By Sarah Murnane
A friend of mine went on a first date recently- a proper first date too. They met in person at a party, really hit it off and then decided to meet up for lunch the next week. The kind of date that you only see in Sex and the City episodes. The date went well and they seemed to be really getting on, until the end of the date it was revealed that this person was a vegetarian. My friend declared that it was a shame but they could not go out with someone who was vegetarian.
This seemed a tad extreme to me, until I started asking other people what their dealbreakers were. The most common I found was someone saying they could not date someone who did not drink, also dietary restrictions, even a person who owned a particular pet or book.
For woman, it is often thrown around that you should have your standards, and anything that falls beneath those standards should not be entertained. However, how high is too high? People put up with far worse behaviours than a person’s diet or individual benign preferences. I have read stories my whole life of relationships staying together after people had affairs, abused them in some way or were just generally not good partners. Is something so small and insignificant a valid reason to end a relationship?
I guess the counter argument is that if something so small bothers you about another person, it is likely a doomed relationship regardless. In our fantasies, would the right person have a quality that you find so irritating? We imagine not, but in reality, this is probably the case. Everyone has a fatal flaw, or flaws depending on the temperament of the person. The real question is not what your dealbreaker is, but what qualities are you ready and willing to accept or work around that will annoy you the least.
It sounds morbid but in a way, it is a romantic thought. That when you find the right person, even if they always had a routine rule about who they would date, that they would break the rule for you.