Sangre caliente

Single Friend #1 often jokes about the fact that I abandoned a land of hot Italian men to prefer the fair-skinned Anglo-Saxons. Somehow this may be coincidental. I left home too young to really know what I was missing. (And I won't take any rubbish about Italian men: my dad was one, and I will always be daddy's little girl)
However, here in Madrid I started thinking: what gives a man what we end up being attracted to? What he wears, how he speaks, how he loves. Geography? Genes? Early or late environment? Cultural background? Previous girlfriends?
And what are we attracted to? Familiarity? Differences? The unknown? The same man again and again, or a new one every time?

As I get older I find that certain characteristics are non-negotiable. One and for all: good shirts. Short sleeves, polyester (or any other plastic), hideous patterns (or any patterns, but stripes and teeny tiny checks), too small or too big collars, novelty cuff links.. So many ways one can go wrong. Not to mention, of course, being a bad kisser. If the kissing is just about passable, the sex will be soporific for sure.
It is not just me to be a repeat offender. Single Friend #1 would never date a man with glasses (which is one of the reasons why she is still single). SF#2 has a fixation for broad shoulders and big thighs. By her own admission, Best Friend used to always end up with psychopaths (with some key exceptions). Moving to guys, Male Friend #3 goes out with photocopy-women: all absolutely identical. The Man doesn't fancy tall girls with big hair and big teeth. The Jerk only dates models (even if for some obscure catalogues).

But I digress. Back to geography, does it really matter? Are they mainly generalisations?

BTW, a Spanish man just called me 'chica'. That's it, ditch the shirt-thing. Making you feel young (and preferably beautiful) has got to score a lot of points!