Mrs. Easily-Impressed. And she wonders why she's stressed.

The other day I had a conversation with a classmate of mine, a young lady who like so many others is quite busy attempting to navigate the vapid waters of mate-selection. Sensing that I might get a humorous, or just plain sad response, I decided to submit a few questions to her to get her feelings on that whole body of matters. She began to tell me among other things, how hard it is for a girl to find a decent guy. Such a popular tune these days, but I can't help but wonder if we should be dividing the responsibility of this plight equally between the sexes.
She then began to share with me the reasons behind the evolution of the lines of questioning which she puts forth to her new suitors as a kind of pre-screen process to see if they are suitable as potential mates. While I can't say that her questions didn't make sense for a girl to ask, what struck me was the way she proceeded through her checklist. She went through her check-off process for me while tapping off the plus-marks with her fingers: has a job, no kids, no wife, no felonies, "has a vehicle." Wow.
I was really proud of myself for successfully containing my thoughts and not giving away my amusement and disappointment with my facial expressions as I usually do. I understand that these are naturally things one should look for in a potential mate, but as I understand it, these things should be more along the lines of requirements than preferences. As such, a girl cannot award a guy bonus points for satisfying them.
That kind of logic would cripple the worldwide economy if it were applied in other arenas. In the academic world, it would be the equivalent of a teacher giving an A to everyone who passed the class. In the professional world, just showing up to the interview in a suit and bringing your resume would entitle you to employment. Drop by your local Seven-Eleven, ask for a lottery ticket and scribble in the first numbers that pop into your head, and Voila! You win the lottery everyday. The words spoken to me by the soon-to-be Mrs. "No Felonies" made no more sense than any of that.
I understand the whole 'it's so hard to find a good one' litany. But don't make it harder on yourself by being a fucking half-wit. Stop buying into the hype, we all know it's easier to sport the popular excuse and bitch about it later. But there's always a method to achieving the end. And on a sidenote, you must be realistic too. Not that this necessarily applied in this case, but some people's standards are just too high. If you're a blue-blooded, all-american Ford, understand you're probably not gonna be able to trick a Ferrari into parking next to you. It sucks, but this is the order of things. If everyone understands reality, and just uses their brain periodically, we'd all be amazed at the problems we could solve.