Fatal Flaw

A friend of mine recently started dating a new guy, who is gorgeous. I mean, he is a really desperately good-looking man. He’s also funny, nice, well-mannered and doesn’t wear jeans that are too tight or skinny. All very good news.
“So, what’s his fatal flaw?” I asked her over dinner.
“He doesn’t have one!” she said excitedly, her eyes glowing with fanatical joy.
“Honey,” I said as gently as I could. “All men have a fatal flaw.”

A fatal flaw is the one thing that turns out to be a deal-breaker, unless you are so hooked on the sex/so deluded you think you’re in love/accidentally pregnant that you decide to try and keep brokering the deal.

Usually, the hotter and more perfect the guy appears, the more fatal the flaw. As examples let me cite Two-Fifty Dave, who seemed cute, interesting and successful. He was, except that on our first date at a very average coffee shop, he asked me for $2.50 to cover the cost of the coffee I’d just had.
“It’s actually $2.80, but $2.50’s fine,” he said, magnanimously.
Or Third-Date-Steve, who suggested that my refusal to have sex with him on our third date made me ‘a cock tease who expected him to buy before he tried.’

There was Alcoholic Andy, who threw up on my Agent Provocateur lingerie and filled the water glass on his bedside table with vodka, Energizer Jeff whose cocaine habit become apparent on a weekend away at a remote farmhouse and Pee-On-Me-Matt who...well, the name speaks for itself really.

My girlfriends have dated “That’s-Not-Herpes-I-Promise Tom”, “You-Look-Just-Like-My-Ex-Will-You-Dye-Your-Hair Jonathan” and “I-Will-Never-Love-You-More-Than-Jesus Richard.” Then there’s “Married Sam” although we now refer to him as “Married Mr. X” because turns out he lied about his name too.

It may sound jaded but these days, when I meet a boy, I’m immediately wondering what his fatal flaw is. And the more perfect he is, the bigger the bomb.

As for my friend who’s dating Mr. Perfect, turns out he has a fatal flaw too.
“What is it?” I asked her. “He’s pretty great, so it must be big. Is it sex with animals? Does he molest his dog? Or is it more that he can’t live within 50 metres of a school?”
“Well...” she replied. “You know how you said it must be big?"
Uh-oh.
"It’s not.”

Turns out, it’s so tiny she can give him a blow-job and still have enough room to suck on a lollipop and talk about Barack Obama’s foreign policies with anyone caring to listen.

Yikes. The only thing I can do is hand over some tissues and remind her that Pee-On-Me Matt is, surprisingly, still available. (On the plus side, he has the good manners to always sleep on the wet patch.)