reese witherspoon on cover of elleReese Witherspoon is one of the Hollywood elite I could actually see myself going shopping with. She's so talented, but seems very down-to-earth, grounded, sweet. Maybe that's why ever since her marriage to Ryan Phillipe fell apart, I've been rooting for her to find happiness. Well, it seems she has, with new hubby Jim Toth ... a guy who at one time, she could have never seen herself ending up with, believe it or not!

The actress talked to ELLE recently and said, "[Jim] really surprised me. You don't know who you're going to end up with. When I was 20, if you'd asked me ... I wouldn't have said Jim." Super important lesson right there for all the single ladies!

Most women often have preconceived notions of what our Mr. Right is going to be like. I was guilty of it ... In typical Virgo fashion, in my early teens, I made a list of minutiae -- down to the eye color!! -- I wanted my soul mate to have. I assumed he'd be someone who had his Masters degree (probably, maybe PhD, who knows), maybe another writer, bilingual, etc. The list had close to 50 traits at least.

Even once I got over all of that and grew up a bit more, while dating in my early 20s, I was convinced I was looking for a certain "type." And when he IMed me on JDate, the love of my life almost slipped through my fingertips ... because his photography/scanning and (judging from his profile) writing skills seemed to be lacking. Ahhhhh -- completely CRAZY! What the heck was I thinking?! If I hadn't given him a shot, I would have missed out on the smartest, sweetest, most loving guy, one who I now could care less doesn't have his Masters, write professionally, speak two languages (but he was bar mitzvahed!).

Sadly, a lot of us at some point think, "I'm going to marry a guy like [the bad boy/the nice Jewish guy/the international traveler business type/whatever]." But by doing that, we stand in our own way of finding love. It seems to me that it's when we let go of that "type" or "list" that we end up finding Mr. Right. You can trust Reese -- she's finally happy, after all.

Did you have a preconceived notion of who you'd end up with? Have you ended up with that type or someone totally different?

 

Image via ELLE