Build a Boyfriend
A different way to get clear on what you actually want
Beyond the list
If you’ve been dating again after a long relationship — or thinking about it — you’ve probably made some kind of list. Kind. Funny. Ambitious. Maybe a longer list of what you don’t want, shaped by everything your last partner wasn’t.
Neither list gives you much to actually navigate by. And neither moves you beyond the familiar, slightly superficial “tall, dark and handsome with a career in finance.”
I see this constantly in my coaching work. Clients arrive with a strong sense of what hurt or went wrong last time, and a much vaguer sense of what they’re actually looking for next — or what kind of partner is right for them.
That’s not a failure of self-knowledge; it’s just hard to build a clear picture of something you haven’t consciously mapped out before.
Six zones, one clear picture
Instead of one long list, the exercise works through six areas — using the body as a simple, memorable map:
Legs — the foundations someone stands on: their background, values, stability.
Arms — what they actually do: how they spend time, how they show up.
Heart — their character underneath the doing: kindness, loyalty, generosity.
Head — how they think: emotional intelligence, curiosity, communication.
Eyes — how they see the world: their outlook, their priorities, what matters to them.
Ears — how they listen: whether it’s to understand, or just to respond.
Working through each zone slows you down enough to notice something important: the difference between a genuine need and a passing preference. By the end, you’re not holding a wish list. You’re holding a reference point — something to test real people and real relationships against, long after the first-date nerves have worn off.
Why it matters more than it looks like it should
A lot of us, myself included after my own marriage ended, carry old reactions into new dating without quite realising it. “Not like him” isn’t the same as knowing what you actually want.
Build a Boyfriend is designed to catch that difference. It asks you to notice when you’re describing a reaction to the past rather than a genuine standard for the future — and to turn each into something clearer: a non-negotiable, a strong preference, or a nice-to-have.
It’s not a checklist to run through on a first coffee. It’s something to come back to when a relationship starts to feel unclear, so you can check it against what you actually know matters to you — rather than against how you feel in the moment.
Want to try it?
I’ve put the full exercise together as a free guide, with all six zones and the questions to go with each one.
Get in touch and I’ll send it straight over. Let’s get building…