husband.

I want a husband who will understand that housework isn’t just meant for the woman. When I was a child, my sister and I shared a room. If I played with Legos and left them all over the floor, it wasn’t just her job to pick them up. It was made very clear to me (by mother and sister alike) that since the room was made messy by the both of us, both of us would help in cleaning it up. The only exception would be if one of us was a robot with no desires, dreams, career, or life, and only an insatiable desire to please its master. Good thing, then, that my husband would have a wife and not a robot. I’ve heard that it’s exceptionally hard to keep warm at night while sharing the bed with a hunk of cold metal.

I want a husband to share in the trivialities of day-to-day work with. It does seem fair that since we both help with our house’s upkeep, we should both have interesting stories to tell of our respective careers while doing it.

I want a husband who will be just as comfortable on his own as he is with me. Co-dependency and bettering each other are wonderful things, but clinginess and boring personalities are not. I mean, what if I have to go to Scandinavia for a month to study the mountains? (This hypothetical situation is, of course, just as likely as this hypothetical person.) Will he be distraught upon my departure, and simply sit around the house when I’m gone, only the shell of the person he once was? I couldn’t permit someone to sign their life away to me in this way. I would like my husbands as I like my pistachios—shells, yes, but with substance.

I want a husband who won’t base his love for me on how often I text him, whether or not we both like the same food, or whether or not I decide to shave my legs. (Unless, of course, he can provide me a logical, critically thought-out argument on why I must drag a razor across the sensitive skin of my legs every other day, while he doesn’t have to.)

I want a husband who will talk of children not like trophies or goals or even a necessity, but as lives that we will share responsibility in raising, teaching, nurturing, loving, and lending $20 to so that they can go see a movie. I also want someone who will agree not to plaster their walls with those tacky peel-off stickers of flowers or trains or fictional characters. I would much rather spend a week doing the job right by painting them by hand with my husband, and besides, those things come off anyways. Give it a month.

I want a husband who will respect me for who I am—not simply as a woman, or a wife, or a lover but as another human being with dreams and a life just as spectacular and colorful and complex as his. Likewise, I would give my husband this same respect in all regards.

I want a husband who will respect my children, approach problems with a level head, and seek to understand their perspectives, treating them not like anything less than what they are—humans too.

I want a husband who likes cats. After spending enough time with the possibility of becoming a crazy cat lady hovering over my head, I’ve grown quite fond of the felines.

I suppose, after all this consideration, I’ve lost my title of “the single friend”. I am now “the single and okay with it friend”. I mean, relationships are great and all, but when faced with such a lofty idealization, who could want anything less than the best?

(I’ve started coming up with a list of cat names, just in case my “single and okay with it” title becomes permanent after this introspection.)

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This article is modeled after the essay "I Want A Wife" by Judy Brady. A link to the essay is included here: http://www.columbia.edu/~sss31/rainbow/wife.html