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" I was thinking some more about my last post , and about how so much of my expectations for dating have been fueled by fantasy....  Last night, my friend Erin and I went out for beers and girl talk. At a certain point, we were talking about our ideal mate, and for me, I can sum it up in one word: squeezy. I LOVE guys who are teddy bears \u2014 the funny, quirky ones who might not go to the gym all the time and may have been teased in high school. For me, my ideal Squeezy Soul Mate would totally be Seth Rogen from Knocked Up (plus a few maturity points). Anyway, Erin and I were talking about this last night \u2014 who we see ourselves with. I see myself with a squeezy writer who lives in Brooklyn whose name is Josh. Too specific? Yes, definitely!! And one of my HUGE DATING PROBLEMS.  Last year, I fell under the curse of the (imaginary) perfect guy when I went on a trip to Florida for work. I quickly bonded with the other journalists on the trip, many of whom were a bit older and me and were married and had kids. They were intrigued by me being a single girl and wanted to hear stories, and at the time, I had just gotten involved with this guy James \u2014 a smart, sexy engineer who I&amp;#039;d been dating for about a month. But as the weekend wore on, I began ... okay, lying about James. We had just been getting to know each other, but I began exaggerating to my new friends \u2014 saying we liked to cook dinner together on weeknights (it happened once), that we liked biking together (we had talked about it ...), and pretty much spending the whole weekend making James sound like an AMAZING boyfriend. The trouble was, I began to believe my stories. When I got back from the trip, it was so awkward. I felt like I didn&amp;#039;t know him at all. I slept with him, and it was terrible \u2014 I felt like I was sleeping with a stranger, not James, my sexy boyfriend! Things fizzled pretty soon after that. He just didn&amp;#039;t live up to my (impossible, romantic) expectations. Which is too bad because I think we could have really developed a good relationship if I had given it time to progress normally.  Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever gotten carried away with a fantasy and ignored your pretty good reality? Also, I know so far I&amp;#039;ve been a little coy/shy about talking about REAL past relationships, but hold on ... it&amp;#039;s all coming! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/relationships/a2771/imaginary-boyfriend/>