Hi guys. I was having a chat with a friend, and through it I concluded that I'm more pragmatic than idealistic in my relationships. I thought I'd put this question up for you guys to think about as well, maybe share a story or two as well!

It helps to see pragmatism and idealism as a continuum where neither is exclusive of each other. So you can be 50/50 or 60/40 or anything.
You can define pragmatism/idealism as whatever you feel like they mean - as long as you tell us what you think they mean.

For me, pragmatism is more about the nitty gritty, and idealism is more about the dreamy romantic stuff. As a pragmatist, I'm less likely to surprise you with roses or promise you my undying love. I'm more likely to give you practical gifts and attach conditions to my love so we both know where we are at. Being a pragmatist takes away a lot of 'magic' from the relationship, but being idealistic takes away a lot of the 'reality'.
I don't think either is better, but pragmatism has worked for me.
I won't blindly trust the person I love. I'll always watch my own back and expect them to watch theirs as well.
I'd rather talk to you about the things that influence your view on relationships and sort out possible future conflicts in personality than our future dream house or dream family.
Of course pragmatism is a lot more than this, but I thought I'd just give some stark examples. Idealism isn't as shallow as it might seem from what I've said either.
So, what about you guys?

For me, defining a relationship as i see it now, i see it as a chance to know the person your with better, i feel that if i were to start dating, i may or may not already be starting to feel romantic ( it's defined by who you are and how well i know you/ how strong i like someone). Usually i feel everything in a relationship is a team effort ( meaning you work together) and i enjoy intimacy in my relationships. Truthfully, i look at a relationship as a chance to really fall in love wit each other, if we haven't supposedly done so already. Really, besides that i guess you can say i fit dead center of both pragmatic and idealist, it's idealist if the feelings get stronger and my relationship with said person is turning more and more romantic. Anyways, hope i didn't lose or confuse anyone.

I'm not positive about where I lie for this. I'd like to be idealistic, but I'm pragmatic by nature.

I won't go out with any guy who sweeps me off my feet. I would never blindly trust anybody, never mind someone who I intend to sleep with in the future. I'm not going to dream that I can "make him better" once a guy cheats on me, hits me, or turns out to have any addiction problem; I'm not that kind and dedicated. You've got the boot the second I get a whiff of any of that bullshit. Or jealousy. If it suddenly turns out that I can't hang out with my guy friends without getting glared at the next morning, I will immediately sever all ties. I'm not sacrificing my friendships for any relationship, nor am I going to waste my time arguing with a jealous cunt.

I'm not expecting five star dinners or trips to the movies every week, nor am I expecting a guy to pledge his eternal love for me when we're sixteen. If he does though, I want to talk realistically with him soon enough; I want him to know before he even imagines a ring that I've got no intention of getting legally married to anyone nor bearing kids of my own. I think it's important that everyone is on the same page the second a relationship takes that serious turn.

On the other hand, I'd still like romantic yet somewhat cliche things alongside all this. I want a guy to get me chocolates on holidays and win me stuffed animals at the boardwalk. I want to cuddle while play video games together and go confidently exploring the woods for dates. I'd prefer to split the bill since I don't appreciate expensive gifts, but I'd still love to be asked out to dinner every now and again. I want to have fun in a relationship; there's no point to it if you're always being serious and constantly worrying about what they're doing without you.

But I'm also a bit picky, which is where the idealism really comes in. I get creeped out by guys who are younger or shorter than me or who are of certain nationalities. I dream of being swept off my feet by your stereotypical shoujou manga bad boy protagonist. I know it'll probably never happen, but the dream is there and doesn't intend to go away, which makes me harshly selective in the end. Don't get me wrong - I'll give guys who are kind of nice but not particularly appealing a chance at least. It just always ends up that I can't invest myself and feel bad at the end for dragging someone along and then dumping them for shallow reasoning (though there's usually something else alongside that).

The biggest thing that makes me lean towards being pragmatic is that I don't really believe in "true love" or "love at first sight" or anything like that. I think intimacy builds up right alongside lust and that all the words related to it are interchangeable. I don't think that "love" is any more special than "intimacy" nor "lust" in most ways, whether sex ends up being involved or not. I'm not looking for my soul mate. I just want to have fun dating someone and hopefully find someone who I can put up with well enough to live alongside in the future.

>>3 I'm excluding cigarettes in the addictions there. I kind of appreciate cigarettes since I grew up with people who smoke them (even if I have no intention of smoking them myself... I like my lungs pink). The only time I've had issues with it is when I specifically ask a guy if they smoke anything then they lie about it, leaving me to catch them with a cigarette or cigar a week later.

Lying blatantly about anything = boot.
Slyly avoiding a topic = okay.

And although I don't believe in 'true love' as some kind of inner gateway between two lost souls, I do believe in 'liking' people for no obvious pragmatic reason. I go through spouts of time where I just get really bad crushes that I already know could never work out for one reason or another.

Hmm... how should I go about describing this? In general I'm pretty sure the pragmatic/idealistic system is in a constant state of flux for me, but leaving at that is dreadfully inaccurate of the way I tend to work.

Initially, there needs to be a heavy deal of idealism, strictly for me to even consider someone in a romantic sense. Ironically this is because of how heavily pragmatic I tend to be on a daily basis. I don't just "fall for someone" at random, it has to be incited, provoked or at the very least encouraged.

Now, at the moment I'm lead to visualize someone in a romantic context, it pretty much becomes a period of 100% pragmatic consideration. Think of it kind of like a job interview. Everything I know about you: your habits, your ideology, your public behavior (which immediately rules out most overly-idealistic candidates), your prospects, intelligence, spirituality, physical capabilities...pretty much anything I can think to consider is processed. In general I've taught myself not to be too heavily skeptical during this part, because I tend to set my standards for others exceptionally high, but I immediately rule someone out if I find that there's something that I would be personally incapable of living with. (I.E. big ideological differences that she would consider "non-debatable", being "indoorsy" AND unwilling to go and do some of the things I do outside, etc.) To this affect, I've debated pretty heavily over the ideas of drinking and smoking, to the point where I will scrap a perfectly good woman simply on the basis that she smokes like a chimney or if I've even seen her around with a hangover. Unfair I suppose, but I don't think I could really tolerate either for a very long time.

Here's where things get messy. The longer I spend with someone, the higher my expectations for my relationship get. Now I'm not talking about getting married after three months, I'm just referring to the fact that I want to get to a comfortable threshold. Ultimately I want to get to a point where a "date" is no longer a big deal. I look forward to the point in which we can "do nothing" together more than I do to "those magical evenings". But, as much as I dislike the pomp and circumstance of the American romance, I'm not comfortable just "skipping past it". Going on a date ONCE does not constitute us as a "couple" and you can't just start hanging out with my friends and family after knowing me for all of two weeks (of course if you happen to be someone who managed to start doing these things BEFORE we were "romantically inclined" then this last point is entirely moot and I must make sure to physically say to you "bravo, you sly devil you"). This is also the point where I tend to turn introspective and if I can't find any logical relevance I have to her, then that's pretty much the end of it. I don't expect to be someone's "hero", but I DO expect to know where I hope to stand to them.

From then on it's just rule of thumb. I'm a heavily logic-bound individual, so pragmatism becomes most important, but for those clever enough to give their sentiments the right amount life and intrigue, I may just look to some of these "rules" of mine, smile a bit and say "screw them".

PS- (To anyone and everyone who posts/reads this thread)
Being able to understand how you act in these situations is a great thing, after all you know yourself better than anyone else. However, we see ourselves with our own personal blinders, and miss a lot that might be obvious to others, even when they don't seem to make sense.

For example, as pragmatic as I seem, it turns out I have a "thing" for artists.