It’s no secret that the key to successfully dating (assuming success means ending up in an actual relationship) is finding that person who matches whatever intangibles that you’re looking for in a mate. For some people it’s financial stability, for others its loyalty. Point is, everybody’s looking for something.

Well, amid the roughly 3 million relationship conversations that I’ve had, I’ve come to one very simple conclusion about what we’re looking for: Men are looking for exceptional women, and women are looking for accessible men.

Common sense really could solve 90 percent of the world’s problems, I swear.

Let’s start with the menfolks. Men are not wowed by degrees, how many houses you have, or how many power deals you’ve brokered. That’s great and all but it doesn’t necessarily make us want to introduce you to our mothers. It is impressive though. Keep that up. We’re all looking for a woman who has that special something that makes us not want to be away from you. Something…magical.

Most of us can’t really describe it you just know it when we feel it. We feel like we’ve got the one snowflake that stands head and shoulders above the rest. The “exceptional” woman that induces us to tell all of our friends and family members that this one’s “different.” From what? Who knows, but she is. And it has nothing to do with her degrees or her accomplishments, its solely about her and that something about her that draws us in and makes us think we’re special because we found the special one. The exceptional woman.

Women on the other hand will likely live without an exceptional man by woman standards. What are woman standards? Glad you asked. In general woman standards tend to be resume driven and focused. His financial stability and security. His loyalty and devotion to a cause. Basically the sum total of a man’s goals in life. His substance. Women will tend to sacrifice a lot of that as long as the man she’s dealing with is accessible.

What do I mean by that? Well, as long as he’s able to love her in a way she wants, and is open and honest and communicates with her when necessary and makes her feel like she matters, she’ll never leave. Of course sexual intimacy and bedroom accessibility matters here too. Not sex just for sex sake, but actual love. In a nutshell, women need to be able to have access to man’s vulnerable and human side and be made to feel like he feels like she’s the only woman who matters. Emotional accessiblity.

Again, common sense.

Men want a woman who stands above all others and women want a man to make her feel like she stands above all others. It should be simple math. But because we’re people we suck and play games.

What’s the solution? No clue. I’m like a consultant. I’ll tell you what the issue is and you get to solve it.

But I’m pretty sure it all starts with a hug.