The "Dreamer"

Hey Kids!

So I was talking with a friend last week and they were telling me that I was a dreamer because I try to plan out how my relationships will be/should be.  I kinda of understood what they were saying but then again I was kinda of intrigued by this notion that someone was labeled a dreamer just because they have an idea of what they want in a significant other as well as what they want in a relationship.  I wasn't planning my relationships like they claimed, I simply have a very keen idea of what I want my long term one to consist of.  And my previous one was not what I wanted out of a relationship.  I always thought that these were good things to know about yourself.  After all if you don't know what you want you'll never get it, right?

Furthermore, I always thought dreamers were people who had really no direction with their lives.  They had big wants and goals but no push, drive or determination to do what needed to be done to achieve them.  For example, a man who wants to be a well known and accomplished singer in mainstream music world, who is just expecting to be discovered on a corner or street singing.  He has no formal training but he does have talent.  He doesn't feel the need to make demos or try to set up meetings with people who are in the industry.  He feels that it will just happen one day and he'll be famous.  That to me is a dreamer. 

So I decided to take this conversation to the streets and ask around.  Most of the people I asked are individuals that I came across on a popular dating site.  I will re frame from using the name of the one I was on.  But the question that was posed was..."What do you want in a relationship?  And does knowing what you want make you a dreamer?"  I took a random sampling from a group of gay/bi/curious men that consist of various ages, profession and educational backgrounds.

And the conclusion that I came up with from my research is that most of them agree with my logic behind this.  They all pretty much had realistic wants in what they felt they wanted in a relationship.  A couple of them I had to elaborate that I wasn't talking about what they wanted in a specific partner.  But the actual relationship.  And they all said that knowing what you want doesn't make you a dreamer.  Gonzalez (2012) mentioned that anyone who wants abstract things is a dreamer (see my example above).  And I completely agree.

What about you?  Do you think knowing what you want in a relationship, makes you a dreamer?