Okay, this article that Jill linked to is so worth blogging. It’s this weird, semi-guilty article about those oh-so-picky-bitches who just want men they partner with to clear certain basic standards in conversation ability. Okay, well, dumping someone just because he’s never heard of Pushkin is a little extreme, at least if he demonstrates good taste overall. Some women need to learn the joys of introducing a lover to something new, though of course you always run the danger that he’ll hate it.
But the notion that holding potential mates to a taste standard is shallow frankly blows my mind. I think, and said this in the comments at Feministe, that the admirable liberal movement against being judgmental sometimes suffers from what can only be considered a definitional issue. Judging someone for their race, religion, sex life, whatever, when it comes to their basic human rights and access to involvement in the political system is clearly wrong. Judging someone on these things and refusing to be friends or lovers with them is your right, but it makes you stupid and limits you more than anything else. But judging someone that you share a friendship with, much less your life, on personal qualities strikes me as perfectly reasonable and the only efficient way to handle your social life. If you can’t stand someone’s horrible taste or sense of humor, it seems that it’s best for everyone involved to go their separate ways.
With that in mind, I offer the same discussion question Jill did: What are your deal-breakers with someone you’re dating?
But I come not just to gently tease the article and start a discussion, but also to ream it. Or precisely, this “WTF” bad argumentation that only slipped in because it fits the NY Times mandate that men and women should be treated not as different sexes, but different species.
Let’s face it — this may be a gender issue. Brainy women are probably more sensitive to literary deal breakers than are brainy men. (Rare is the guy who’d throw a pretty girl out of bed for revealing her imperfect taste in books.)
This is what we call a false analogy, or comparing apples to oranges. Kicking someone out of bed /= breaking up with someone you’re seeing, and pretending they’re equivalent to force this “men and women are so different” argument is a lousy trick. The women interviewed are largely talking about refusing to pursue relationships, not just some meaningless sex. If you asked 100 men if good taste is mandatory for potential girlfriends, not just someone you permit into your bed for a night, I bet you’d get the same percentages as if you asked women the same question.
And then when they do interview men, it turns out my hunch is right—turns out men care about taste, too.
Still, to some reading men, literary taste does matter. “I’ve broken up with girls saying, ‘She doesn’t read, we had nothing to talk about,’” said Christian Lorentzen, an editor at Harper’s. Lorentzen recalls giving one girlfriend Nabokov’s “Ada” — since it’s “funny and long and very heterosexual, even though I guess incest is at its core.” The relationship didn’t last, but now, he added, “I think it’s on her Friendster profile as her favorite book.”
James Collins, whose new novel, “Beginner’s Greek,” is about a man who falls for a woman he sees reading “The Magic Mountain” on a plane, recalled that after college, he was “infatuated” with a woman who had a copy of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” on her bedside table. “I basically knew nothing about Kundera, but I remember thinking, ‘Uh-oh; trendy, bogus metaphysics, sex involving a bowler hat,’ and I never did think about the person the same way (and nothing ever happened),” he wrote in an e-mail message. “I know there were occasions when I just wrote people off completely because of what they were reading long before it ever got near the point of falling in or out of love: Baudrillard (way too pretentious), John Irving (way too middlebrow), Virginia Woolf (way too Virginia Woolf).” Come to think of it, Collins added, “I do know people who almost broke up” over “The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen: “‘Overrated!’ ‘Brilliant!’ ‘Overrated!’ ‘Brilliant!’”
So, in other words, there’s no real reason to think men and women are significantly different on this issue.
I think it’s more important to me that someone has good taste in what they do than whether or not they do something. Like, I don’t mind if someone doesn’t read a lot of books, so long as he or she does other interesting things. Like if you like movies more than books, that’s cool, as long as your taste in movies is good.
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Not liking Firefly might be a deal-breaker for me. If you can’t see past the occasional cheese to the sublime beauty of the series, we can’t be more than friends.
For me, I would probably judge someone more harshly about their attitude or interest regarding travel or foreign cultures than on matters literary or cultural. Someone who told me she had never travelled outside the U.S. and didn’t want to would be more of a dealkiller than someone who had not read a particular novelist.
That said, tacky is tacky. Or more specifically, dramatically ironic tackiness, as opposed to self-aware, post-modern quasi-nostalgic tackiness, the so-bad-it’s-teh-awesome type of tacky.
Narcissism. Especially if she has a bit of sociopathy on the side.
What are your deal-breakers with someone you’re dating?
The only really, really serious dealbreaker is either physical/sexual/emotional abuse, or slightly less severe but no less huge, feeling free to disrespect me in front of friends or family. And no blatant misogyny, racism, and/or general assholishness.
Sadly, I’m probably most judgmental in terms of career. People who work in finance or a similarly corporate field bore me. It’s probably not fair, but it’s been the case so often than I treat it as a general rule. Politics is probably next on the list.
You know…when I was single…I had TONS of deal breakers. Likes to dance, isn’t obsessed with sports, enjoys travel and the beach, height (okay, so shallow yes). Then I met my husband and absolutely all of the above flew out the window because he was such a great person and I enjoyed his company. So oh well!
I’ve had the same rules since high school, and they always served me well when I was single:
- No Rush fans (the band, not Limbaugh, though that might be a dealbreaker, too)
- No martial arts
- No guys named Jim, James, or any derivative thereof
I remember talking to my therapist when I was getting ready to dip my toe back in the dating pool and telling her that my absolute #1 requirement in a boyfriend/husband was that he be someone I could have conversations with. She tried to discourage me since there are still a fair number of “strong silent” types out there, but that’s what it was.
Now I’m married to a man who sometimes makes me late to work (and vice versa) because the conversation we’re having is too interesting for me to interrupt. So it all worked out.
Kicking someone out of bed /= breaking up with someone you’re seeing, and pretending they’re equivalent to force this “men and women are so different” argument is a lousy trick.
Forgot to comment on this. Anyone remember a little television show called Seinfeld? Wasn’t one of the running gags of the show that Jerry was ridiculously picky, and really would break up with (or even simply stop sleeping with) a woman for ridiculous things like how she chewed or things her name rhymed with?
Yep, men NEVER reject women for arbitrary personal reasons. It just never happens. If a man finds a woman sexually attractive, he might as well marry her.
What are your deal-breakers with someone you’re dating?
Someone remotely sexist, racist, homophobic, or “macho.”
Someone who believes in anything spiritual, religious, or supernatural.
Someone who doesn’t want to knock boots frequently.
Someone who wears clothes ironically.
Someone who refuses to enjoy the Beatles. I don’t have time for that crap.
It’s a very good thing I made an exception on my “Someone who employs comma splices and misuses homophones” deal-breaker. I ended up marrying him. Love conquers all, and teaches grammar snobs to get over it.
If for any reason I ever had to date again, I don’t think I could stomach swapping spit with a non-vegan. Taco juice is gross!
Are those shallow enough?
Anyone remember a little television show called Seinfeld?
Remember it? That IS one of my dealbreakers. I once weaseled out of going out with a blind date for a second time because the guy’s favorite show was Seinfeld.
I guess for me the single most important deal-breaker is the issue of children. I don’t want any, and am pretty sure I never will. So if she wants children, we’ll be parting ways. This does pose some challenges, since wanting children is a common (and understandable) desire, but I just don’t see myself as a father. At least not anytime soon.
Mnemosyne said: No Rush fans
Aw hell naw.
Considering Rush fan-dom a deal-breaker is a total deal-breaker.
Besides the obvious (lack of respect, bigotry, cruelty, etc.)
Someone who is not at least OK with dogs.
Someone who does not like the outdoors- you don’t have to be Bear Grizzly, just don’t sit in front of a computer all day. And as a corollary, no luddites need apply, either.
Someone who can’t appreciate Terry Pratchett.
Someone who can’t at least make an attempt to understand my obsession with campy sci-fi (Stargate SG-1) and hard sci-fi (BSG).
Someone who doesn’t mind that I am not a vegetarian.
See earlier statement. Not to mention the whole vein of the discussion.
For instance: I would have never thought I’d be married to a Christian pastor. I’m sure that for a number of the readers, that would be a deal breaker.
#6: If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Dealbreakers:
1. Casual racist– no, not the “i have a hood in my closet” racist, but the “black people are like this, white people are like this” racist. Can’t do it.
2. Only cites European cultural theorists/contemporary artists/bands I’ve never heard of. Sometimes cites bands I’ve never heard of=great. *Only* refers to them, not ok.
3. Wouldn’t date anyone *because* they were reading the following, but might hold out hope for enjoyable arguments with them:
a. Nietzche
b. Jung
c. The Grundrisse
d. Left Behind
e. Terry McMillan
f. E. Lynn Harris (wow, it’s like I Love the 90s on VH1)
g. Zane
h. H.P. Lovecraft
i. Star Wars novelizations
j. celebrity tell-all biographies (except possibly George Michael, if he has one)
Real life story: I was a young undergraduate and worked out all the time at this gym. One day, a big jock-type guy with no neck asks me if I want to see a Metallica concert. Having never been to a Metallica concert but mildly turned on by the idea of heavy metal, I agree to go. We have a bland and unmemorable time, but I like the experience (even though I cannot hear for about three days afterwards).
Then, he asks me out again to so see Peter Pan! I am sort of tickled that a guy who likes Metallica might also like Peter Pan! It’s a trip. But he likes it SO much and spends so much time later analyzing Peter Pan that I start to worry…
The deal breaker, though, is Valentine’s Day. It rolls around right after our second date. I am not expecting anything, especially since we have not even kissed yet. But he sends me 12 dozen red roses. And so, I know it is the end…
Also: anyone who seems like they want a little too much information about me early on: Stalker radar goes off and I run.
Every time I make internal sweeping generalizations about how someone’s tastes effect their worth, I usually end up eating crow, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it all the time.
The biggest deal breaker I can think of is people who listen to Pink Floyd or Led Zepplin. I’m sure there are generally good reasons for liking the bands (God help me if I can figure them out) but most when I hear about most people in my age range (mid-twenties) talking about liking them, I get the feeling that they like the fact that people know they listen to the band, more than they actually like the band.
I think I would probably draw the sharpest line on 9/11 Truthers; if I was on a date with someone who tries to convince me that 9/11 was an inside job, I could picture myself excusing myself from the table and stiffing the girl with the bill.
Hm. I guess now that I’m back in the dating pool, that’s something I should consider.
It used to be not having read “Lord of the Rings” but my now-ex hadn’t read it when I was dating him, and read it because the movies were coming out. He complained that Gandalf was a stereotypical wizard, and I had to gently explain that Gandalf was the prototype, not the stereotype.
He also hated the Ents, which probably should have been a red flag. Oh well.
If everything out of your mouth is a quote from a movie or tv show, you’d better have some damn awesome redeeming characteristics before we can spend much time together.
It’s dismaying how many people I’ve thought were witty and original turned out not to be, just because there are so many popular movies I’ve never seen.
Oh, I forgot religion.
I CANNOT date a born-again Christian.
I’d like to think I would also avoid fundamentalists of other stripes, but it’s entirely possible I could go a few dates with someone like that if maybe the exact specifics of their beliefs didn’t come out right away. But I can sniff out a Christianist from 20 paces, and No. Just no.
A couple times I made the mistake of going out with women who just plain didn’t like to read. And once with someone who didn’t like to eat (for whom food was just fuel, not an occasion for enjoyment). Well, twice: when a girl I had a crush on in college deigned to have lunch with me and just had a small salad the attraction pretty much died. Oh, and racism/classism/homophobia/blahblahblah
I’ve been dumped for not being hip enough, and for being too serious (and then there was the gf who, when I said I wanted to break up, gave me a big hug and said “Thank goodness! I just wasn’t having fun any more”). And for just being impossible to get along with…
But perhaps my favorite dealkiller is the one my spouse related about a former beau, who was apparently talking with her mother when he said, “You know, she’s just not very funny.” Couldn’t imagine staying with someone who didn’t laugh at my jokes, or whose jokes I didn’t laugh at.
This is sort of cheating since we were married already, but angrymob got really upset when I read The Fountainhead in preparation for playing BioShock. He kept grousing about it whenever he’d see me read it–even though I wasn’t exactly exclaiming “woah! I’d been wrong about Rand all along!” As far as he’s concerned (and I am more or less inclined to agree), she’s just a nut and we shouldn’t give her the credibility of reading her even if we’re fact-finding for a rhetorical takedown.
Broadsheet had a column about this as well and I really see no reason not to have deal-breakers. Pithy low-culture hipster points aside, if someone has a collection of right-wing books on their table — Culture Warrior, Treason, Atlas Shrugged etc — that says volumes not only about how they view the world in which they live but also how they view me. If their library tells me “you are an object, you are not entitled to the same rights as others, I find comfort in a paranoid, authoritarian viewpoint” — there isn’t much that’s going to convince me to stick around that person–because it’s obviously not going to work out between us.
I have a friend who loves to tell the story about how I broke up with a guy because his favorite show was “Two and a half men.”
And ok, I do tell the story that way, but only because that show was an index of his sense of humor. Also, he didn’t read. At all. Nice guy, but I just couldn’t talk to him.
when I hear about most people in my age range (mid-twenties) talking about liking them, I get the feeling that they like the fact that people know they listen to the band, more than they actually like the band.
Or they could have grown up listening to those bands — especially if they are from the south. My parents owned every Led Zep record, and classic rock radio was on anytime the keys turned in the car ignition. That said, I’m not sure I’d drop that particular fact on a first date. People who self-consciously make sure to mention they only listen to “Floyd”? Ew.
I’ve been married and monogamous for almost 10 years, so all dealbreakers are pretty firmly in the past for me.
However, assuming I was single again and looking for a relationship, I couldn’t see myself with someone who is conservative, particularly socially conservative, or very religious. Nominal religious belief is something I could deal with, although I don’t share it, but but I couldn’t deal with a very religious person (and I don’t imagine that a very religious person could deal with my atheist self, either). I also need someone who is at least as intelligent as I am, and preferably more so.
And I can’t take snobs. I come from rednecks and white trash (and I mean that in the nicest way possible), I have a weakness for trashy romance novels, and I like what a lot of people would consider “bad” music (i.e., standard pop/rock music).
Lucky for me, I married a highly intelligent, liberal, progressive, funny guy. We have enough of our core values in common that differences in tastes and temperament make the relationship interesting and/or can be overlooked.
Oh, I forgot religion.
I CANNOT date a born-again Christian.
I’d like to think I would also avoid fundamentalists of other stripes, but it’s entirely possible I could go a few dates with someone like that if maybe the exact specifics of their beliefs didn’t come out right away. But I can sniff out a Christianist from 20 paces, and No. Just no.
Me too. Partially because I had fundies, but mostly because whenever I’m around someone who is very, or even slightly Christ-centric the voice of my mom pops in my head and begins to make me feel guilty about the fact that I haven’t been to church for years.
It’s been my experience that when someone thinks that holding potential mates to a taste standard is shallow, it’s usually in the context not of judging someone else, but of having been judged by someone else.
We make judgements of others all the time, and I do agree that that’s the mechanism by which we choose our friends and lovers. It gets a bit sticky, however, when we employ normative terms like “good” and “bad”, because we never think our own tastes are bad (obviously). So we readily evaluate others’ tastes as good or bad, but when our own tastes are rendered as bad by someone else, we tend not to like that. No one wants to be negatively judged; if you can let that roll off of your back every time, then my hat’s off to you.
I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that a little self-reflection in the social realm is healthy, not only in the sense that one’s tastes can be subject to change, but that judgement runs in both directions. I realize that sounds like I’m stating the obvious, but it’s easy to forget that when we’re making our way in the social realm.
Or they could have grown up listening to those bands — especially if they are from the south. My parents owned every Led Zep record, and classic rock radio was on anytime the keys turned in the car ignition. That said, I’m not sure I’d drop that particular fact on a first date. People who self-consciously make sure to mention they only listen to “Floyd”? Ew.
Really, the bands are so popular that it’s impossible to judge everyone who listen to the band…I just wanted an excuse to bitch some more about my roommate
Which brings me to another deal breaker; chronic pot-smoking. Nothing more attractive then hiding in your room all day and getting stoned instead of actually going out and doing things.
Deal-breakers:
Men with longer hair than Britney Spears (back when she had hair, I mean).
Butch lesbians who think they are cops (ie: who act more sexist and obnoxious than men).
People who write epic e-mails. If you can’t say it in the space of a computer screen, then it’s not worth saying!
If you fail to recognize that Damu the Fudgemonk is the greatest musical genius since Beethoven, I can’t begin to fathom a casual acquaintance with you, let alone friendship.
The best part is that I didn’t have to settle: the divine Mrs. F doesn’t do/have any of these (they are in no particular order):
1. Tobacco
2. Religion
3. High heels other than on the most formal occasions
4. Dog ownership
5. Conservatism of any stripe
6. Bad teeth
7. Vegan/vegetarian
8. Lack of irony
9. Jewelry, unless it’s handmade and relatively inexpensive
10. Cares about cars or brand names
11. Stalker ex
12. Doesn’t want kids
13. Anti-intellectual
14. Likes Dave Matthews Band
Now *she* settled, in that I hate musicals and will not watch or go to them, and I cannot successfully feign an interest in outdoor activities like camping and so forth. But she has friends she can do all that with, and then I get alone time.
ding ding ding…I was marveling over this youtube clip.
The problem of love: ‘who’ or ‘what’?
Jacques Derrida, On Love and Being
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj1BuNmhjAY
God damn I fail all three. Just shows you how silly these sorts of rules are, ‘cause I’m totally awesome and any woman would be lucky to have me…
I have a lot of trouble finding other people who share my tastes in anything. Where are all the John Carpenter, Phillip K. Dick, Clive Barker, KMFDM fans?
I have a friend who collects Chick Tracts and other religious stuff, the more kitschy the better — like salt and pepper shakers in the shape of nuns and Jesus hummels and that sort of thing. She does it to be ironic, though.
Collecting Jesus kitsch non-ironically would definitely be a deal breaker, in fact, I think I would be backing away very slowly while smiling and nodding.
Dudes that bring flowers on a first date (especially, true story, if it’s a single fake rose).
Not only am I not a fan of gifted flowers in general, but first date flowers are almost always accompanied by an insufferably smug sense of self-satisfaction.
I have a lot of trouble finding other people who share my tastes in anything. Where are all the John Carpenter, Phillip K. Dick, Clive Barker, KMFDM fans?
At the local comic book convention?
At the bottom of a bag of Cheetos?
(but I kid)
Taste-wise, I could never have a relationship with someone if they didn’t have at least a basic appreciation for musical theatre.
I largely introduced my husband to it, and while he’s not a huge fan he genuinely enjoys it and will go with me gladly.
God, or someone who collected Chick Tracts unironically. Not that I’ve ever been unfortunate enough to meet such a person.
I’m another person who’s puzzled by the idea that having an idea of the sort of person you’d want to date is shallow. I think it’s a good thing. It shows that you’re not just looking for a relationship, any relationship, OMG TEH BIOLOGICAL CLOCKZ!!1! — but that you’ve already got a decent idea of who you are, and you’re generally OK with yourself and your life. OK enough with it to invite someone to share it with you, candidly and openly, while being realistic about what’s probably not going to work. I think those are all markers of psychological health.
One thing about it that may correlate to political alignment: liberals typically value individuals over institutions, and conservatives do it the other way ’round. (Heh. Sounds like a T-shirt, a la “Rogues do it from behind”.) Anyway, because we don’t read anything into our success or failure in any given relationship past the individuals involved, that might make us likelier just to try again with other individuals, whereas someone more given to essentialist thinking might get rejected by the same number of people and get a whole complex about the opposite sex, like the Nice Guy(TM) or his female counterpart.
Long story short, I think traditional gender roles come into play here. Women are expected to be attractive to men above all else, and men are expected to be virile and macho and irresistible to women. I think the more progress you make towards overcoming those gender roles, the more likely you are to be choosy about your relationships, because your relationship status is no longer a big neon sign telling your worth as a human being. Food for thought.
Wow, I think someone or other has already listed every one of my dealbreakers, especially the “everything out of your mouth is a quote from a movie or tv show” thing.
Except for one, which might actually exempt some of the men here too.
Dune. If I ever hear you reciting, “Fear is the mind-killer…” Well, just don’t. Please.
Mighty Ponygirl, you read a book to prepare for playing a video game? If you were a Ponyguy, I’d be in love.
I had tons of deal-breakers when I was dating a few years back and especially when I was doing online dating. Reading tastes were one. At one point, I refused to consider anyone who listed The Da Vinci Code as the most recent book they’d read. I also refused to consider anyone who mentioned motorcycles or had a picture of a sports car in his profile. In fact, the longer I dated, the more deal-breakers I developed. It made the whole process ever so much more efficient.
Then I met my partner, and he was absolutely perfect for me - he’s a big-time reader, he’s super brainy, he makes bad puns, he sings off-key and makes up goofy lyrics, he loves good food and wine, and he’s handsome and sexy to boot. He was so perfect, it freaked me out, so I told him I didn’t want to date him.
Fortunately, he’s also persistent. And my skittishness wasn’t a deal breaker for him.
Women are expected to be attractive to men above all else
I think 99% of all this ‘women are so picky and judgmental!’ crap is that it violates the gender norm which says that it’s the job of the women to shut up and look pretty, and choosing is the man’s job. As a woman, you should accept any man who’s good enough to take you and STFU (also some pie would be good right about now).
I also have to say that a certain amount of difference in taste, and familiarity with the same cultural stuff, can be interesting. I like learning and trying new things.
But if I find a lad-mag in your apartment, you should probably assume I’ll never call again.
Also, my own dealbreakers: rigid gender roles (I’m bi, dress kinda femme but act butch), authoritarianism, selfishness, being apolitical/apathetic, wanting children (I’m childless by choice), not reading, not having nerdy or geeky interests (you don’t have to share all of my fandoms, but someone who dismisses all fandom as immature is not for me), religion, needing a really happening social life (I’m autistic).
And one weird one that I’d be curious to see if any Pandagonians share: I hate people who call women “baby.” I just think it’s creepy.
Also, Jonathan, I like Pink Floyd AND Led Zeppelin.
And Foucault, I write e-novels. So I guess neither of you are for me.
I will never date another furry. Also, oral sex. I had a boyfriend once go “ew, yuck!” even though he was totally happy to accept a blowjob, and after that relationship I have no use for guys who aren’t happy as clams to reciprocate.
It’s dismaying how many people I’ve thought were witty and original turned out not to be, just because there are so many popular movies I’ve never seen.
Dammit, Junk, I thought we could be friends.
Thank you Amanda!! I read that “Rare is the guy” section and was just floored. Though why I should be surprised…
It is such a relief when I see that I am not alone in these reactions.
Deal breakers are: passive aggressiveness. I have a zero tolerance policy towards it. Prudishness. Cheapness. Shallowness. I can put up with most matters of taste. I once dated a hot guy who like movies like Soulplane. It was hell for 90 minutes but he more than made up for it in the hours that followed. On the other hand i once dated a guy who would get pissy and deny me sex if i didn’t like a movie or a band that he liked.
“Men with longer hair than Britney Spears (back when she had hair, I mean).”
Wow. Sexism towards both genders in a single sentence. Congratulations!
My deal breakers are scientific illiteracy (I once semi-dated a gal until I discovered that she didn’t know what the scientific method was and believed that herbal medicines were safer than pharmaceuticals), inability to admit their geekiness, disliking popular things just because they’re popular, religiosity, and conservatism.
For women specifically — over-identification with the butch/femme thing. I am neither butch nor femme, in any way. I am both and neither, actually, fuck that, I am a HUMAN BEING not a clothing style or sexual role. Butch women who first see me in a skirt flitting around about how much I love knitting and decide I will be ‘their’ woman, or femme women who see me in jeans and an old paint-spattered t-shirt and assume I want a lap dance — NO. Actually, these folks might be behind certain evangelical Christians.
Also, either lesbians who find my bisexuality repulsive, or dudely hetero dudes who think it means I will be into a threesome.
OK, so apparently I have a lot of dealbreakers.
I had tons of deal-breakers when I was dating a few years back and especially when I was doing online dating. Reading tastes were one. At one point, I refused to consider anyone who listed The Da Vinci Code as the most recent book they’d read. I also refused to consider anyone who mentioned motorcycles or had a picture of a sports car in his profile. In fact, the longer I dated, the more deal-breakers I developed. It made the whole process ever so much more efficient.
That reminds me of yet another deal breaker; 16-year-olds who say that they are 21-year-olds on dating websites.
Wanting children was a dealbreaker for me when I was dating guys. Why invest emotionally in someone who had such a different need out of life?
I told the guy I ended up marrying about my slash habit on our first is-it-a-date? date. Because pretty much all my deal-breakers (sexism, homophobia, any issues with my general fannishness, snobbery about TV/comics/movies) would have come up in his response to that.
He now makes slashy commentary on TV shows before I do.
That’s the thing with online dating: if you make a policy of being open to anything, you’re going to spend a huge amount of time fending off losers.
My now-husband responded to my ad because the last movie I’d seen was The Palm Beach Story. Putting that in my profile was a siren call to all of the other film geeks in Los Angeles.
Then it turned out that we went to the same college, in the same department, had a large lecture class together, and graduated in the same ceremony but had never actually met, so there may be something to this “fate” stuff, too.
M-O-N-E-Y
If she is perpetually between jobs, incapable of managing personal finances, in credit card debt to the eyeballs, living with parents till it’s sorted out and over the age of 25. Run. Run far away as fast as you can.
I think the dealbreaker for me would be not understanding my enjoyment of gaming. Not just talking about video games, but also board games, role playing games, etc.
She doesn’t have to be INTO them. But not thinking they’re a stupid childish waste of time is essential. For what it’s worth I spent the night doing the Nagrand Nessingway quest lines with my wife:p
Kyso, I’ll never believe you’re not witty and original.
Okay, THANK you for noticing the distinction between kicking someone out of bed and declining to let them into bed in the first place. If I hit the “…and we’re done here” point over a book, he was nowhere near serious boyfriend status to begin with.
I still regret failing to immediately break up with a guy when he revealed that he thought the Larry Sanders Show was dumb and he much preferred… oh, god, “Dream On,” I think it was called? Some HBO show that was on right before or after it, starring an actor whose range encompassed all of three (3) facial expressions (happy/frowny/confuse-y). I hadn’t even seen the Larry Sanders Show yet, and I still knew enough about it to know that this young man was probably not for me. (Have seen it plenty since, and I was right.)
Stupidly, I went out with him at least once more, not wanting to be too mean about his taste in TV, and in the process wasted his time and mine.
“Dune. If I ever hear you reciting, “Fear is the mind-killer…” Well, just don’t. Please.”
How about this one?
“The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This has often been the ignorant approach of those who call themselves scientists and technologists.”
-The Butlerian Jihad
by Harq al-Ada
Ha! You know those people who end up having to settle for complete losers/die alone and crying because they’re totally unattractive? That’ll be me!
I suppose the super-dealbraker would be being anti-choice. I don’t think I’ve ever met an anti-choicer who wasn’t also a supreme asshole (and usually smug as hell). Also, if the dude suddenly started beaming Creeper Rays, that would probably put an end to our menage a deux.
Dealbreakers
1) Right to life. Most people who are RTL are just too far away from my core beliefs to even consider
2)Born again Christian or anyone who belongs to a religion that wants to convert me. I know what I feel about Life, the Universe and Everything and I’m too old to change now
3) Libertarian. Again, way to far from my view of the world
4) Racist, homophoic or sexist.
5) Married or in a committed relationship. If they want to cheat OK, but I don’t want to be part of it.
6)Neat freak. I’m a total slob and way too old to change now.
7) Cat Hater. I have three and I’m keeping them
8) Anti-TV. My Ex hated all forms of TV and made me feel guilty whenever I watched the boob tube. Give me someone I can be a couch potatoe with. Ditto for anyone who hates surfing the net.
I am wishy-washy about god(s) and spirituality and find certainty in others unsettling. If you are a steadfast atheist or religionist, I probably won’t date you. Agnostic, fine. “Sorta” Catholic/Buddhist/whatever, fine. “Spiritual,” great. Scientologist, Mormon, Baptist–not cool.
8) Anti-TV. My Ex hated all forms of TV and made me feel guilty whenever I watched the boob tube. Give me someone I can be a couch potatoe with. Ditto for anyone who hates surfing the net.
Fucking A LinaH.
Exciting! Thrilling! Adventures! Are fun and all, but if I can’t spend a lazy Saturday dozing on the bed and watching TV with somebody then it’s definitely not going to work out in the long run.
I’ve given more thought to deal breakers and I really don’t think I could date anybody who is religious or spiritual.
And I’ve said I wouldn’t have sex with a Libertarian, but upon further consideration, I suppose I might have sex with a Libertarian if he was very good looking and didn’t talk much. But I still wouldn’t date a Libertarian.
Whoops, LindaH. I apologize.
Serial killing is another deal breaker for me. I dated more than a couple, and each one of them were psychotic when it came to cleanliness.
I would have a hard time relating to someone who didn’t care about politics and social issues at all. I don’t think I would know how to talk to that person. On the shallow end, I did once decide not to pursue something with a guy because he gave me a Phish tape. It was so early on that I can’t really say we “broke up,” but I didn’t see him anymore and he wanted to keep seeing me, so there it is.
On the more extreme side of things, my brother-in-law once broke up with a woman because she didn’t know what hoi polloi meant. That may be a case where she was better off without him.
dudely hetero dudes who think it means I will be into a threesome.
I get that too, and I’m not even bi. It never ceases to amaze me how many men fail to grasp that “I’m gay” means “Your penis is a dealbreaker.” Actually, I think that’s exactly how I’ll phrase it from now on.
The teeny tiny pool of single, queer women in my cozy little city means that I have to be fairly flexible. I’ve gone from “no smoking” to “smoking outside and not immediately before sex” to “okay, well, just don’t smoke in my apartment.” I can’t imagine having any pop-cultural dealbreakers. There are things I don’t like, but I don’t mind if she shares them with other people. My mandatory weekly TV includes such intellectual fodder as Torchwood and Moonlight*, and I don’t see what’s so wrong with enjoying radio hits. I’ve also got a decent jazz collection and can tell you what’s happening in a classical piece. Basically, my tastes fall all over the brow spectrum, so I’m willing to give anyone a shot who’s willing to do the same for me.
Eventually, though, she’ll have to meet my picky, oddball dog, and he’s got his own mysterious set of dealbreakers.
*Torchwood at least has a decent cast (John Barrowman is my complete hero) and good FX, even if the writers are playing MadLibs. Moonlight? Yeah, can’t justify it. But I love it so.
Is there any reason why the blog won’t read the numbers I write in for the anti-spam email? I guess if you can read this, I figured it out already.
Oh yeah, I forgot to add. ANY connection to evangelical Christianity. ANY.
I am in the process of getting divorced. My wife and I met on an AOL atheist chat board 11 years ago. 5 years ago, well into marriage, she found Jesus. Big time. Southern Baptist. She teaches Sunday School.
She exerted efforts to keep a lesbian woman unhappily married to a man in her church, as God doesn’t like “that lifestyle” (our best man was an HIV positive gay friend.) She is full of tacky tchotchkes proclaiming the Big Jesus Love.
So. She asks for a divorce from the heathen husband 4 months ago. Now I find she’s dating - AND HAS PROMISED TO MARRY - another Southern Baptist from her divorce care group before I am even out of the marital house, am still here pending sale. Meanwhile, they prattle on about their “Christian love” for each other, etc. etc, Even to the point of making a fetish of their religious identification with Adam and Eve. I cannot make this up, am just not twisted enough.
As for me, I am no saint, but 11 years of acquaintance, dating, living together, engagement and marriage and not even held the hand of another woman once. Atheist immorality, I guess. I indulge myself this petty personal rant now to affirm, well, pretty much every single thing Amanda Marcotte ever said about hypocrisy from the Christian community, and probably the next 100 things Marcotte may say in the future, on her good credit. Evangelical Christianity for me is a militant, no-tolerance dealkiller.
Libertarian/Republican
Fundie Christians
Is obsessed with owning Prada/Gucci/diamonds/etc.
Thinks strongly the twin tower demolitions weren’t an inside job.
Doesn’t read… at all.
Racists/homophobes
Afraid of hallucinogens
Dislikes Feminism
Complains A LOT
I was with a girl for 5 years who would, every day, want to talk about how awful her coworkers were, for hours at a time. Other than that she was awesome, but I’m sorry, never, ever, again will I subject myself to that.
It’s great to go out with all kinds of people, just for the excitement if nothing else. But I’ve seen far too many people torn apart by major ideological differences to consider a long-term relationship with anyone who is:
conservative
Christian
too New Age-y
uninterested in books
abusive in some way
Those are my four deal-breakers. Since I’ve been happily married for eight years I would say they served me well.
My husband fell in love with me when I responded positively to Paul Bowles. What does that say about our relationship? Well, I don’t know but I’m not headed to Morocco anytime soon.
“How about this one?
“The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This has often been the ignorant approach of those who call themselves scientists and technologists.”
-The Butlerian Jihad
by Harq al-Ada ”
Brian Herbert is one of my deal-breakers. My husband insisted on suffering through every last one of those ridiculous books, which wouldn’t have been so bad, but he’s one of those folks who’s simply compelled to share the horror.
A few that I can think of- and yes I am judgemental and I hate most of what I grew up with in the rural midwest. (see below)
-someone who can’t appreciate just how awesome most of the Japanese anime and figures and etc. are I can’t hang with. I went on a date to Uwajimaya with a guy and he pointedly said “Gee I can’t see spending $5 on a tiny piece of plastic crap”. I said goodnight shortly thereafter.
-someone who doesn’t know Monty Python, the Young Ones and Blackadder. You don’t have to quote it exactly but at least KNOW what I’m taking about
-someone who is a picky eater (the current bf is at least GGG in that regard)
-someone who doesn’t like animals
-someone who has never traveled outside of the US
worst date ever- a guy took me to the Tacoma Dome for a monster truck rally. I was trapped there. aaaghhh!!!
I basically left this same sentiment on Feministe, but since I got there from here I thought I’d add a little something. Note that I did not read the comments left on her post.
I completely agree with the Ayn Rand sentiment. Ayn believed that “multiculturalism is the new racism,” and was very much into self-interest.
I could also never see myself seriously with someone who thinks the Hurricane Katrina victims all got fair warning and should have just gotten out when they were warned.
- The three “Big A’s” - abuse, alcoholism or substance abuse, adultery
- Poor personal hygiene
- Doesn’t like cats (I cannot conceive of a catless life)
- It’s fine if HE has children, but he better not expect ME to produce them
- Having a problem with the fact that I’m a practicing pagan. He can be of any religion or no religion, but he has to respect mine
- Right-wing libertarianism (UGH)
Monster truck rally sounds like an awesome date for 12 year olds.
Men with longer hair than Britney Spears (back when she had hair, I mean).
Quoting Jeffrey:
“Wow. Sexism towards both genders in a single sentence. Congratulations!”
Ooh… I LOVE sarcasm. Also, your appreciation of the complex mental shenanigans I had to go through to create that sentence. Can we date?
Lindsay says:
“And Foucault, I write e-novels. So I guess neither of you are for me.”
Well, I could probably accept your e-novels, since you share my dislike of men who call women “baby” (or “mammie,” as seems to be the Hispanic preference). And I too do not like rigidly defined butch/femme stereotypes or other gender paradigms where the whole thing revolves around opposites. I’m also totally into fandom, or can go there, at least. So maybe we would click?
My ex-girlfriend used to send me “WAR and PEACE” length novels by e-mail on a regular basis. she also sent microscopically written Hallmark cards. Holy cow, if you ever want to lose your vision, I can set you up with a really sweet girl…
I’ve never felt I could afford to be picky. Yet, while I’ve had very few relationships, they have generally been good.
I don’t think I have “deal-breakers” as such; I recognize that one does not shop for people in catalogs and so there are bound to be conflicts. When I run into a conflict in taste, world-views, or fundamental values, I express my take on it and let her express hers, and we’ll see which one predominates. Sometimes I can just have an intrest she doesn’t share or vice-versa; sometimes she brings me around to appreciating something I didn’t before–and vice versa.
Or sometimes the gaps have been too large. Then generally she is the one who breaks it off with me. I don’t like to close doors. But sometimes they must be closed by someone.
I think that when I am dealing with a woman who is bigoted, mean, or incredibly stupid on some important matter–she won’t even let a relationship get started. It would be too tedious for her to deal with my arguments and resistance. So the problem doesn’t arise for me.
It boils down to integrity. A person with integrity may or may not hold some bizarre or even offensive beliefs in principle, but what matters is what they would do in practice–and would they revise their beliefs in the light of that practice. Most of my (mere handful)of relationships have been with women of great integrity. In principle it seems a bit mean-spirited to assume that integrity always comes attached to certain beliefs and tastes and never to cwertain others.
That said–these women also pretty much agreed with me on abstracts, at least insofar as these boiled down to pragmatic choices.
The fact is–they were generally very together, very clear and honest and not afraid to let me know what they found obnoxious about me. I like strong women, and I don’t think it’s an accident such women tend to be progressive in just about every possible way.
So I’m not saying “no Republican fundamentalist chicks need apply.”
But I doubt any such would even speak to me–unless deep down they were looking for a way to evolve away from these positions. I too try to be strong, open, and clear, and this seems to effectively repel any of those she-demons the MRAs like to tell of–or whom one can hear so much from in the mainstream punditry.
As for mere matters of taste–perhaps I have none myself; I think I can adapt to at least tolerate (by ignoring, if all else fails) just about anything that isn’t actually vicious.
One date. “I’d rather live it than read it.” To. The. Curb.
Not letting me drive/insisting on driving whenever we’re in a car together. I could understand (for awhile) someone being slow to trust me with a ‘67 Mustang or next year’s new Camaro—I’d be the exact same way—but expecting me to give up my favorite activity so he can have more of it = cue me walking out, fast.
Obviously, sexism/homophobia/racism etc . . . and also getting defensive when I call him (or her, for that matter) on something unintentional. Aside from the obvious frustration of trying to convince them it was their mistake rather than my overreaction, the utter nonlogic of responding to “that was offensive, please don’t say things like that” with “Hey! I’m not a sexist/racist/homophobe, so it can’t have been offensive!” is more self-important stupidity than I care to deal with on a regular basis.
Double standards, anyone not capable of doing his own laundry, putting his own dishes in the dishwasher, and finding his own stuff rather than always asking “Honey, where did I put my keys?”
ANY dismissal of my stated abilities or ambitions; condescension when I request to be taught something he knows. This is a big one; I have lost SO much due to lacking courage and support when it came to things I wanted to learn about, and I’m in no mood, ever, to put up with someone who thinks it acceptable to cast doubt on my abilities, or to mock my desire to gain expertise on something.
Any obliviousness to nonverbal cues in bed; little random things trigger unease, sometimes just thoughts that come to mind, or acts that in a slightly altered context I would greatly enjoy, and I need someone who knows to reassure me, rather than push, when I’m all of a sudden not digging it.
Poor communication skills, or not having the inclination to understand what I’m feeling or thinking. I like deep conversations and being understood.
Also, I have random, specific aesthetic preferences, on which I will not go into detail because it’d take forever.
Lucky me I don’t mind being single, yeah?
Margalis the mullet spotting was really quite spectacular however…
I still have PTSD from that experience.
The obvious deal-breakers for me are sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as classism and any other kind of small minded bigotry.
But regarding matters of taste: I could never date someone who had a terrible sense of humor–and I don’t mean “doesn’t laugh at or tell jokes often,” which I’m okay with, I mean, “frequently tells horrible jokes that make everyone roll their eyes.” A corny sense of humor is a total bonerkill.
I also couldn’t go out with someone who listens to a lot of Lenny Kravitz, who smells bad, whose main source of financial sustenance is his or her parents, or anyone who is a tattle-tale. Also, no god-squad Christians, no people who think Geico commercials are funny, and no picky eaters.
1. Non-reader, as in doesn’t read books for pleasure. Books are my life, and someone who doesn’t read is going to fail to understand too much. Heck, my husband barely gets how important books are to me, and he reads at least a book a week. I go through 5-10 a week.
2. Evangelical. Believe what you want, but if you think it’s your religious duty to make me believe it too, I don’t want anything to do with you.
3. Scientifically illiterate. I don’t care exactly what kind of science you’re up on, but you’d better have a good fundamental grounding in the workings of the scientific method.
4. Overly impressed with my brains. Seriously, every time I’ve dated someone who’s said “You’re so smart!”, or some equivalent on the first date, it’s turned into an utter disaster. I’ve long since learned to back away fast.
5. At least tolerant of SF/Fantasy. Similar to books for pleasure above. Plus a lot of my time and effort right now is going into trying to write such for profit. Someone who thinks of SF&F as a waste of time is therefore likely to think of much of my life as a waste of time.
6. Willing to give me space. I’m very introverted, even though I like people. If I spend a lot of time around people (including my own family/children) I need time alone to find my balance again. Someone who takes that need for alone time as a rejection is destined to spend much of their time pissed at me and I don’t need to deal with it.
Mighty Ponygirl: Ah! I’ve been looking for someone who’s familiar with Rand and BioShock to lay this on: “Ayn Rand-lantis.”
Classism is a big one for me, too. This is, for the most part, due to the fact that I grew up in a different socioeconomic class than the one I will likely end up being in when I’m done with grad school (at least socially, if not monetarily), and I’ve had to adjust to/deal with the cultural expectations of many of my peers. I’ve even been chided (albeit mildly) for not knowing all the right foods, or the right artists/books, or not having been all over the world. You know what? It’s good that you (in the general sense, no one specifically on this thread) have had the means and/or social and professional connections to be able to do what you did and know what you know. That’s not the same for all of us, and it doesn’t make me lesser than you because of it.
Mighty Ponygirl: Ah! I’ve been looking for someone who’s familiar with Rand and BioShock to lay this on: “Ayn Rand-lantis.”
Who is John SeaGullt?
…I’m sorry everybody.
I used to have a bunch of deal-breakers. Had to appreciate the “right” music and the “right” books. Had to sync up politically. Had to be sexually compatible. Had to appreciate Monty Python and the Marx Brothers. Had to like to “have fun”, by which I meant drink a lot and raise hell at rock shows. Blah blah blah. That was most of my twenties.
Nowadays, apart from “Don’t be a friggin’ asshole”, I don’t know if I have any. Racism, sexism, homophobia, wingnuttism, religious shitassery, being proud of one’s deep ignorance and all of that are just shades of asshole, but yeah, I don’t know if I’d break up with someone who was into the Pussycat Dolls or wasn’t a big reader or had religious beliefs (and weren’t dicks about it).
I just can’t imagine anyone like that wanting to date me. I’m a long-haired atheist stoner liberal heavy reader bohemian who listens to primarily blues, soul music and pre-1993 country music. I don’t think I have to worry about weeding out anyone apart from women looking for the educated redneck version of Dude Lewbowski, and believe you me, those women are few and far between.
“-The Butlerian Jihad
by Harq al-Ada ”
Brian Herbert is one of my deal-breakers.”
Mine too. The quote was in Children of Dune I think, not Brian Herbert’s The Butlerian Jihad. It was supposed to be a quote from Harq al-Ada’s commentaries on the Butlerian Jihad.
As in the war, not the book.
Jonathan, you will NOT be dating Jenny.
My deal breaker: people SO smug about “I don’t watch TEE VEE…..” yawn.
Oh, and those who find Sedaris (both/either of ‘em) funny.
My deal breaker: people SO smug about “I don’t watch TEE VEE…..” yawn
I’ve gotten “I don’t even own a TV [therefore I am superior to you philistines]” a lot, which is even worse then “Oh, I don’t even watch TV.” Which I find to be really silly; even if you hate television shows, do they even watch movies on DVD? For such enlightened people, they sure love to rub in the fact that they willingly shut themselves off from about 3/4ths of popular entertainment.
Assuming that we’re talking about taste stuff, and not value mismatches… because I mean, naturally I’m going to want to date someone who isn’t a fundie, because I’m not a total masochist.
But past that… I don’t think I pay enough attention, or something, because I don’t know what my taste dealbreakers are. Reading is important to me, but so is living. Cats are important to me, but currently I’m on hiatus, and this guy I’m dating is allergic to them. Computers and such geekery is a huge part of my brain, but none of them who I’m dating are huge computer geeks.
(And I mean, if I wanted an author dealbreaker, I’d bloody well go with Terry Pratchett, because damn.)
Primarily, I want and look for kindness and a decent sense of humour. Everything else, taste-wise, is flexible.
well, Tapetum, I think I meet most of your wishes!
?:~)
Anyways, I can’t afford to be picky, since I’m visibly impaired. If I had a choice, I’d pretty much have the general no assholes rule.
The odd thing is, I’m pretty much the same as Tapetum, but I don’t really have dealbreakers, since I pretty much try to find the best side of people rather than what I can’t tolerate. I mark that down to inexperience, since most everyone else seems to develop the firmest dealbreakers after having repeated episodes of why it’s important to have dealbreakers.
Is it more important to have a reason to reject or to affirm? Or is it 50-50?
Linnaeus, you are the first person I read to mention classism. For me it’s not a deal-breaker per se, but I have noticed that relationships with people from a different class background to me tend to fail. My parents were lower working class tradespeople who subsequently sank into the trailer park, but (thanks be to the left-wing Australian prime ministers of my youth!) I managed to get myself a very good education. Now I work in the world of educated professionals, and am surrounded by people who have never paid their way through uni, whose parents buy them a house, etc. They’re great people, but I don’t think they really understand me and our relationships have always floundered on the differences.
It’s not like I steer clear of them, it just doesn’t work when I try to do anything with them.
So I ended up with a woman from the same background, who (as an aside for those above who mentioned this problem) appreciates my interest in gaming (video, role-playing) and often encourages me to take a few hours more on the computer because she has things she wants to do, and she thinks it’s funny when I play games obssessively.
And incidentally, having lived most of my life in Australia, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone under 50 who is anti-choice. It only occurred to me reading the comments here, actually, to even think about it…
It’s definitely not what they read, or necessarily that they read that much, but rather that whatever they do enjoy culturally, they’re able to problematize.
I mean, I enjoy Chick Tracts, have a Bible and a Koran, could imagine suffering through Ayn Rand and so on and so forth, but I would hope no one judges me because I’ve read it. If I expressed general and unconditional admiration for the mentioned works, however, I’d expect most people to run and hide.
Bullying personality, lack of sense of humor, dislike of or allergy to my cats, owning a pet I’m allergic to, and major ideological differences that will affect our relationship. Most of those come under the “bullying personality” heading for me, things like homophobia, jealousy, judgmentalism for religious or secular reasons, indifference to those who can’t do anything for you, that sort of thing. I haven’t yet found a conservative personality, whether politically active or not, who doesn’t fit at least one of those.
Absolute monogamy and desire to have kids with me or aversion to birth control and abortion are also deal breakers.
I find none of those things shallow, though I know people who would argue with me that politically vetting one’s partners is an arbitrary thing to do. I disagree. But then, I’m so shallow I could care less about gender, religion, age, race, marital status (assuming nobody’s lying to anyone), appearances…
My only other absolute deal breaker is someone who has the same first name as anyone in my immediate birth family. Just can’t cope, for some reason.
Of course, I’m the deal-breaker in most cases, few people can live with my assortment of emotional issues and migraine triggers and personality for long. Even with all that, I’ve been with my partner for nearly twenty years, so I must be doing something okay.
Exactly. You can tell that the people in the article live in a huge, diverse city. Rejecting someone for reading and/or owning a certain book? It’s pretty damned pretentious. If it’s all they talk about, that’s a different story. But who hasn’t received shiterature for Christmas from a well-meaning relative? Who hasn’t been curious as to what the big deal is, anyway, about something on the bestseller list? Or, for that matter, just how craptastic IS The Secret, anyway? (I’ve read it. It’s pretty craptastic.)
If someone tells me, “Whatever you do, do NOT read that book,” you can be damn sure I’m going to read that book. Yes, I’ll probably regret it, and whine about how I wasted five hours of my life, but I hate to be told what my opinion should be, so I’m always going to check it out for myself.
I ascribed to the Groucho Marx school…(way back when)
“Any woman who would have me as a boyfriend, I refused to date!”
It meant that ther judgement was seriously flawed.
If I can fall for someone, I will. All dealbreakers can be broken.
Smoking is the closest I have to a dealbreaker, since I hate bad breath. So carnivore diets turn me off, but at least those don’t make your clothes smell and toothbrushes can get the steak away.
Sex must have some enthusiasm rather than seem obligatory. Damn right I’ll reciprocate–hell, I’ll start there.
You can believe anything, but you better be able to defend it (and successfully, which means religious people should probably not bother.)
Read whatever you like, just don’t talk to me while I’m reading and no, I don’t want to be interrupted to tell you the entire plot of the book I’m hundreds of pages into. Ask me later while you’re watching TV.
Dress however you like, but don’t bitch about your shoes being uncomfortable unless you have deformed feet. Damn near anyone can find comfortable shoes, but if you wear high heels to impress me and then bitch about them, I’m not impressed at your devotion so much as pitying you.
Tattoos? Piercings? Dyed hair? Extreme body maintenance? Addicted to exercise? Hairy? Waxed? Makeup? Laughs at me in a kilt? Doesn’t matter, just don’t insult my knees.
I have a lot of trouble finding other people who share my tastes in anything. Where are all the John Carpenter, Phillip K. Dick, Clive Barker, KMFDM fans?
Divorced and practicing law in Ann Arbor.
Deal breakers: pro-life, conservative or libertarian, non-reader, television-hate, passive-aggressive behavior, misogyny, classism, homophobia, racism, etc., political apathy, and being anti-gaming, anti-skiffy, anti-comics, anti-horror, and/or sexually inhibited.
Own a copy of The Fountainhead (leftover from old roommates? gift?)? I could forgive it. Ayn Rand fan? No. No, no, no.
If I can fall for someone, I will. All dealbreakers can be broken.
Smoking is the closest I have to a dealbreaker, since I hate bad breath. So carnivore diets turn me off, but at least those don’t make your clothes smell and toothbrushes can get the steak away.
Sex must have some enthusiasm rather than seem obligatory. Damn right I’ll reciprocate–hell, I’ll start there.
You can believe anything, but you better be able to defend it (and successfully, which means religious people should probably not bother.)
Read whatever you like, just don’t talk to me while I’m reading and no, I don’t want to be interrupted to tell you the entire plot of the book I’m hundreds of pages into. Ask me later while you’re watching TV.
Dress however you like, but don’t bitch about your shoes being uncomfortable unless you have deformed feet. Damn near anyone can find comfortable shoes, but if you wear high heels to impress me and then bitch about them, I’m not impressed at your devotion so much as pitying you.
Tattoos? Piercings? Dyed hair? Extreme body maintenance? Addicted to exercise? Hairy? Waxed? Makeup? Laughs at me in a kilt? Doesn’t matter, just don’t insult my knees.
Dealbreakers:
-Consistently refusing to admit you’re wrong
-Repeatedly showing disdain (even in “teasing” form) for something I like or care about
-Talking down to me in any way
-Taking self too seriously
-Being all into Ayn Rand (mind you, both my current boyfriend of 7 years and I have read Ayn Rand, even willingly, but are NOT on board with Objectivism. It was more about just having an awareness of those books.)
-Picky eater, unwilling to try new food
-Doesn’t read voraciously (I think this explains having read Ayn Rand more than anything — both of us will read anything that falls in our path, even if it’s just for comedy value). I guess this is why I don’t understand dealbreakers based on literary tastes, because I have extremely catholic (small-c) literary tastes. Although I guess if someone liked wanky Litrachoor like Snow Falling on Cedars or God forbid anything by Rick Moody, I might be forced to re-evaluate. That would fall under “Takes self too seriously” as well.
-Hating cats
-Insisting I take your name if we get married
-Refusing to pick up your share of the housework
-Casual bigotry or hatred of any kind: homophobic remarks, racist remarks, sexist remarks.
It’s been a long time since I was on a first date, but being a jerk to the waiter/waitress or being a stingy tipper would be Big Red Flag Dealbreakers too.
Ooo, I thought of another one: Saying anything resembling the following: “I don’t give anything to Goodwill because I don’t want poor people to get my stuff.” One of my friends is actually marrying a guy who said that the first time I met him. He does a majority of the above, as well. We’re all worried about her, quite frankly. She’s set on marrying him though, so we plan to just stay around and offer support (and escape if necessary).
Ok this is shallow…
but I didn’t go on a second date with a guy because of the obscene quantity of ketchup he used.
What I think most of us find is that we have a core set of dealbreakers we’re not going to discard, and a set of preferences we think of as dealbreakers but are not. Witness the number of people who’ve thrown out of some of their “dealbreakers” along the way.
For me (and this is a purely hypothetical exercise, especially if my wife reads this), the core is probably:
-Manipulative behaviour. I’m not gonna stand for it. That’s assuming I figure it out, of course. I should probably lump abusive behaviour in here, too.
-Substance abuse. My dad drunk himself to death and my brother’s got some serious problems of his own. I love beer, personally, but I don’t like to have more than one or two at a time.
-Non-readers. It looks like I don’t have to explain this one.
-Incompatible sense of humor. Any partner of mine has think I’m funny at least some of the time, or she’ll kill me.
-Evangelical anything. I mean that in the generic sense (i.e., “marked by ardent or zealous enthusiasm for a cause”). Overenthusiastic atheists bug the hell out of me, and I’m not a believer. But I do respect my friends who do believe. At least if they don’t try to convert me. There’s a threshold here, obviously, that might vary a bit. But I’m not going to church on a regular basis, trust me.
-Authoritarian leader or follower. I’m neither, and I really don’t want anything to do with either.
Other than those, I’m willing to negotiate. Like Ayn Rand? Hate cats, SF or punk rock? Own a ferret? Maybe we can work something out. My wife has to chaperone on all dates, however.
Scientifically Illiterate. I don’t care exactly what kind of science you’re up on, but you’d better have a good fundamental grounding in the workings of the scientific method.
I don’t want to be rude here — everybody’s got their laundry list, and obviously they will all be different.
But I’ve seen this one multiple times here.
It is possible to have a thorough awareness of the scientific method without actually being a science-nerd. I’m a graphic designer. And yet I’m able to grasp why Intelligent Design is bunk, that sometimes western medicine is a good thing, and how exactly the process between hypothesis and virtually-taken-for-granted “theory” works. I can read the Science page of the New York Times, and sometimes even enjoy a publication like Nature (I was an anthro geek in college).
If you’re a science type who needs to be with another science type, far be it from me (I did admit that ‘boring’ corporate jobs are one of mine). But you don’t have to have a PhD in molecular biology to know pseudo-science when you see it.
Dune. If I ever hear you reciting, “Fear is the mind-killer…” Well, just don’t. Please.
Yea, the hawt ones recite the Mentat cant; “It is by will alone that I set my mind in motion…”
I can’t think of anything like this. Mainly because I’m arrogant enough not to expect mere peons to share my rarefied tastes.
Oh? You don’t read Cicero in the original Latin? Pfft! You can’t discourse at length on the Everett many-worlds interpretation? How gauche. You’ve never seen Big Trouble In Little China? What, have you been living in a fucking cave?!
I should clarify a bit, flashheart. I, like you, don’t have a problem with class differences between me and a potential date or partner in of themselves. Indeed, given the circles in which I encounter people now, I’d never date if that were the case.
My problem is when class differences become the basis for class snobbery. I don’t mean relatively minor misunderstandings - those are just part of being humans with different experiences - but rather serious disdain or lack of any desire to understand someone because of her or his class background. I haven’t run into too much of that, but enough to know I that I really don’t like it.
Beyond the obvious abusive/controlling/druggie/psycho/frigid/poor hygiene/bigot/lying/no physical attraction/bone stupid/etc non-starters…
Republican in this day and age: deal-breaker
Smoker: deal-breaker
Lists shopping as a hobby: deal-breaker
Takes mysticism or religion seriously: deal-breaker
High maintenance: deal-breaker
Clingy and emotionally needy: deal-breaker
Anti-intellectual: deal-breaker
Still living with parents after age 25: deal-breaker
In terms of the other person’s tastes, I have my minimal standards, but they’re generally about what the other person likes as opposed to what she happens to know.
My dealbreaker was religion: I absolutely positively wanted nobody religious, esp. not a Christian. Then I married a minister.
So ironic it proves the non-existence of God.
I dated someone who became a fundie just beforehand. Believed in a 6000 year old earth and “no sex before marriage”.
I think she already failed that one before she converted from Catholic to Methodist.
I could somehow tolerate that lunacy it was the whining and constant nickpicking I couldn’t take.
Nothing I did was good enough. *shudder*.
I think the ‘deal breakers’ list (in my mind) is more wishful thinking.
I doubt I’m going to meet any right wing / neocon women simply because I don’t go to church or attend any $1000 a plate fringe conferences.
“Why yes, I met Anna here at the “Homeless Flesh Recycling / Orphan Crushing Institute”.
Pink Floyd was mentioned earlier, but sometimes that gets complicated. For instance, I once dated a woman who was into Syd Barrett-era PF, whilst I generally lean towards Waters/Gilmour-era PF. The twain seldom meet, I find.
The class thing is real. For me, it even extends to platonic relationships. It’s not really conscious on my part, but I find that there’s a whole worldview gap between people raised with large obstacles in their path and those walking on top of those obstacles.
I was musically associated with a guy from a wealthy family for a while several years ago, and though we respected each other, we could never really communicate on an intuitive level. But over the past few years he’s been taken off the family dole, and after he had to take care of himself for a while, we have actually become very good friends.
If pressed, I don’t think I could pinpoint just what it is about a class gap that makes communication difficult. But I’ve never been able to get past it. Maybe it’s me.
I’ve been married so long I rode a dinosaur to my wedding, but if I accurately recall this thing you call “dating”, Star Trek was my deal-breaker. It’s one thing not to care for sci-fi as a genre, but there were people who tried to make me feel stupid for liking Star Trek:TOS. It may seem shallow, but if someone is going to make a point of how stupid they think you are on something so small then they are likely to do so on the big things as well.
Regarding the class thing — I think this is different for different people. I grew up middle-to-upper-middle class, with all the entitlements that carries. However, I have tended to have friends and lovers who skew more working-to-lower-middle, and have had a significant number of people in my life who grew up all-out poor.
But rich people? They annoy me. To the extent that I know I’ll never get to be a SAHM because I will never be able to love someone who comes from the kind of background that would make it possible.
That said, one of my best friends grew up in a London slum with a mother who supported the family by taking in piecework, and all the rest of his friends ‘come from money’, to the point that I can’t stand most of them.
So I guess it takes all kinds.
the opponax–I understand where you’re coming from. I grew up solidly middle class in a town with a high rate of poverty. Growing up, many of my friends were poor (the upper and middle class girls didn’t like me because I wasn’t stylish enough), and it wasn’t until high school that I had friends in my same social class. It made me thankful and appreciative of what I had growing up. Then, in the past year, I met someone who is young, immature, and comes from an extremely wealthy family. Talking to her was like talking to a block of cement because she just could not understand what life is like when you don’t have everything. It’s like she comes from a different world. It’s fucked up. (And I had to live with her for a while, too. Painful.)
I also agree on men who call women “baby.” I routinely have to tell men to NEVER CALL A WOMAN THAT UNLESS SHE SPECIFICALLY ASKS OR SAYS IT’S OKAY. It’s creepy and icky and insulting to boot.
Since I don’t date and it’s been a long time since I considered myself dateable (the no sex/touching thing kinda cuts out 99% of the male population), I can’t cite any relationship dealbreakers. But I do have some for straight-up friendship:
No bigots.
No cat-haters.
No pretentious snobs who look down on TV, fast food, etc. If you hate Taco Bell, you are my enemy.
No vegans. It’s hard enough dealing with vegetarians.
Nobody who thinks that people who don’t read are automatically unintelligent. I don’t need to read a book to have something interesting to talk about.
No contrary people who decide to like or hate something based on how many people like or hate it.
No Republicans, libertarians, or other political morons. I’m borderline with the, “My vote doesn’t count anyway” people. They tend to drive me a little nuts.
No one without hobbies and interests of their own. (I knew a guy who desperately wanted to impress me, so he started to slowly absorb all of my hobbies. It was fucking creepy.)
We have to have SOMETHING in common. Anything. But SOMETHING.
That story would be even funnier if it turned out he was one of those people who thinks that “hoi polloi” refers to the upper classes, when it actually refers to the lower classes.
It’s been very interesting reading the lists of deal-breakers here. Pandagon readers are a sampling of, by and large, liberal, non-religious, intellectually inclined people. A different blog would no doubt have posters with different deal-breakers (just for tee hees, it might be interesting to see what Freepi put as deal-breakers).
“Bullying personality” does cover a lot of my deal-breakers. As well as the ones I mentioned above. And I wonder, with all the posts about not wanting to date someone who is racist (and I don’t, either!) how many would actually date outside their race? Again, this being Pandagon, I expect so. But I’ve heard people (elsewhere) say that racism is a deal-breaker for them yet they don’t want to date outside their own race or ethnicity. Which IMO is hypocritical, unless of course you live in an area where you don’t get to meet people of other ethnicities or races that much.
Gotta disagree with you there. Not on the Blackadder love, but on deciding that the guy must know and love it before you meet. It’s fun to be able to introduce your partner to something new that you just know they’re going to love. (Though harsh experience has taught me not to talk something up too much — very few things can live up to the PR I give them.)
If you show it to them and they still don’t get it, well, that’s a different matter.
“(just for tee hees, it might be interesting to see what Freepi put as deal-breakers)”
…no lobotomy scar…
Banisteriopsis, that girl would be a perfect companion for my ex, who spent about 45 minutes each evening analyzing what each co-worker said & what, exactly, was meant. When it was my *turn* to speak, 5 minutes would go by and he’d say I’ve kept him on the phone too long.
Now with someone I would never have chosen from on online profile, I almost think you can make more progress with someone not already aligned with your ideals. sometimes it works.
“It’s fun to be able to introduce your partner to something new that you just know they’re going to love.”
I think this is actually a deal breaker for me. If you can’t introduce me to any great music, movies, books, etc. that I didn’t know before then it probably won’t work. And the same probably goes in reverse as well.
“Hey, let’s go see the new Will Ferrell movie.”
Sorry. I’m totally booked. Forever.
I’ve been reading this blog for about a year and this is the most entertaining one I’ve seen. I’m not trying to mock anyone, we all have tastes we like and tastes we find detestable. The fact that the dealbreakers are so varied is what’s fun. Some of them I say, “Oh yeah, absolutely!” and some I think, “Huh? why does that matter?”
Mine? Anyone who takes Jacques Derrida or Michel Foucault. (Just kidding, but anyone who takes them so seriously they cannot even smile at the joke would not like me, so it wouldn’t really matter what I could tolerate.)
Mine probably boil down to intolerance and close mindedness, which encompass a lot (including intractable racism).
Particular tastes may be significant negatives (e.g. smoking) but if there are other positives, I could work around them.
I’ve been married forever so a good bit of my thinking on this is hypothetical. I once dropped a prospect because she wanted to see Clint Eastwood “Dirty Harry”movies. What a fascist, I thought. I was much more judgmental, intolerant and closeminded back then.
I do think there is a difference between incompatibilities that can be tolerated enough to stay with someone those that would DQ someone as a committed life partner (spouse or equivalent). Among these would be marked differences in views about money, having children, and marked difference in sexual drives. These are areas which historically are major conflict points in marriages. The money thing can be escaped if one partner does not think it is important and is willing to yield to the one who does, but that’s still difficult.
But significant incompatibility on sexual drives cannot be fixed and it rarely if ever gets better. It can take awhile to know what the partner’s baseline is, maybe six months. But a low drive partner will almost never become a high or even medium drive partner, nor should they be pushed to become something different than they are. Neither high or low is wrong, just incompatible.
strategichamlet,
I agree, my tastes have been expanded by being exposed to my wife’s preferences. My reading list is waaay more varied than it was when I was single, as is my film intake. And I daresay her playlist has been expanded both by music I’ve introduced and acts we’ve discovered together.
That being the case, I don’t know if well-read, etc. is as important as being willing to try new things. Doesn’t mean you’ll both like those things, but the ability to give them a fair shot does say something about a person.
Oh, and for everyone seeking a partner with perfectly aligned tastes so your house is free of artistic dissonance: Add a kid, and it’s all out the window. Mine has definite opinions on many of my favorite artists, and not all of them are favorable. Now he’s decided he doesn’t like my old Muppet Show DVDs anymore. Not even the one with Peter Sellers. The boy ain’t right.
I need an editing function, or better proofreading. Nothing like f-ing up the joke to make it completely unfunny. Sorry.
Like many other commenters here, I’ve been married for a long time, but my hypothetical dealbreakers are mostly different than they were back when I was dating. Aside from the obvious abusive, racist, bigoted, etc. ones:
1. Smoking tobacco, pot or crack (one of the eternals)
2. Chewing tobacco
3. Poor personal hygiene
4. Snobbery about anything
5. Poor financial habits (not “you don’t have money,” but “you are essentially flushing what you do have down the toilet all the time”)
6. Never reading (It’s OK not to want to read books as long as you’re reading blogs or magazines or newspapers at least some of the time.)
7. Unwilling occasionally to share experiences I find interesting without assuming the martyr’s halo
8. Unwilling occasionally to share experiences you find interesting without assuming the martyr’s halo
9. Regular unironic listener of Dr. Laura, Rush Limbaugh, or Don Imus
10. Emotional thinker
Must not be a certified crazy person who may or may not have killed his wife and hid the body.
The only guy I ever “dumped” was after our first date- a “pity” date set up by an ex-boyfriend whom I had remained pals with. I had no idea this guy’s backstory…
Went out for burgers, then he decided to take me back to his apartment to talk/ get to know each other before we went to a movie.
At first, okay. But when he got to the point of showing me his gun/knife/bow collection and mentioned his missing ex-wife who “ran off while he was stationed in Germany”, I got very nervous. He then took me to a Rambo movie (okay, it was a gazillion years ago) and while I was cringing, ate popcorn in double fistfuls and screamed encouragement, when he wasn’t laughing maniacally.
I called my ex the next day and told him all; he said, “Oh no, not AGAIN!” and I ripped him a new asshole. Then the friend called me time and again for a week, saying that he missed me and that eventually I would get to like him if I gave him a chance… scary, scary dude.
I would dump anyone who didn’t like Nina Simone.
I pretty much chucked all my deal-breakers when I married my wife, since she’s from Germany and is unfamiliar with almost all of my cultural touchstones.
She’s never heard of Douglas Adams. Or any other English author, except Mark Twain, whom she can’t read anyway because of his colloquial writing style.
Never seen any episode of any Star Trek series or movie.
Ditto Battlestar Galactica. In fact she has seen basically nothing I’ve seen and vice versa. Sienfeld? Brady Bunch? Gilligan’s Island? They mean nothing to her. I think she’s seen Hogan’s Heroes.
Movies too, except The Sound of Music (why couldn’t it have been Spinal Tap?). She’s heard of John Wayne but never seen one of his movies.
Heard of but never seen any Monty Python.
Has no knowledge of American history prior to Reagan. This wasn’t really a deal-breaker but I majored in history as had most of my prior GFs.
Never heard of ___________________ (insert name of every rock band on the planet except Nena Hagen and the Beatles).
Love conquers all, indeed.
Ideologues, the intolerant, and conspicuous consumers. I like cats, but can’t spend more than a couple hours where they live without popping benadryls.
I think that a ton of Pandagon love matches happened in this thread. For example, Matt T. is a my dream boy.
Wow, I didn’t realize Germany was that culturally different. The history and literature stuff is pretty obvious, but no non-German rock bands other than The Beatles, and no American movies besides The Sound Of Music?
Is she Amish?
At this point, I don’t think we need to bring up racism, sexism, fascism, Republicanism. We’ll just assume that; just bring it up if you want to point out that they’re NOT dealbreakers.
Mine:
-No neat freaks.
-Nobody who’s wasteful either.
-Must not be a new country fan (like Matt T., pre- 1993 is fine)
-No supernaturalists.
-Must like animals.
- Anyone who even humors the “politically incorrect” shit.
I’m also a bit of one of those dreaded “I don’t watch TV” people. I’ll watch cartoons and stuff in a blue moon, sure. But many people (coughcoughmy familycough) leave it on when they’re not even watching it, just for background noise. They even leave it on when no one is home! CAN’T STAND IT AAAUGH.
I haven’t laughed this hard in years. If your vagina weren’t a dealbreaker for me, I would already be madly in love with you for this comment.
I always said I wouldn’t sleep with republicans or smokers. Happily, I didn’t. I am a little worried though. I’ve literally never dated or slept with anyone I didn’t meet at a school of some kind. If something happens to my husband, I’m going to have get a masters in something or be alone forever.
I’m also a bit of one of those dreaded “I don’t watch TV” people. I’ll watch cartoons and stuff in a blue moon, sure. But many people (coughcoughmy familycough) leave it on when they’re not even watching it, just for background noise. They even leave it on when no one is home! CAN’T STAND IT AAAUGH.
That is one of my parents’ habits that is really perplexing to me. I’ve come over to feed the cats or whatever when they’ve been on vacation, and THE DAMNED TV IS ON. Some people who do that will at least have some theory about how the pets like the noise or something, but my parents just forget to turn it off, it’s that permanent a fixture.
Gotten a bit better since they got Sirius radio stations on the dish. Now the TV’s on all the time, but it’s pretty much the radio, usually set to some coffeehouse stuff.
I don’t take pride in not watching TV. I just know myself. If the TV comes on, inertia will pin me to the couch until I’m absolutely convinced there’s nothing on to watch. I tell people I can’t afford cable, but in reality, I’m just terrified of the amount of couch-time I would spend channel-surfing if I had it.
I found a girlfriend against all odds who shares 90% of my tastes and is completely in political alignment. And my first girlfriend, too. So I never did have to follow through on my plan to get a fandom tattoo to mark me and drive people I wouldn’t be compatible with away.
Nowadays, I think I can discern a person’s personality and compatibility just by seeing how they react to Wonder Showzen.
Just curious, why 1993 as the watershed year? Was it Garth Brooks’ “Ain’t Goin’ Down (’Til the Sun Comes Up)” which was #1 for part of that year? Or maybe 1994 when Faith Hill covered Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” and Alan Jackson covered “Summertime Blues”?
Some gave up on Country Music after 2003, the year of the Dixie Chicks controversy when most of the country music establishment shunned them over Natalie Maines’statement about ashamed Bush was from Texas.
I don’t take pride in not watching TV. I just know myself. If the TV comes on, inertia will pin me to the couch until I’m absolutely convinced there’s nothing on to watch. I tell people I can’t afford cable, but in reality, I’m just terrified of the amount of couch-time I would spend channel-surfing if I had it.
Yup. That’s exactly my situation.
Not to mention I’m a cheapskate, too, so if I got cable, then I would feel like I needed to be getting my money’s worth.
That said, I’m pretty sure I use some sort of horrible snobby delivery when some acquaintance asks me “did you see X last night?” and I reply, “I don’t watch TV.” Snobbiness in inverse proportion to perceived quality of the show.
If somebody asks, “Did you see The Real Housewives Of Orange County last night?”, there is going to be open disdain in my voice. If it’s The Daily Show, it’ll probably sound more like bitter disappointment.
I have to speak up for the non-tv watching people. I’m one of them.
Oh, sure, I have my favorite shows and dozens of movies I watch. I have a tv set and a projector. But I don’t have TV, and I think that’s a great thing.
Why should I spend $50+ a month for commercials and mindless entertainment, the vast majority of which isn’t even interesting? Why do I need to know RIGHT NOW what’s going on in whatever show I like?
Overall, I’m fine with waiting a few months for a DVD to come out. That way I get to enjoy TV at my leisure without commercials. I’m a bit culturally behind but that’s hardly new, been that way since birth, practically.
I like that the focal point of my house is my dining room table, not my television. I like that you can find my husband and I cuddling on the couch reading instead of staring vacantly at the tv. And I like that we get to save money, time, and hassles by not paying for that crap.
But those are great movies! And the 4th one is a powerful message about female empowerment blah blah blah…
No, it was 1992, and I’ll tell you why:
ACHY BREAKY HEART
Billy Ray Cyrus, you bastard, you didn’t just crap in our pudding once and go quietly into that sweaty, mulleted night. No, you had to go and give us Hannah Frickin’ Montana to boot.
The Dixie Chicks thing was not that remarkable. Jingoism has been a Nashville thing for quite a while, going back to some of Merle Haggard’s flag-waving classics and Johnny Cash’s The One On The Right Was On The Left, not to mention the noxious howl of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
Now I’m sick to my stomach…
Yeah, and besides I think a “deal-breaker” should be defined as something you wouldn’t tolerate in a romantic interest that you would have no problem with in a friend or acquaintance.
I have to go along with one of the angles farther down in that NYT story: There’s no such thing as a deal-breaker that exists in isolation. I found plenty to dislike about my ex-wife before she started playing some horrible New Age guy whose name I can’t remember day and night - it’s just that that is the easiest and most illustrative thing to bring up in conversation. Or at least it was, back when I could remember his name.
While I listed a lot of dealbreakers above, the truth is most of them wouldn’t be terribly relevant even if I weren’t married. I’m a reluctant dater at best (see above on introverted), so really for me to date someone there has to be a strong set of positives, not just avoiding the actual dealbreakers.
I’ve met, in total, maybe a dozen people I would willingly date. The people I would consider prospects for a serious relationship fit on one hand with leftover fingers (including the one I married).
Matt, thanks, I didn’t think to look back one year. Yes, the answer would have been obvious.
Country music is still my guilty pleasure, despite its jingoism. Greenwood’s song makes me gag almost as much as Achy Breaky Heart.
But the inability of the Dixie Chicks and Country Music to reconcile, to agree to disagree, still makes me sad. It would have been so easy to fix. I even still like most of Toby Keith’s music, even if he is a jerkwad.
I think a “deal-breaker” should be defined as something you wouldn’t tolerate in a romantic interest that you would have no problem with in a friend or acquaintance.
But that’s not the definition as generally used. It just means something you would under no circumstances tolerate, regardless of other favorable traits. As in it Breaks the Deal. It has nothing to do with whether other people you know also have the trait in question.
Not to mention there are a lot of things I’ll tolerate in a co-worker, family member, or casual friend that I won’t tolerate in a relationship.
There’s no such thing as a deal-breaker that exists in isolation. I found plenty to dislike about my ex-wife before she started playing some horrible New Age guy.
Yes, actually there is. A dealbreaker isn’t ’something hilariously annoying about an ex you can bring up at cocktail parties’. It’s a dealbreaker. The MOMENT somebody says, “Would you like to come to church with me sometime?”, it’s over. I’m not going to wait around and see how lame their taste in music is. The Deal is Broken.
1. Facial hair.
2. Littering.
3. Snobbery.
4. Aggressive patriotism.
5. Extroversion.
6. Non-trivial piercings.
7. Lack of empathy.
8. Belief that men and women are fundamentally different.
9. Belief that women are superior to men.
10. Belief that men are superior to women.
11. Belief that sex is a resource that women control.
12. Homophobia.
13. Bad hygiene.
14. More than minimal jealousy/possessiveness.
15. Self-hatred.
he MOMENT somebody says, “Would you like to come to church with me sometime?”, it’s over.
Sometimes intent is important, though. For instance, my wife doesn’t say, “Do you want to come to church with me?” She just says, “I’m going to church.” She knows I’m an independent being who, if he chooses, will go to church with her, and if he doesn’t, will stay home.
Leaving it your partner to live their life in accordance with their own values is simple respect, and the absence of that would be (and has been) my chief dealbreaker.
opoponax @ 105, I totally agree. I’m a scientist (working on a Ph.D in biomedical engineering) and my boyfriend is a graphic designer with a BFA in art and design. But he’s scientifically literate. I can talk to him about my work, because he understands the basics of biology and physics and is interested in them. Being scientifically literate by no means requires being a scientist, and in fact should not. Everyone, no matter their career, should know some basic scientific principles (and understand what “theory” actually means).
I actually like that I’m not dating a fellow scientist, for several reasons: we don’t devolve into shop talk; we don’t have a two-body problem for academic careers; and I don’t feel like I have to compete with him.
mr_subjunctive @ 121, also in complete agreement with you.
For instance, my wife doesn’t say, “Do you want to come to church with me?” She just says, “I’m going to church.”
Clearly your wife is not a fundamentalist Christian.
When you meet one of these folks, once they determine that you’re not one of their co-whackjobs, that will be the third sentence out of their mouth.
I have to agree with the person who said that they can’t deal with people who like or dislike something based on how many other people like or dislike it:
I HATE it when someone suddenly dislikes a band or a movie or a book because more than 4 people have heard of it. The “I heard of that band, author, wacky visual artist - first neener, neener, neener look at my cool band t-shirt/painting/paper-mache-hooker-signed-by-Vincent-Gallo-when-he-was-still-hip” thing is SO irritating.
Interesting thread, both here and at Feministe.
There are levels of close mindedness, and while it’s easy to rule out racism, sexism, etc., there’s a whole bunch of lesser levels that can make it hard to share a bed or a life with someone. “Taste is the great divider”, Pauline Kael said, “and sex is the great leveller.” I’m never going to find someone with compatible tastes, but I keep a few guidelines.
1. Anyone who says sweepingly of some music genre, “Oh that’s all crap.” If they say it about rap, it may or may not be a sign of racism. If they say it about country music, it may be a sign of classism. Lord knows I’m not a fan of every type of music, but I don’t think the people who like them are stupid.
2. Someone’s who is not willing to experience or try new things. You don’t have to like the same things I like, but if you respect my intelligence, you owe it to me to give it a shot. You never know if you may like really long static Russian films. The same applies in reverse. I’m pretty blah on most Science Fiction, but some of the most fun I ever had was a girlfriend showing me her favorite Babylon 5 episodes. Still don’t think it’s good, but her enthusiasm was exciting as hell.
3. The flip side of that, and women probably encounter it more than men, is someone who wants to be your personal tutor and shape your taste so that it exactly mirrors theirs. I watched Annie Hall a hundred times as a kid, and I didn’t realize this until I actually was an adult - Woody Allen’s kind of a jerk in that movie, and Diane Keaton is right to break up with him. (Allen has enough maturity as an artist to semi-acknolwedge this, and enough immaturity to make sure every romantic rival of his is either shorter or balder than him.)
4. Someone who thinks they know me when they don’t. Knowing someone is a really long process. Anyone who thinks they know a person by scanning their bookshelves doesn’t actually understand books at all. Mine aren’t up as a personal statement or household decoration. They’re up because I read them, or I’ve been meaning to read them. The ones I don’t think I’ll read again go to the thrift store.
5. Anyone who takes any book or film as a sacred text, not to be criticized in any way, be it the Bible, Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or Getting Things Done.
6. Whiners. I know there are people with far worse lives than me, but if they live constantly in envy or self-pity, they don’t have room for a relationship.
7. Libertarians or more broadly, people who think they are so totally self-sufficient that no one has ever helped them to get where they are. I’m a person of some privilege comparatively, and I can date someone of more privilege, but not someone who doesn’t understand how lucky they are.
8. Anyone who can’t argue, or views arguments as the same as fighting or abuse. My parents never argued for the 15 years of their marriage, and they had a cold, loveless relationship. If you can’t express anger at someone, you can’t express love either.
9. Anyone who likes to provoke fights in public. Can’t stand being around that, and it’s unfair to the people around you.
10. Muppets fans. Totally unfair, and contradictory to everything I put up before, but every girl I dated who is into the Muppets past the age of 19 has had something seriously wrong with them. Probably the sane ones won’t date me, thus proving their sanity.
Reading Margaret Atwood on a rainy afternoon is spectacular, but I also enjoy the filthy, shameful pleasure that is Rock of Love or America’s Next Top Model. I am so pedestrian, and the sad thing is that I am not even embarassed about it. I find idiot movies like “The Hot Chick” just as pleasurable as anything directed by Michel Gondry.
Anybody who brags about knowing people “when” AND has their autograph is LAME. Either that or lying, which is double lame.
Deal. Breaker.
It’s one thing to have the autograph of some internationally famous superstar (or world leader, or nobel laureate, or whatever). It’s another thing to go around collecting the autographs of nobodies so that just in case they get famous someday you’ll be able to show them off.
Clearly your wife is not a fundamentalist Christian.
No, just a dabbling Unitarian. I’ve dated those of whom you speak, though, and friggin’ yikes…
I didn’t mention religious issues. In New York, you encounter less fundamentalists, but I did have this second date with a woman who revealed that while she didn’t believe all of Left Behind, she did follow most of it, and believed that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon.
This despite the fact that she had spent two years wearing a Nun’s habit as part of a touring company of The Sound of Music.
To the people for whom long hair/facial hair is a dealbreaker, you are free to break deals for whatever reason you like, but allow me to protest. I have had every length of hair from a shaved head to hair well past my shoulders, and at least four or five distinct styles of facial hair, but I don’t consider any of them to be central to my personality. I shift them mostly for my own entertainment, but if a romantic partner had an actual preference for any particular cut or style I would and have been happy to accommodate them. Most of the things people have mentioned are inseparably a part of someone, but hair can be shed in minutes. Basically I’m saying there is no reason to write off someone today because they have facial hair, when tomorrow they may not.
I’m a chronic pot smoker, and i still go out and do things. I just have THC in me when i do it. Just to let you know your “pot smoker” stereotype is kinda lame.
I’m curious about the class thing. I have a tendency to get along better with lower/working class types, like myself currently, but my family is upper-middle class. Do you guys go towards ppl of your current class, or your parent’s class?
The class conflicts come into play when I date people with class pretentions (or, more properly, class ambitions). I worked hard to ensure that I would be able to go about my business and pursue my goals without worrying if I am wearing the “right” clothes or living in the “right” place. To a degree, it’s snobbery of my own: I’d have a hard time dealing with people who don’t have the class security I do that allows me not to care. At the same time, the class-strivers tend to look down on me because I don’t have the outward class trappings that they do, and I have no intention of adopting them. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have enough hangups about this sort of thing from growing up that if I have to deal with them now from someone I’m dating, it’s a dealbreaker.
Libertarians or more broadly, people who think they are so totally self-sufficient that no one has ever helped them to get where they are. I’m a person of some privilege comparatively, and I can date someone of more privilege, but not someone who doesn’t understand how lucky they are.
I’ve seen Libertarians get a curb job a lot in this thread and throughout this blog in the past which is kind of ridiculous.
There is a clear difference between cosmo “hey, maybe the Government can be unintentionally destructive at times and so we should be weary of it” libertarians and the GOOGLE RON PAUL 9/11 IS AN INSIDE JOB Social Darwinists.
To say that Libertarians are defined by the fact that they feel that they are 100% self-sufficient is the same as saying that feminists hate men.
I’m a chronic pot smoker, and i still go out and do things. I just have THC in me when i do it. Just to let you know your “pot smoker” stereotype is kinda lame.
Well, I’m basing it on people who I have been living with for the past 9 months, so its not entirely false.
casey,
I’m pretty much in the class my parents were when I was a kid, i.e. lower middle. They’ve risen slightly to middle middle since they no longer have mouths to feed, but it’s not a giant lifestyle leap.
My friendships tend to skew lower middle class to dirt-ass poor, but that’s at least partly because I mostly consort with fellow musicians, a notoriously low-income demographic. But there is the aforementioned communication gap that has thus far prevented me from making any close upper middle class or butt-ass rich friends.
And my wife comes from a solidly middle middle class family, so no variation there either. I’m pretty damned boring, come to think of it.
Casey, at this point in the game, I’m mainly talking about parental/familial class status, because I’m only a few years out of college, myself.
Most of my friends right now are also college educated 20-somethings who have jobs with similar levels of class status to my own.
But, like the working class / lower middle class friends I tended to have growing up, most of them come from families with less money than my own. I guess that in another 20 years, all or most of my friends will be of the same class, because I doubt that any of my current friends are going to end up waiting tables or driving taxis, and it seems unlikely that I’m going to go befriend a bunch of factory workers.
Funny, I’ve never really thought of how class-segregated adults are in the USA. I can see myself befriending men and women, queer, het, and trans, and people of all races and religions. And yet I concede that it’s unlikely that I will ever spend a lot of time socializing with people outside my socio-economic class.
Romantic deal-breakers:
1. Bukowski fans
2. Will Ferrell fans (mr_subjunctive–HA!)
3. Liked the movie Garden State or Little Miss Sunshine. No, I’m not doing that annoying hipster thing of looking down on anything too popular; I’ll cop to liking the other stereotypical favorites of my demographic, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Unfortunately, to date, I have never met anyone who disliked Garden State or Little Miss Sunshine!
4. Being anything less than a paragon of egalitarianism
5. Bigotry of any other stripe. That includes classists, so fuck you bigoted assholes who list “not having traveled outside the U.S.” as a deal-breaker!
6. Using your liberal political affiliation or laughably transparent, faux social consciousness as a personal identity in a tribalistic sense, or as a source of smug self-satisfaction/moral superiority (see above!)
7. Little concern for health practices; having an STD
8. I love Richard Dawkins, but any of his superfans that worship him as much as fundies worship the sky fairy can beat it
Deal-breakers for both potential boyfriends and potential friends of any sex:
1. Having ever typed “squeee!”
2. Throwing perfectly good things away instead of donating them
3. Keeping a Livejournal or Diaryland, unless you’re Ginmar
4. Cooing over high heels, belly button rings, and other forms of tacky apparel; liking Victoria’s Secret
5. Anime considered a major interest
6. White people who “go tanning”; spray tans
7. Watches a lot of TV/has bad taste in TV–mostly stupid melodramas like The O.C.
8. Any interest in celebrities (e.g., reads magazines like US Weekly or sites like The Superficial)
>To say that Libertarians are defined by the fact that they feel that they are 100% self-sufficient is the same as saying that feminists hate men.
Fair enough, and I actually shouldn’t have used the L word, since I’ve met a fair amount of so called progressives who believe they got to where they were entirely through their own talent and hard work. There may be generous and plentiful libertarians, I just haven’t run into them.
But you can’t in the next breath defend your stereotype of pot smokers being people who hang around the couch all day because you’ve been “basing it on people who I have been living with for the past 9 months.” You’ve just admitted your basing your opinion on a pretty damn small sample size.
Me, I smoke pot, I exercise (the combined high is just wonderful), I go to the movies, I go shopping, I read, I clean the bathroom. Sitting around is just wasteful.
Funny, I’ve never really thought of how class-segregated adults are in the USA. I can see myself befriending men and women, queer, het, and trans, and people of all races and religions. And yet I concede that it’s unlikely that I will ever spend a lot of time socializing with people outside my socio-economic class.
Good point. Me, either. I don’t think it’ll be intentional on my part or anyone else’s, but that’s probably how it’ll shake out.
I’m confused — what’s your deal with Garden State and Little Miss Sunshine? Is it just that you happened not to like those movies, and anyone you date has to have exactly the same taste as you in everything? Or that enjoyment of them is a marker of some terrible thing I’m not aware of?
You yourself said that you rarely meet anyone who doesn’t like either of those movies. Maybe they’re just good movies?
Sorry, that was for K.A.
Also, I’ll chime in and say that I’ve never met a libertarian who didn’t think they lived in some special little ‘bootstrap’ fantasy world. Including one of my former MAGNET SCHOOL classmates… Thus, it is impossible that asserting such a thing would be equivalent to claiming that feminists are man-haters, since I’ve never actually met a feminist who hated men.
I find that i can enjoy Garden State and LMS for what they are– somewhat entertaining comedies whose main weak point is that they’re taken way too seriously by some people. And “some people” may well include the creators of said movies.
People who can’t appreciate the amusement value of reading US Weekly at the gym, or even at home, probably take themselves way too seriously for me.
I think this gets back to my main dealbreaker when it comes to class issues: once a person has satisfied the values we were raised to believe makes you a “good person”– moral center, generous, love of learning, not materialistic, regular reader, values education (and I like to think that I satisfy these things) — then it’s ok to be able to indulge one’s shallow side every now and again without receiving moral condemnation for it…. while also acknowledging that one’s shallow side is not something meant to be taken seriously.
I reacted a little to the travel thing, too, since the only outside-the-U.S. travel I did before I got married at age 30 and went to Barbados for a week was Canada. My folks didn’t have the money and I didn’t have any to speak of until I finished grad school and got a job at 26. Well, there was that summer in Mississippi, which sure seemed like a foreign country in 1972.
But (I ask gently and in good humor) isn’t there an internal contradiction embodied in #4 and #5. Are you hating on anyone who is above the middle class?
I can’t put my finger on it opoponax. They each had really good moments that I liked, but overall, they were a thumbs down for me. I noticed that the people who cite them as beloved all-time favorites are usually the exact opposite of my type, whatever that is. A lot of them have that excessively immature emo thing going on. I can’t explain it any better than that. I consider being in love with those two movies a good Stuff White People Like post. Little Miss Sunshine was at least well-done, but Braff’s stuff was the most insufferable, sophomoric piece of shit I have ever spent money seeing.
Typo: my first #4 should also say “within romantic relationships”
We agree on Randroids. I’ll add that and stoners to my list. And ditto the person who mentioned people who hate The Beatles.
There may be generous and plentiful libertarians, I just haven’t run into them.
Reason Magazine
But you can’t in the next breath defend your stereotype of pot smokers being people who hang around the couch all day because you’ve been “basing it on people who I have been living with for the past 9 months.” You’ve just admitted your basing your opinion on a pretty damn small sample size.
Me, I smoke pot, I exercise (the combined high is just wonderful), I go to the movies, I go shopping, I read, I clean the bathroom. Sitting around is just wasteful.
There is a difference between people who smoke pot and have a normal life and the chronic pot smokers-people who base their entire entire lifestyle and personality around the activity of smoking pot. Like the difference between someone who drinks alcohol and someone who chronically consumes alcohol.
A while back I spent six months living with a thieving, drug dealing black guy, so I guess my opinion that black people are thieves and drug dealers isn’t entirely false.
Anyway, on topic, I don’t really have any deal-breakers, per se, at least not in terms of interests tastes. However, like ks, queen mother of the peach pie, I do need anyone I date to be roughly as intelligent as I am, or more so. And probably for them not to take me too seriously or respect my opinion, as I seem to argue a lot for the sake of it, so I spout a lot of crap.
Oops!
There may be generous and plentiful libertarians, I just haven’t run into them.
I’ve been reading Reason Magazine for years, and the writing staff has a fairly un-critical stance on the idea of being charitable.
SixtiesLib-
I don’t think it’s hating on upper-middle class people to have a problem with an absolute prerequisite of having been a world traveler. Maybe you can say you gravitate toward “worldly” people, which could possibly include open-minded, intelligent poor people who haven’t yet found the means to indulge their love of exploring other places. Why would you as a rule exclude someone who is well-read about the world and all its most fascinating destinations just because they haven’t had the experience yet? Maybe the people who posted that wouldn’t necessarily exclude them, but merely didn’t word it more sensitively.
K.A., I wasn’t so much asking why you didn’t like those films (everyone is entitled to their taste), but why anyone who did like them would be impossible to date.
For instance, I really dislike Apocalypse Now, which many people regard as one of the best films of all time. If I met someone who said they adored it, I don’t know that I’d rule them out, romantically. We would just disagree.
What is it about those films that makes it impossible to date someone who likes them?
KA, in light of your typo correction at #169, my last comment at #168 should be disregarded. Sorry I misunderstood. BTW, I agree with your #173.
I reacted a bit when I saw the “must have travelled” but I also reacted when I read that “paragon of egalitarianism” thing. Being egalitarian and non-sexist/racist/homophobic/classist is a great goal, but it seems a bit much to expect anyone to be a paragon of anything. But it’s your deal-breaker, not mine, so have at it.
casey #157,
Keep in mind that there’s social class on the one hand, and economic class on the other. There’s some correlation, but a lot of wiggle room, too. For example, I recently dated a very cultured woman who had been a practising physician in her home country. But due to her recent immigrant status, she was working class in this country.
I date outside both my family’s and my own economic class, but honestly it’s easier to date within my own general social class. While I’m very uninterested in getting involved with someone from my particular social background, a few common touchstones resulting from a similar social class usually help ease the way.
Matters of taste as described in the NYT article are another matter entirely. I’m a book person, so I’ll admit to scanning bookshelves (assuming she has them) to get an idea of someone’s literary taste for my own info. But the only time doing that has truly brought me up short is when the books clearly indicate one of the deal-breakers I mentioned above.
I tried to explain it to the best of my ability with: I noticed that the people who cite them as beloved all-time favorites are usually the exact opposite of my type, whatever that is. A lot of them have that excessively immature emo thing going on. I can’t explain it any better than that.
Liking that movie tends to correlate with a certain type of personality/general aesthetic preference that I can’t stomach. Unfortunately, most people suffer it.
Think of it this way: a large majority of people like whatever crap pop music is being manufactured, but it’s at least relatively easy to find people who also hate that kind of music. For some reason, being a Britney Spears fan tends to be a marker for all kinds of other personality incompatibilities for me and a lot of other people I know, though I can’t precisely name what that personality incompatibility is. For those two movies, it’s the same issue with me, but I can’t quite put my finger on what the exact incompatibility is. We just aren’t “soul mates.”
That said, I suppose it’s going to be one of those deal-breakers I’ll be giving up, as other posters have succumbed to doing. Maybe I’ll end up with a guy who goes to Julio Iglesias concerts or something I thought I could never possibly understand.
As someone pointed out above, the presence of a book on the shelf may not indicate the sensibilities of the owner. I have “Mein Kampf” on one of my shelves and I think it is an important read. But it is not because I believe anything espoused in it. On the other hand if I said that Schicklgruber chap was really onto something, I could understand being shunned.
A lot of the superficial deal-breakers I and others have mentioned fell under the umbrella term “has bad taste.” It’s subjective, but I think a lot of us secretly believe our own proclivities reflect a good eye for some objective measure of quality. It makes me look overly picky or even arrogant though I don’t consider myself an elitist, but those preferences are pretty good indicators of whether or not we’re on the same wavelength.
K.A., I’m sorry if you feel like I’m ragging on you. It just seems like a HUGE brush to tar someone with. Maybe I just don’t get a certain subcultural significance of those particular films, but to me, that’s like saying “I’d never date anyone who likes grilled cheese sandwiches.”
And for Sixties Liberal, regarding bookshelf scanning — to me, it’s not so much seeing one particular book on someone’s shelf, but the overall impression. Mein Kampf might raise eyebrows, but it wouldn’t be a dealbreaker. But if half their books were about Nazism, especially if many of those books seemed to be on the wrong side of that particular debate, yes, that would be a big deal. Though I would probably ask about it before just fleeing their apartment.
On the other hand, if I saw The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion up there, I would not hesitate to write that person off. Unless I already had a really good reason to think they only had it for ‘academic’ purposes.
Your definition of chronic pot smoker is not right then. i am definitely a CHRONIC pot smoker - as in, i am high nearly ALL THE TIME and have been smoking for 10 years, but i have a normal life - a job, a life, etc. i just go through my life while high.
comparing pot to alcohol doesn’t really work because i don’t think many ppl can remain FUNCTIONAL if they were drunk all the time. think of it more like cigarettes. we don’t think ppl who smoke tobacco are just “smoking in their rooms wasting their lives away” do we??
Just want to add:
“Lower” socio-economic class and well-travelled aren’t necessarily contradictory. Prior military service anyone?
Major deal-breakers for potential girlfriends:
Anyone who doesn’t listen to songs that are seven minutes or longer in length. (I’ll explain below)
Anyone who is socially conservative — sexist, racist, heterosexist.
Anyone who view relationships as being anything other than 50.000-50.000
Anyone who hates the Internet.
Anyone who supports Ron Paul-style libertarianism. (y’all know what I’m talking about)
Anyone who hates reading. (I’ll explain below)
Anyone who is an anti-porn activist. I can’t change your mind and you can’t change my mind on the subject.
Anyone who says auto racing is not a sport.
Women who live with their parents past age 28.
Anyone who hates mathematics.
Anyone who cannot pinpoint major locations on a map.
About number 1, not all songs that are seven minutes or longer are progressive rock. Some blues, AOR, funk, disco and R&B songs last about as long as extreme prog-rock songs.
About #6, I’m referring to non-readers as being my major deal-breaker. (Reading is not always about fiction. People who read blogs, newspapers, web pages, and X-rated magazines on a regular basis are also great readers. As long as you’re reading something, you’re ok)
opoponax– In my experience, those two films really are markers for tending to be on a certain wavelength among people in the 20-something crowd, unlike grilled cheese, ha, or other movies I love/dislike. Loving that contrived, supposedly-lovable portrait of dysfunctionality is a tired genre (when it’s poorly done, it’s even worse) among other things, and seems to reflect a taste/personality I tend not to click with in the long run. I mean, it’s not Dane Cook-level bad taste, but something that definitely shows our heads are in two different places. You would date someone who loves Two and a Half Men or Dane Cook? More power to you. But I think it is fairly good warning for a fundamental difference in weltanschauung. I liked Forrest Gump a lot but dated someone who really hated it for whatever reason. I swear it’s not arbitrary! Doesn’t someone admitting they love soaps, Desperate Housewives, and the O.C. knock them down even a wee bit in your mind? Same with those two movies, but it applies to even more people, unfortunately. A hipster fellow once told me he hates people who like The Shins for some indescribable reason, even though he likes other very similar groups of equal popularity among his cohort.
BTW, I wasn’t always this way; I used to be so open-minded about my partners that my brain fell out. I pay attention to those little feelings of uneasiness now instead of brushing them aside as inconsequential. In the long run, they always were tipping you off to something. Trust me. It’s like how the dumb emo guy I dated would call parrots “peacocks,” and it wasn’t just a slip of the tongue. I tried to pretend stupid little things like that didn’t matter, but they DID!
Tyro–I don’t “take myself too seriously,” but I genuinely tend to get on with people who have zero interest in weird, narcissistic, boring, dysfunctional celebrities. It’s another marker for being on the same wavelength for more general interests. For example, they probably also won’t tell me the mundane interpersonal dramas and relationship issues of mutual acquaintances because they find that stuff boring and have stuff going on in their own lives. Those two activities seem to coincide with a certain type of mindset. But I have plenty of other lame interests to make up for that preference!
P.S. I’m adding to the top of my official list of deal-breakers:
Finds Dane Cook funny.
Maybe it’s time for a separated post/comment section on things that make a deal more likely. Accentuate the positive, you know. One woman I met (had an unsuccessful date, but may have something that will bloom into a great friendship) said her test for compatability is the movie Ruben and Ed. I was both deeply disturbed and very much in love the moment she said that.
jon–That’s a good idea. I wish I could find definitive green-light questions to feel people out early on before too much time is invested. Like someone said early in the thread, people who want to know too much about you on the first date come off like scary stalkers, but I suspect it was in the name of efficiency. I read in a magazine once that one woman’s go-ahead signal was a guy who wore impeccably tailored and ironed clothes, down to his socks, because attention to detail reflected a more suitable personality for her in general. To each their own.
Fun thread, but defending my snobbery has done me in, so I’m out!
I think it is fairly good warning for a fundamental difference in weltanschauung.
Good summation. I now fully see what you mean.
I liked Forrest Gump a lot but dated someone who really hated it for whatever reason.
Which is funny, since not only do I really abhor Forrest Gump, but to me it is almost as weltanschauung-defining as your suggestion of Little Miss Sunshine.
I think part of my confusion is that I went to see L.M.S. on a whim, because I needed to make myself scarce for a couple hours (long story) and vaguely remembered seeing a trailer that looked pretty good. I got a chuckle out of it, though it was sweet/cute, and generally felt that my $10 was well spent and it was a worthwhile use of an evening (and also spent a long time pondering the ramifications of the final scene). That is pretty much my entire opinion of the movie, and wasn’t aware that there were people out there who felt PASSIONATELY about it. I mean, it’s not Godard.
Anyone who elevated that film to the level of Important Classic Cinema however, would probably be annoying, you’re right.
As for aesthetic stuff as dealbreaker, I’m not sure whether I really care about that sort of thing. Some things are beyond the pale, or can be useful as dogwhistles about what kind of person I’m dealing with. But at the same time, sometimes it’s really fun to introduce someone to new things, and to give things you thought would be lame a chance.
I was very anti-Buffyverse for many years, until a boyfriend sat me down and had me watch Angel. A mention of his obsession with the Whedon ouevre might have been a dealbreaker back then, actually. Now I am a huge dork for the Buffy. Who knew? Similarly, I once drunkenly told a film student I was trying to impress that my favorite director was John Hughes, when I really meant John Waters. He never spoke to me again. His loss, eh?
that should read “thought it was sweet/cute”, sorry.
In the abstract, I would have as a deal-breaker someone who was mean to the wait-staff while we were out at a restaurant, but I’ve never encountered such a situation while on a date, so it’s more theoretical than anything else.
I read in a magazine once that one woman’s go-ahead signal was a guy who wore impeccably tailored and ironed clothes, down to his socks, because attention to detail reflected a more suitable personality for her in general. To each their own.
Look at it this way, if the woman regards it as a deal-breaker if the guy’s clothes aren’t impeccably tailored and pressed, it probably saves them both a lot of stress and is best for both parties involved when she decides to keep looking.
For those commenters who think they get along well with people from a “lower” class background to themselves, I would say the problems of class difference don’t prevent me getting along with those who grew up more privileged than me, just that the type of understanding one needs to maintain a deep tie over a long time seems always to be absent. I think also that this type of understanding tends to only go one way.
For example, my partner and I both expect our parents to die and leave us nothing. I have received nothing (and I mean absolutely nothing) from my parents since I was 16, because they have nothing to give. My partner and I fashion important aspects of our lives - career decisions and money particularly - around the fact that our future is determined by our own effort. I have friends, however, who never even have to check their bank balance because they know it will be big enough that they don’t have to care (due to inherited privilege). These people I get along well with, but they tend not to understand the decisions people like me have to make. Often they think “money isn’t important”, not a view many people from working class backgrounds.
I put it to the Pandagon commenters that people from privileged backgrounds don’t have to receive similar types of understanding from their inferiors.
That said, I will not accept from anyone the idea that working class and trailer trash people should use their childhood lack of privilege as an excuse for bigotry, small-mindedness or racism. For example, although I came from a very poor background I have a masters degree and I am living in Japan, soon to move to the UK. I don’t know what it’s like in the US, but in Australia and to a lesser extent the UK, a poor background is not a guarantee of intellectual poverty or lack of interesting life opportunities. You can make what you want of your own life.
Dealbreakers (theoretical - minor things that add up)
Dave Matthews / Generic wuss-rock fan. (Then again I might be afraid of someone way into Gorgoroth or Finnish Death Metal.).
Bad laugh.
Repeats talking points.
Forwards crap without checking snopes.com first.
Scary snobbish-cultish attitude towards computer (hint:Mac user).
Dealbreakers (actual - a kind of composite)
Treats me like dirt.
Doesn’t acknowledge there is a relationship.
Ignorant or intolerant of people.
Immature.
Not truthful.
Encourages or insists I lie to help her save face. “This is what we’re going to tell them.”
Never on time.
Passive Aggressive.
Nitpicky.
Spell check / grammar fascist.
Manipulative.
Quasi-nihilistic - everything is abitrary. Nothing matters. Foolish to believe in anything or that anything you do will make a difference. Existence is pointless.
arrogant.
self centered.
Hates television and strongly impiles that you are stupid for liking or enjoying anything on it.
____
I’ve joked that my own mental illness needs to be compatible with her’s.
implies. argh. blurry contacts.
My problem is when class differences become the basis for class snobbery. I don’t mean relatively minor misunderstandings - those are just part of being humans with different experiences - but rather serious disdain or lack of any desire to understand someone because of her or his class background. I haven’t run into too much of that, but enough to know I that I really don’t like it.
Linnaeus, I grew up dirt poor and this really resonates with me. I’m married, so no more dating, but this is a friendship deal-breaker for me. People who look down on me because I’m not particularly well-traveled or because I have never tried certain kinds of food (although that list gets smaller all the time) or whatever can go fuck themselves. I seriously had a roommate in college who could not grasp the fact that I had never been west of Ohio (which is no longer true). She thought I was bullshitting her. It was truly an astonishing display of ignorance, and furthered my already strong belief that she was an asshole.
I also am wary of people who are concerned to the point of being patronizing. I mean, I grew up poor, not under a rock. I am not stupid (this is especially frustrating when it’s people at grad school. Hello, I got in to this school also, and it was certainly not because of my looks and charm). It’s possible to be sympathetic to the problems of a different socioeconomic class without being a condescending asshole.
Oh, what a great, great topic. Why haven’t I ever blogged this? I’ve got a serious answer, but if I were ever to be single again (and Lord willin’, I never will be), I would definitely not date a confirmed carnivore, a confirmed fundamentalist of any faith, or someone who, for lack of a better term, lacked a hunger to do MORE, whatever MORE is.
Restless ambition is still the best aphrodisiac I’ve ever encountered.
TMI.
“Think of it more like cigarettes. we don’t think ppl who smoke tobacco are just “smoking in their rooms wasting their lives away” do we??”
It’s amazing what happens, though, when you *quit* an addiction like smoking! I smoked for about ten years from my twenties to my thirties. Then recently, I decided to quit because I was worried about shortening my life. I went to a doctor, used a short-term medication of some sort, and now I am smoke-free.
Although I never thought of smoking as “sitting in a room wasting my life” at the time, I now think of those ten years as such a waste of money. by the end of it, I was ashamed of smoking socially; I never smoked outside the house; and I hated smoking but could not quit.
I think anything becomes problematic and a potential “deal-breaker” once it is recognized by one partner or the other as shameful. I would never date a smoker now (my husband quit years before me, but we both smoked when we started dating). I would also never date anyone with a habit or behaviors that I consider “shameful,” which is quite a list of things when I think about it. Class, when it is overtly announced, as in “I’m so privileged” or “I’m so down-trodden from the trailer park,” is a total deal-breaker for me. Same with race, same with sexuality.
Be what you want to be, just don’t be in my face.
could imagine suffering through Ayn Rand
Oh, you foolish foolish child…
Here’s one for you - “Gets very nervous if I express a desire to speak to their ex-lovers without them present”.
I don’t mind them saying “Soandso was a psychotic loser” and letting me confirm it for myself, and I’d actually enjoy pointing them at the (few) women I’ve been acquainted with should the situation arise, but it rings a big alarm bell if they trash exes and then get nervous about me speaking to them…
It is a big one for me as I grew up in a working class family.
One way such rank classism was expressed is the dismissive attitude of relatives and classmates, especially literature and music conservatory majors, when they feel the need to denigrate some of my “plebeian” reading habits, musical tastes, or my questions/interpretation of literary works we read for class. It was one reason why I went through a brief anti-classical music phase and am still quite guarded around literature and music majors….especially when I found that nearly all the literature grad students in my school tend to be overentitled trust-fund kids who pass snap judgments on people’s intelligence and fundamental worth as human beings merely for not being as “erudite” and “intelligent” as they are.
It is unfortunate as I appreciate reading literary works and listening to a wide range of musical genres….I just cannot stand some of the most opinion fans….especially ones who hold their tastes as more “erudite” and “intellectual”.
This is not to say that being a literature/music major is a dealbreaker…though I will be on the lookout for elitist dismissive behavior based on my past experiences. I
I noticed several people listed “classism” as a deal breaker. Does that include prejudice against upper middle class people?
If a prospect went on and on about how unfair it was for upper or upper middle class people’s privilege and supposed arrogance, is that a turn off for you?
SixtiesLiberal, that would be a turn off for me. As I mentioned above though, the problem for me is not that I necessarily think “this hot person is a different class to me so I can’t be with them”, but that I have noticed over the years that class differences just tend to screw up relationships, even when both people are trying to be open-minded. I don’t think the issue is in the open, admitted prejudices of either side, but the more subtle lack of understanding of differences in expectations, lifestyles, etc. particularly as it extends to thinks like the classical arts, certain sorts of interests in food, and future financial planning. I didn’t know what the word university meant until I was 16, for example, and didn’t know I could go. I have a friend who knew he was going to uni from the age of 3. That is not a small difference.
As far as I can tell, we are 200 comments in and no-one has said “smoking” as a dealbreaker. Did I miss something?
And for the anti-martial arts commenter near the beginning of this thread: I guarantee kickboxers will change your mind on that.
Not liking travel, nature, art. Conservatives, racists, addicts. Celene Dion fan unless she loves jazz, classical, Celtic or the blues. Talking about an ex for more than 5 minutes a day, 2 minutes a day the first 2 months. I am therapist, don’t need to work for free.
If having lunch on the shore of Jenny Lake or Cumberland Island does not appeal to you, why bother.
As long as there is intense conversation with laughs, and we can’t take our hands off each other.
At some point, yes it would. It would depend on the context (which also applies to any downward-directed classism), but there is a point at which what you describe goes too far. I experience this to some degree because what I do is socially (but not so much economically) placed in the middle to upper-middle class, and from time to time, I get to hear about how what I do is useless, is not “real” work, etc.
That said, it’s been my experience that classism, much like racism and sexism, does not operate symmetrically; it’s been directed from the top down more than from the bottom up. So if the folks on the lower end of the scale push back a bit, particularly if their observations have some accuracy to them, I tend to tolerate it more.
It’s odd that a lot of people are talking about class without admitting that:
1) “Taste” functions largely as a way of distinguishing social classes, and
2) “Deal breakers” often function as safeguards to make sure you don’t date outside of your social class (hardly anyone does).
I can’t actually say this is a bad thing without being a massive hypocrite. But certainly that’s a lot of what’s going on here, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise.
There are also some peculiar misconceptions about how class works. For example, if you are born to upper middle class parents, you don’t become working class when you’re working for little money in your twenties. In fact your ability to do so, relatively secure in the knowledge that your financial condition is temporary, is a marker of your true (high) social class.
The only deal breakers I can think of off hand for myself are right wing politics of any kind and Don DeLillo.
I won’t date anyone who has read xkcd and doesn’t like it. They have to at least think the style of the humor is cute in a dorky way, even if they don’t think the funny ones are uproariously funny like I do.
I also have criteria for lifestyle/principles/worldview compatibility, of course, but that’s already been covered.
Brendan, I agree with you very much with the proviso that these dealbreakers don’t cut both ways. Those of us who escaped our lower working class roots and now work as urban professionals tend to spend a lot of time around people from a different class background, and end up forming relationships with or rooting people from higher classes. It can be surprising how much of those taste and deal-breaker concerns tend to work in one direction when one starts doing that.
For example, you won’t find many of those of us who worked our way “up” refusing to date people who eat bulgarian fetta. But you will find pretentious upper middle-class snobs thinking we are phillistines if we don’t eat bulgarian fetta. I don’t have much interest in or aptitude for financial betterment through property, nor do I have the accumulated capital to do so. But it forms a large part of the conversation of upper middle-class professionals in my age group.
Which is why for me class difference isn’t a dealbreaker per se, but it tends to end up operating as one whether I want it to or not.
I thought my deal-breakers were ‘non-reader’ and ’smoker’ for years. I’m studying Creative Writing at doctorate level(feminist sf, though I do love PKD), my partner does not read. I am in the happiest, most secure relationship I have ever been in as we agree on almost everything else. He has given up smoking, though. Looking back at my relationship history, I’d have to say the best deal-breaker I could have had was ‘anything like my dad’. Yeah, that would have helped a lot.
So, are you guys saying I should or shouldn’t read The Fountainhead?
Brendan April 1, 2008 at 10:42 pm
1) “Taste” functions largely as a way of distinguishing social classes, and”
I have this theory that, it’s all about pattern of risk taking and attitude. A working class can’t afford to have risk taking and attitude of somebody who never need to worry about not short on cash.
Or that it’s not about literature and music perse but the group of people prefer to interpret certain work in certain manner. But then again, most of classical music WERE created for upper leisure class. Mozart didn’t write for the plebs, he was hired by the kings court. Not until the advent of modern recording industry that a composer can make a living from the mass.
the type of understanding one needs to maintain a deep tie over a long time seems always to be absent. I think also that this type of understanding tends to only go one way.
I may be taking this WAY out of context, but it strikes me as being a little insulting.
Some of my closest friends have been people who come from a poorer family than my own. In fact, almost ALL of my closest friends have. Almost everyone I have dated has, too. Granted, I am not from the upper crust or anything even remotely close. And most people I meet as an adult have similar careers and interests to my own, now, regardless of how they grew up.
If you’re saying there’s something somewhat innate about the lives and experiences of people from different socio-economic classes, such that people of different backgrounds cannot understand each other well enough to have close relationships, I think that’s really fucked up.
If somebody said to me, “I don’t think Black people can ever really establish meaningful longterm relationships with white people because the type of understanding one needs to maintain a deep tie over a long time seems always to be absent,” that would probably be A DEALBREAKER for me.
Radical feminists got death threats for suggesting less about the ability for women and men to ever really understand each other.
the opoponax April 2, 2008 at 8:31 am
If you’re saying there’s something somewhat innate about the lives and experiences of people from different socio-economic classes, such that people of different backgrounds cannot understand each other well enough to have close relationships, I think that’s really fucked up. ”
I never believe there is fundamentally innate about a person… well maybe stupidity. I mean conservatism gotta be some sort of brain damage. lol.
Plus if there is some weird experiment cloning myself, I bet I would think that other self is pretty dubious person and has no class whatsoever.
about interacial. It doesn’t work unless the two party really ready to battle society at large. This is where money and class enter. It’s epic story of love can conquers all, if not major social engineering project. Nevermind differing worldview.
I’m a product of my social class, and I fully admit that I would have trouble being romantically involved with someone who come from a different class value system, but that has more to do with attitudes towards money and education than it does about what jobs their parents had and how much money they had growing up. The truth is that money is probably one of the largest stresses that can ever affect a relationship and a marriage, so I don’t think this is a bad deal-breaker to have at all. If we have vastly different attitudes towards money, it’s probably not going to work out.
Also, religion: as I get older, I realize that dating outside my religion becomes more and more difficult. Why should I bother stressing both of us out over the issue?
It doesn’t work unless the two party really ready to battle society at large.
Oh, I’m sorry.
You are a bigoted asshole.
OK, go about your business. I will commence ignoring you.
Whoops, sorry, I’m responding to the wrong person.
Squashed = bigot I can safely ignore.
Flashheart has said nothing incriminating.
Dealbreaker:
- Anyone who says “irregardless” and means it.
- Christianists - they go hand in hand with mysogyny and I won’t have it.
- Conservatives *shudder*
- Non-readers
the opoponax April 2, 2008 at 9:21 am
It doesn’t work unless the two party really ready to battle society at large.
You are a bigoted asshole. OK, go about your business. I will commence ignoring you.”
*shrug*
There is a limit what a person can learn, how fast, and what society can accept.
Yeah if both couple are ok and can afford battling society together. (eg. if both are highly educated and can afford it) more power to them. But most don’t. Don’t have the energy, skill, connection or flexibility to do it. I don’t say it’s impossible, but VERY hard. most people can’t do it. Social interaction pattern is designed to maintain status quo, shieve out threat and accumulate advantage.
But say. Relatively middling educated white man dating brown muslim woman. Imagine the social challenge that you can bet the man and the women are not prepared to face. (getting house loan or where to send kid for good school alone will be a major task, nevermind harassment at EVERY SINGLE government check point. Do the couple want to keep certain religion? which one?)
It’s easy to talk in academic environment where everybody is relatively young, open minded and doesn’t need to think about large future decision.
But it’s not outside world.
And we are not even talking about how one person suppose to touch how, in private, public, how to talk, gaze, relate, every single interaction pattern is new. A mistake can quickly cascade to faux pas and occasionally major event.
(let’s just say i doubt you have what it takes outside very cosmopolitan enclave and small social circle. You may believe you have it, but you don’t)
flashheart,
It’s precisely the unspokenness of class that makes it so poisonous. In places like the UK, it’s more out in the open. Society here is no less stratified, but we like to think we don’t carry around classist attitudes simply because no one’s a Lord or Duke of anything. When we bump into that submerged class iceberg, it comes as a bit of a surprise.
It’s not that we in the lower classes want to think about money as much as we do. It’s that we have no choice. When you’re a paycheck or two away from living on the street, the currency keeping you sheltered and fed looms very large in your daily thoughts.
We also tend to be less picky about jobs because we can’t stay unemployed for long. And switching jobs causes gaps in things like health insurance coverage, which is a risky situation when you have no funds to cover medical bills in the interim. When you feel stuck in an unfulfilling job and the only reason you’re there is because of money, there’s at least some measure of bitterness that most working class people have as background noise in their lives. It’s hard not to feel envious and occasionally resentful of those who are free of that static. I freely admit that my hatred of someone like GWB is amplified tremendously by the fact that he’s never been poor. To me, that makes him appear almost as if he was born without a head. I simply can’t wrap my mind around that kind of experience.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s never a conscious decision on my part to disassociate myself from wealthier people. We’re just broadcasting on different wavelengths, and the sort of intuitive understanding of life’s challenges that I have with my fellow underclassniks is just not present in relations with upper crusters.
So, are you guys saying I should or shouldn’t read The Fountainhead?
Depends. Are you a masochist?
the opoponax April 2, 2008 at 9:21 am
It doesn’t work unless the two party really ready to battle society at large. // Oh, I’m sorry. //You are a bigoted asshole.
Well. I post a long winded entry, probably get censored.
Let’s put it this way: all the bullshit that women has to face in the world and you are fighting for? Well, try multiply the magnitude by several times for mix race couple. There are even more bullshit that the couple has to deal with. It takes tremendous social skill and wealth to navigate it. Most people don’t have them.
Un-ignoring to clarify:
Well, try multiply the magnitude by several times for mix race couple.
I have BEEN part of a mixed race couple, you asshole.
Several times over, in fact.
This whole “it will be impossible, you will have to battle everyone nonstop over even the tiniest thing like holding hands on the street!” trope is bullshit, sorry. It’s just a polite way for racist assholes to justify their disapproval. In fact, the only grief I ever got about my interracial relationships has been from ‘well-meaning’ racists who expressed concern about the possibility of sustaining a relationship when you’re also trying to “change society”.
Do both members of an interracial couple have to be very diligent about communicating / understanding / listening to each other, even when it’s uncomfortable or opens wounds? Sure. But that’s true of any relationship that has half a chance of lasting.
the opoponax April 2, 2008 at 10:17 am
I have BEEN part of a mixed race couple, you asshole.
big fucking deal. since you say “been part” obviously all of them failed.
I AM mixed raced.
Anyone who thinks Bruce Sprinsteen is a viable, significant, artist
Anyone who still listens to Bob Marley, Jimmy Buffet, or Brown Eyed Girl
Anyone who can’t watch a movie with subtitles
People who don’t read the occasional ’serious’ bk-at least one a month
People who don’t read any poetry, or only Billy Collins (shudder)
People who “can’t” draw/write (you know the ones-’oh, I can’t blah blah’
Workaholics, religion of any sort (I am, sadly, pretty intolerant on this point)
People who can’t enjoy their bodies (I don’t care that you have a belly-I’m with you because of you which means i’m into your belly as well)
People who find any pleasure in Neil Gaimin’s body of work
People who watch Stargate, Highlander (the as long as it’s sci-fi it’s for me crowd)
Uncritical fandom
People who are not patient with my computardness & inability to drive a stick
Agreeing with the Opoponax re: being in a mixed-race couple. Maybe because I live in California, I haven’t experienced the ENDLESS DISAPPROVAL O NOEZ that Squashed seems to attribute to “society at large.” I agree that this “society will HAAAAAAAATE you, every day will be a HUGE UPHILL FIGHT” is a trope promulgated by racists who want to discourage IR couples. Sort of like “what about the chirrun?” And usually said racists are wagging their fingers at women, (sarcasm) because women are, after all, the ones responsible for making relationships work. (/sarcasm)
Seriously. It’s not 1965 anymore, folks.
Half my neighbors are ‘mixed race families’. My hypothetical biracial kid would probably fit in better here in Brooklyn than my hypothetical white kid.
Even back in the south, guess what, people would deal. I can imagine getting a few ignorant comments, probably about how hard it must be to keep a family together in the face of the constant battle with a racist society. And I’m not stupid enough to think that there wouldn’t be “talk”. And then the next month something else would come up with somebody else, and there’d be “talk” about that, and people would forget all about us.
I’m finding the discussion on class very interesting, but in the interest of fairness, I would like to point out that the comment that everyone seems to be remembering regarding travel as a dealbreaker actually said the following (emphasis added):
“Someone who told me she had never travelled outside the U.S. and didn’t want to would be more of a dealkiller than someone who had not read a particular novelist.”
Seems like more a comment on open-mindedness and thoughtless jingoism than class and the ability to travel. But that’s just me.
Comment #72 stated as a dealbreaker, “someone who has never traveled outside the US”, full stop. I think that’s what folks were responding to.
Though I suspect that most people who say this also intend to imply that if you haven’t traveled outside the US (or whatever country you’re from), they find it desirable if you would like to do so when possible. But I can see where not specifying this would rub people the wrong, as one who has never been off the North American continent himself, but has as a goal to do so.
Un-ignoring again because I didn’t see this due to the moderation:
Relatively middling educated white man dating brown muslim woman. Imagine the social challenge that you can bet the man and the women are not prepared to face. (getting house loan or where to send kid for good school alone will be a major task, nevermind harassment at EVERY SINGLE government check point. Do the couple want to keep certain religion? which one?)
ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING????
What planet are you living on? What century is it there?
Yes, a white/”brown Muslim” couple would be eligible for home loans, and yes, their children would be welcome in any school in the country.
Actually - it’s kind of good that you picked that particular example. One of my favorite teachers in high school was a “brown Muslim woman”, who happened to be married to a white man. They had 3 children. They lived in the absolute hinterlands of shitty rural America. I don’t recall her EVER getting harassed, by anybody. People generally adored her and her husband and often commented on how adorable their little boys were. She probably had a harder time with the inability to get good babaganoush than she did with the reactions of “society” to her interracial marriage.
I’m not sure what “government checkpoints” you mean, but I have to say that I know quite a few Muslims, as well as quite a few folks of ethnicities commonly confused for “Muslim” (which is actually a religion, not a race, by the way), and none of them get an unusual amount of hassle going through airport security, crossing borders, entering federal buildings, etc.
As far as religious decisions, A) WTF does that have to do with race, and B) isn’t that something that every couple has to decide, unless maybe they met at church or something?
Linnaeus — you’re right, I missed that. Long thread, it’s bound to happen
My list:
1. Religious, even the wishy-washy kind. We’ll never see eye to eye, and I can’t imagine having such a fundamental difference in how we see the world would help our relationship.
2. Doesn’t read. Hearing “oh I just don’t read” makes me want to run.
3. Socially conservative.
4. Is proud of their ignorance on anything — whether it’s science, art, a particular tv show, cultures different than your own. That kind of close-mindedness is IMO part of what is wrong with society.
What a fascinating comment discussion! You guys are awesome! And also: way, way less shallow than I am, and way less picky too. I’m in a situation where I hope to never have to date again, but I have about a thousand deal-breakers, including a lot I’m not too proud of.
I’ve always had a hard time dating anyone who wasn’t truly amazing at something — past relationships have run the gamut from math-dorks, poetic souls, pot growers, money-makers, dancers, couture gown designers, and water polo players.
I’m super shallow as far as looks — perfect teeth and hot bod are two biggies. I once broke off a relationship for having too course of facial stubble (if my chin is rubbed sore after making out for a few minutes, the answer is no).
I’m a voracious reader, politically-minded, and enjoy international travel, and love reptiles. Sharing these interests with my partner is hugely important.
The ability to have deep conversations is a must, but if you can’t also laugh a well-thought-out poop joke, what’s the point? I need silliness in my life! I can talk for hours about your favorite author, or the symbolism in that film we just watched, or the sheer exhilaration of walking up the side of Wyna Picchu in the mist, but sometimes ask me to pull your finger, ok?
This has been a fascinating thread. I find that having begun a poly relationship my idea of deal breakers has changed. Since I’m not looking for the One and Only, some of the need or desire to have a huge overlap of shared goals or desires is less pressing. If she doesn’t want to go hiking with me (frex), that’s okay. I’m not going to give up hiking and don’t have to.
Deal breakers:
- Tobacco use of any kind, but especially smoking
- Fanatics of any stripe, be it religion, dietary choices, political persuasion, sports team or what have you. Engage me in a spirited discussion, that’s great. But don’t expect me to adopt your passion just because it’s your passion
- At this point, I wonder if I could be with someone who is religious. I’ve gotten to be less tolerant of the Sky Fairy lovin’ folks (as no doubt is evident by the Sky Fairy comment!)
- Monogamous or, more to the point, expects me to be monogamous. Been there. Done that. Got the divorce.
- Someone who finds my collection of erotic nudes a deal breaker for her
the opoponax April 2, 2008 at 3:01 pm.
As far as religious decisions, A) WTF does that have to do with race, and B) isn’t that something that every couple has to decide, unless maybe they met at church or something?
because currently it’s hot topic and muslim and latinos receive increasing scrutiny, due to political situation. One due to dubya gwot, the other all wetback go home rethoric. The affect varies depending on places and situation but it’s there.
So what does religion have to do with race? I don’t know what do you think? Try wearing jilbab and run around the airport then.
Like I say, again, there is drag. Of course it’s not colored/white drinking fountain type of thing and much more subtle, but it’s there. And this type of things put strains and demand extra skills than average relationship. (which then you start screaming I am bigot. So much for your listening skill eh?)
…why the fuck do I even waste time talking about this…jebus. It never goes anywhere. I guess I never lean. Carry on. Nothing to see here. We have achieved utopia. la la la …. *yawn*
————-
subprime vs. race
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/weekinreview/04bajaj.html
——————–
good summary with relatively update data.
http://www.peterlevine.ws/mt/archives/2005/03/tolerance-gener.html
The report finds substantial increases in tolerance, although not much increase in actual interactions among racial groups. My favorite graph is the one on the right. It’s a perfect illustration of Karl Mannheim’s theory of generations, which holds that our political values are permanently shaped by our experiences as young adults. Why have Americans become increasingly favorable toward interracial marriage since the 1960s? Not because many individuals have changed their minds over their lifetimes, but because each generation has come of age in a more tolerant era and remained at a consistent level of support. The underlying theory is that we are forced to make up our minds about major questions when we first encounter them. Thereafter, changing one’s opinion takes a lot of effort, so we rarely do so. Those who first considered the issue of interracial marriage in 1930 are permanently different from those who first heard of it in 1980.
You could make a pretty decent case that they are two different bands, but most Pink Floyd fans I know (including myself) love both. I love Led Zeppelin, too (and if you don’t, Brock Sampson would like a word with you), which my girlfriend considered terribly lame when we started dating, but she’s since become a big fan. In return, she introduced me to the Cure, and a lot of alternative music. (Geeky side-note: Porl Thompson, longtime Cure guitarist, toured with Page and Plant during their “it’s not a reunion-tour”).
I think the problem for both bands lies with classic rock radio formats. The only LZ song you’ll ever hear is Stairway to Heaven, which, frankly isn’t all that great. With PF, you might get Comfortably Numb, Another Brisk In the Wall, or Wish You Were here, but that’s it. You’ll never hear any of Syd’s stuff, or the pastoral psychedlicism of Grantchester Meadows. There are huge back catalogs by both bands that show a lot more range and invention.
Anyway, collecting music is one of my passions. The back room of our house is crammed with over 1,250 cds, so chances are, I’ll have something you’ll like. I can’t stand most top-40 music, mainstream country, or jazz for white people, but I don’t know if I’d break up with anybody over it.
I’m also bit surprised at the “never traveled outside of the country” deal-breakers. I was nearly thirty before I could afford to do that, and both my girlfriend and I work. A lot of people simply aren’t that fortunate. So, unless it’s “has the means to travel, but considers EPCOT a reasonable substitute”, I’m not seeing it.
Apart from the bleeding obvious (heroin habit, crippling mental illness, violent streak, dumb as a sack of hammers)…Willful ignorance. Not everyone shares my interests. That’s okay. But a complete lack of interest in anything substantial is something I cannot damned well work with. It doesn’t have to be something I like from the get-go, but be passionate about something.
Rank bigotry. It’s not something I’ve encountered (yay for a rather claustrophobic social network?), but I’ve heard tell from a friend who saw someone change from a loving family member to someone capable of vicious violence in an instant when their prejudice was triggered.
A deep conviction that sex is bad and it necessarily defiles one or more of the people involved. I’ve come into contact with this before and it’s just an recipe for an inevitable conviction that one is inherently yecchy. No fun there.
That’s pretty much it. Oh, there are things that get on my nerves–fawning appreciation for smug “conceptual” art combined with disdain for anything representational, a refusal to read comics or SF ever, failing to recognize that DragonForce is in fact the Hardest Metal Known to Man–but those are just preferences, not deal-breakers.
As for the various belief systems that other posters talk about (fundie Christianity, 9/11 Truthers) I think that people can believe weird things and compartmentalize them. I’ve believed plenty of weird things in the last ten years or so, but they’ve correlated very little with the essential nature of who I am.
That’s weird. I couldn’t say why, but I’m surprised to see a Gaiman un-fan ’round here. I did that for years before I read a particular xkcd strip and became thoroughly disgusted with myself. I do it a lot less now, but still more than I want to.It makes it a lot less fun to talk with my folks, though, as they can speak entirely in quotes from the works of Mel Brooks.
opoponax and the others criticising squashed…
I live in Japan at the moment and see a few mixed race couples around the traps (Japanese-white, mostly). The cultural differences are huge and most of those couples don’t seem happy. I don’t know if this is the mixed-race issue particularly, or rather: a) very different cultures b) the white person involved is usually an arsehole c) the white person is very much isolated from their own culture, but it makes me suspicious that mixed-race couples can work.
I’m not American though, so I don’t know what the term “race” means in connection with black Americans. I can’t imagine that they actually have that different a culture to whites. I read squashed’s comment as simply saying that mixed-race couples suffer more shit, and therefore are less likely to work out. I have no idea if this is controversial or not, but it doesn’t seem to be. My parents always used to ask me “Your girlfriend isn’t aboriginal is she?” Obviously there would be trouble if she was. Similarly, my high-class girlfriends’ parents always hated me, but people from the same class tended to not mind.
As for class, I didn’t say anything about inherent qualities. It just tends to work out that way. I haven’t tested the theory enough times to be sure, it’s just my impression. And (as a commy Italian-migrant friend’s parents told me once), it doesn’t matter what you do now: it’s where you came from which determines how people of a different class will view you. I like to hope these differences can be surmounted, but I have never seen much evidence of it.
dooflow, I’m interested by your point about drawing and writing. I really really really cannot draw. No number of art classes or assistance or support or criticism has ever been able to change that. The only thing I can do with my hands is punch. You haven’t said what you think this really means, but I’m interested to hear it.
And does the same thing apply to other “talents”? My partner really cannot do maths. I studied Japanese with a guy who really could not do languages. Does this reflect a hidden fact about the person? Or is it just art?
(And why do you hate Neil Gaiman?)
Deal-Breakers:
-Anyone who shows undo deference to the state. Patriotism is a huge turn-off for me, any kind of flag-wearing, national-hero-worshipping or troop-supporting gets a big rejection from me. I’m pretty strict about this. This is as much about taste as it is about politics, in some ways (although the politics are important). The whole aesthetic of nationalism disgusts me.
-Somewhat connected to the last one: Anyone who actually is in the military (or has been but never reformed) or a police service is very much out.
-Ayn Rand fans are a definite no. Actually, at this point even people who read Ayn Rand and “just don’t see why everyone hates it so much” are a definite no.
-While I enjoy the occasional goofy cartoon-for-grownups, people that watch family guy/the simpsons/South Park/whatever else constantly and quote them in conversation are a no.
-While I don’t expect potential lovers to share my love of Star Wars (it is, let’s face it, something that comes primarily from nostalgia), it cannot work out with someone who would ridicule my love of star wars.
-While I’m not going to pick a particular band as a dealbreaker (I think it’s pretty petty, and my current partner likes rush for some strange reason and I love her anyways), chronically bad taste in music is a dealbreaker. That said, there’d need to be big plusses if I find out someone’s into Diana Krall or something.
-People who judge other people harshly based on consumer politics. I mean, everybody engages politically as a consumer some of the time, but if someone thinks really badly of someone because they don’t do some particular consumer politics thing, (be it vegetarianism, organic food, fair trade coffee, hell, even recycling) I think it reflects a controlling, judgemental streak.
-Religion isn’t a dealbreaker but it definitely is an issue. I’m not religious, and I don’t have any respect for people who identify with a religion when they don’t have well-thought out reasons for it. Actually, I have similar problems with atheists who go out of their way to bash religion without knowing much about them. It’s one thing to simply ignore the whole issue, but if you’re going to say vehemently mean things about christians as a group you should have some vague reason why you think those things are true or you’re just an ass.
If everything out of your mouth is a quote from a movie or tv show, you’d better have some damn awesome redeeming characteristics before we can spend much time together.
Conversely, don’t assume that my wacky musings and occasion ramblings are from a movie. Especially if you’re going to argue with me about a movie that I haven’t seen/heard about, and insist it’s from that movie. Bonus negative points if it’s a film that only you and five other people have seen.
Not that that’s a sore spot for me or anything….:)
Besides the usual homophobic/racist/sexist dealbreakers, not reading at all, not paying attention to what I’m saying, and assuming that you know me well. Hell, I’m still trying to figure myself out. I’m also neither stupid nor smart, I’m just average. I’m not a genius or less intelligent than a pile of rocks.
because currently it’s hot topic and muslim and latinos receive increasing scrutiny, due to political situation.
…
Try wearing jilbab and run around the airport then.
OK, so what you’re saying is that white people shouldn’t date outside their race because some of the prejudice their partner faces might spill over to them, or because they might have to see such prejudice up close and personal.
That’s bigotry if I’ve ever heard it, sweetheart.
Not to mention that, no, the simple wearing of Muslim-oriented clothing is not enough to get you harassed in an airport. I’m not saying it never happens, but it’s not a given, at all. I once sat to a woman in jilbab on a train crossing into the USA from Canada. She was traveling on a Canadian passport. She got exactly the level of scrutiny I got, which is to say pretty much none.
Also, I would assume that if someone who is “blatantly” Muslim is traveling with their obviously white spouse and biracial children, they are far less likely to be bothered. The folks who have real problems are people traveling on Middle Eastern or South Asian passports, not US citizens who happen to pray to Allah instead of Jeebusssss.
Regarding some of the other examples — As I said before, almost half of my neighbors are multiracial families. Most of them are homeowners. I would assume that they probably were able to secure financing for their half-million dollar condos. The couple I mentioned above are also homeowners, even in rural America where it’s still possible to face discrimination just on the basis of the one mortgage broker at the one bank in town being a fucktard.
Of course it’s not colored/white drinking fountain type of thing and much more subtle, but it’s there. And this type of things put strains and demand extra skills than average relationship.
In my experience, this just isn’t really true in terms of interracial relationships and mundane everyday interactions with “society”. As I’ve said, I didn’t ever experience direct racist behavior as a result of “dating outside my race”. Is it possible that there were racist people out there who saw me walking arm in arm with my non-white partners and thought all sorts of untoward things about us? Sure. It’s not worth not being with someone I love. And, yes, to follow the line of thought that because some people might not approve, therefore I should change my behavior, is, in fact, totally fucking bigoted.
Carry on. Nothing to see here. We have achieved utopia. la la la …. *yawn*
It’s not so much that utopia has been achieved, but that, in my experience as someone who has been in multiple interracial relationships, you are not really Fighting Society in any way that is particularly dramatic. Nobody is burning crosses on your lawn, or refusing you admittance to the club, or anything overt like that. You are not really confronting others so much as constantly having to confront your own issues. You really do have to work harder at communicating and understanding and really thinking hard about yourself.
This is part of why I consider your line of reasoning so bigoted. What you are really against is the idea of people fighting their own racial demons. To you, it is important that people’s prejudices remain intact, and living life up close and personal with a person of another race might challenge that.
The cultural differences are huge and most of those couples don’t seem happy. I don’t know if this is the mixed-race issue particularly, or rather: a) very different cultures b) the white person involved is usually an arsehole c) the white person is very much isolated from their own culture, but it makes me suspicious that mixed-race couples can work.
1. That is Japan. Japan may well be different. A lot of these sorts of social issues (racism, sexism, homophobia) are at different points of acceptance there. I’ve never been in an interracial relationship in Japan, so I can’t speak for what it’s like.
2. I feel like white male / East Asian female relationships can be kind of problematic, in terms of the cultural assumptions white men often make about Asian women. Not everyone’s intentions are honorable, and feeling like a walking blowup doll sucks, regardless of your race. Feeling like a walking blowup doll BECAUSE of your race is probably even worse.
3. If either or both members of the couple are far away from home and completely outside their cultural comfort zone, that obviously adds another level of difficulty, to ANY relationship, regardless of racial issues. Moving from the south to New York City to be with my Upper West Sider boyfriend and live 10 blocks from all his friends and his family when I was 2000 miles from anyone else I knew was HARD, and it was one of the things that ultimately killed our relationship. He was also white, by the way.
Just a wonderful thread. I finally blogged this:
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2008/04/03/love-trumps-aesthetics-of-books-music-desire-and-deal-breakers/
the opoponax April 3, 2008 at 9:33 am
OK, so what you’re saying is that white people shouldn’t date outside their race because ….
There you go. Like I say. It’s useless. There is a limit how a person reframe, see problem in fundamentally different ways. One does what one wants. If it is about your desire to create personal project that manifest equality from your point of view. Then that’s it. This is fairly fundamental and whatever I say you gonna interpret as a threat to your project instead of me telling you things you can’t see.