Losing your keys, finding a guy

I never cleaned my room when I was little. Inevitably, I would need something and not be able to find it in my room. I would search everywhere and finally give up, convinced that the item was lost.
I would report this to my dad: "My shoes are gone, I can't find them anywhere."
He would look at me, with a knowing look on his face, and say, "Shannon, things don't just disappear. Your shoes are in there somewhere, you just need to find them."
"But I did," I would protest. "I looked for them everywhere and they're just not in there."
He would warn me, playfully, "If I find them..."
And then, he would walk into my room, walk straight to my shoes, pick them up, and walk out with them.
This drove me crazy. It was totally unfair. It was my room, my shoes, and somehow, he knew exactly where they were. It made me feel really stupid and kind of mad at him.
"How did you do that?!" I would ask petulantly.
He would answer kindly, "Shannon, when you're looking for your shoes, you've already decided where they are not. So you don't look in the places where they actually might be. And often, even if you do see them, you don't think they could possibly be there, so you overlook them. When I walk in to your room, I can see all the places your shoes might be and I can see your shoes right where they are."
Does this ever happen to you? Do you search all over for your keys and finally give up? And then, as soon as you do, you find them right in front of your face?
I think my dad knew what he was talking about. I think he was right in saying that when we search for something, we search with an idea in mind of where it is or what it is. And this idea keeps us from actually seeing the things in front of us. We don't actually look for something, we just scan for confirmation of what we already know.

A friend and I were talking about finding guys this weekend and I wonder, if it's the same thing with them.
See, we talked about how we make up fantasies about guys and how that always ends up messing things up. When we make up a fantasy, all we can seem to see in the guy is how he doesn't live up to that fantasy- all we can see is what he's not. This keeps us from actually getting to know the guy, we don't see the person right in front of us.
We talked too about our expectations and ideals around relationships. We talked about how we had an image in our mind of our future life with people- who they would be, what our life would look like together- and that when we met people who didn't fit this ideal, we would kind of write them off, decide that they weren't 'the one.' And we realized that again, we were limiting ourselves, keeping ourselves from seeing a potential future life partner when we did this.
And then we thought about ourselves, and how we act when we're trying to find a guy. We shared our absolute frustration in this Catch 22 of pursuit. When we like a guy, we're totally awkward, anti- social, and idiotic and end up turning him off completely. When we don't like a guy, we're totally fine, and comfortable and are super attractive. It's so unfair! We thought about 'playing the game': telling yourself that you don't like a guy, so that you'll act all normal around him and he'll be attracted to you. But we both realized that that never seems to work. Either you act so cool that you start to worry that he thinks you're actually not interested and that he might leave; or, more likely, you just can't do it, your feelings take over and you turn right back into the blubbering idiot that you were.
And then we kind of concluded: in order to find a guy, you have to stop looking for a guy. It's not so much that you have to stop looking, it's more that you have to stop looking with a certain guy in mind.
See, the reason I coudn't find my shoes in my room wasn't because I wasn't looking for them, it was because I was only looking for them in certain places and refused to see them when they weren't where I expected them to be. It seems like, if I really want to find a guy, I should be open to all guys, in all places. And that when I see them, I see them as they are, not how they don't fit in with my fantasy or with my ideal, but actually see them, all of them, and be open to who they are.
This is a lot harder to do, and a lot scarier. Because when you do this, you actually have to get to know people: be willing to let them be different people at different times and in different situations, accept that they might change, and see all of them, just as they are. And in doing this, I think you kind of have to be willing to do this with yourself too. If you really are going to be open to them, you're going to have to let go of a lot of your own security: your fantasies, your ideals and expectations, your image of the 'right one.'
But in some ways, it makes way more sense. If you're looking for a life partner, don't you want to know all about them? Don't you want to see who they really are instead of what you want them to be?
I really have no idea. I still can't seem to find my shoes. But I would like to be able to do what my dad did- see all of my room and eventually see my shoes... right where they are.