May 15, 2008
Books, food and love
The New York Times recently had an extremely snotty article about people who won't date certain people because of the books they read. I meant to mock it at the time but plum forgot. They weren't saying that readers wouldn't date non-readers, that makes sense to some extent (in fact, I dated a blonde pretty vacant type who made fun of me for reading so much. I believe my response was something like "dude, no one asked for your opinion, sit there and look pretty" and I said it in front of his friends too), they were saying that these people wouldn't date those whose book collections they found wanting. I found myself thinking the words "pretentious wankers" as I read:
Naming a favorite book or author can be fraught. Go too low, and you risk looking dumb. Go too high, and you risk looking like a bore — or a phony. “Manhattan dating is a highly competitive, ruthlessly selective sport,” Augusten Burroughs, the author of “Running With Scissors” and other vivid memoirs, said. “Generally, if a guy had read a book in the last year, or ever, that was good enough.” The author recalled a date with one Michael, a “robust blond from Germany.” As he walked to meet him outside Dean & DeLuca, “I saw, to my horror, an artfully worn, older-than-me copy of ‘Proust’ by Samuel Beckett.” That, Burroughs claims, was a deal breaker. “If there existed a more hackneyed, achingly obvious method of telegraphing one’s education, literary standards and general intelligence, I couldn’t imagine it.”
Gay. And not in a homosexual way.
Now, via Eater, people are considering whether food is a dealbreaker. Can you be with someone who eats completely differently from you? That's more interesting to me than the books as food affects your general lifestyle.
My last two boyfriends, both of whom are completely fabulous despite what I'm about to say about them, ate completely differently from me and it often caused some distress. WZA was a lifelong hardcore vegetarian (though he isn't now and I'm only a little bitter about it) who wouldn't eat fries off my plate even if they weren't touching my chicken sandwich. He also wasn't much into vegetables, and believed that mushrooms came from another planet (really), which would cause us to go restaurant to restaurant looking for that perfect, vegetable-free vegetarian meal. Peter eats meat for every meal, every day, I mean every single day, and struggles during Lent to lay off it on Fridays (he also doesn't EVER eat breakfast past the exact time of twelve noon and hates eating outside, something I find to be one of life's great pleasures).
I.C. is the first boyfriend I've had that I feel matches my eating habits almost exactly (and I don't just say that because I'm in lalaland over him, sending him texts all day declaring my affection and wearing his shirt because it smells like him). We nearly always share every dish we get. He's slightly more adventurous than me, and I love mushrooms while he hates them, but otherwise we're pretty close to a perfect fit.
So what matters to you? Books, food or neither? Is the perfect person the perfect person no matter what they read or eat?
Posted by Karol at May 15, 2008 12:15 PM | TrackBackTechnorati Tags: Books Food Love
in all seriousness...
your article got me thinking and I really think my only rule is I don't date people with "rules".
I can't say I've ever realized it this way until right now, I but I really think this is it.
...to elaborate: even if I "pass the test" that the person has, it's still a big turn off.
For example, once someone from work set me up with a girl. On the date, the girl asked if I was Jewish. I replied that I'm atheist, but "culturally Jewish".. and barely that, as I don't know much about the culture (raised by atheists).
She was relieved.
Apparently it didn't matter if I were religious by belief, or even that they I had any knowledge of Jewish religious traditions or any desire to learn them and do them with a family (I don't).
even though I "passed the test" by being "Jewish enough" it seemed insanely strange for this girl to have such a criterion. It killed any chance of any chemistry ever forming and we fell out of touch.
Fuck it... from now on 'm making completely arbitrary rules. I don't date girls with 3 vowels in their first names.
Posted by: E5 at May 15, 2008 01:41 PMI dated one vapidly lovely guy who didn't read at all. But I didn't find this out until our first date, because he worked in a freaking book store. And not a Borders, either, a dusty old used book store with personality.
Feh.
About food. I won't date a guy who won't try new things. It's fine to not like something, but if I want to go to the new Mongolian Sauteed Eyeball Restaurant, he'd better be up for one try.
Posted by: Tanya at May 15, 2008 02:01 PMDo you consider the y a vowel?
Posted by: E5 at May 15, 2008 02:07 PMHeh. I consider it a consonant (y as is yes, not y as in very). But I might be biased.
Posted by: Tanya at May 15, 2008 02:10 PM"my only rule is I don't date people with "rules"."
THIS is what it is all about.
Posted by: Ed Z at May 15, 2008 02:55 PMI nearly dated a girl who put me off during the fourth or fifth conversation we had by talking about a music recital she had been to. Now, I love a huge range of musical styles from 1600 on to this minute, but this was a concert of vibrating wires. Killed my ardour completely.
That said, my three requirements were:
1)some interest in me
2)a pulse
3)a vagina
I could always be persuaded to settle for 1 or 2 less requirements with the use of cider.
I honestly can't throw too many stones on this one. I have only called things off twice in my life on superficial reasons. The first girl had a happy trail thicker than the Osceola National Forest and the second one told me that the books that had most shaped her life were, wait for it, the ten volumes of Mission Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. Now look, I can appreciate a woman with odd taste in books. I have them myself. Even as I type this, I look up at my desk and I see I am reading Gary Wills' translation of Augustine's Confessions, a biography of Sir Henry Clinton, a Dragonlance novel (I hope Raistlin shows up; a Dragonlance book without him always pisses me off) , a biography of Noah Webster, Anne Rice's new novel about Jesus, and a book about Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina. But Mission Earth as the most influential books in her life was too much even for me.
Posted by: Von Bek at May 15, 2008 07:55 PMThe I.C. is so great.
Posted by: Not Dawn Summers at May 15, 2008 08:20 PMUm, yeah, I think that rules have a purpose. Sorry, "Must not be an infant sacrificing, zombie raising servant of a dark lord..." is a pretty good rule to have. In fact, "Must not be able to raise undead..." is just a good rule in general.
Posted by: James at May 15, 2008 10:14 PM
"Must not be an infant sacrificing, zombie raising servant of a dark lord..."
If only I could find a girl like that...
although raised a vegetarian (didn't i apologize for that already?), i was never one to discriminate against another's eating habits. i have to say that being culinarily unadventurous is a turnoff for me, but not a deal breaker. books, on the other hand... i have a thing for chicks that read. maybe not dragonlance novels though. women don't read that sort of thing, do they?
and i definitely do not have anything against servants of the dark lord.
Posted by: wza at May 16, 2008 03:18 AMI once dumped a guy because he couldn't spell. Well that and a few other even more superficial reasons. But the spelling really bothered me because he thought he was a poet. A poet who couldn't spell. If I could say Oy with any justification it would be appropriate here. I don't find this article at all surprising - haven't you had the whole meet someone who quizzes you non-stop to suss out if you're clever or not? It was a pretty common experience for me in NY. I always saw it as a sport, as in "Yes,I AM more clever than you" - usually put forth by really annying insecure types who you would never actually date. I made the mistake of dating one once when I was very young, he reminded me of Woody Allen and at that time that was enough. Except I immediately realised what a big mistake dating Woody Allen would be in real life. Life is not Annie Hall, lesson learned. When you meet someone who blinds you to any possible flaws with their beautiful aura and you want to smell their shirt (for awhile!), then you are in trouble!
Posted by: Steff at May 16, 2008 04:35 AM I think that if food and/or books are the determining factors in who you date, then we're talking about mighty shallow folks. My wife and I met through a dating service in 1985, and even though she likes Danielle Steele and I like Tom Clancy, she likes shellfish and I can't even stay in the same room it's being eaten, we managed to stay married for 23 years, buy a house in a great neighborhood, and raise two great kids.
It's not about the superficial, it's about what's deep inside you.
BTW when did he the new b/f get the IC tag? are they his initials?
Posted by: at May 16, 2008 10:29 AMBTW when did he the new b/f get the IC tag? are they his initials?
Here: http://www.alarmingnews.com/archives/007097.html
BTW, Anon, if you tell me who you are, I'll tell you who he is, and you guys can say hi to each other in the elevator.
Posted by: Karol at May 16, 2008 10:44 AMOnce on a first date I was quizzed so thoroughly about career, hobbies, views on relationship and marriage, children (actual and prospective), that I finally asked, "Miss? Miss? Would it be alright if I finished my beer before I propose?" I thought this much funnier than she did.
Posted by: Simon Kenton at May 18, 2008 03:35 PMSimon,
Nice--and that is funny as hell. However, poor woman had probably been recently burned.
Wza/E5,
It's all fun and games until she's trying to rip your heart out as a sacrifice. Then, suddenly, that crazy nookie doesn't seem so worth it. Um, so I've heard.
J
Posted by: James at May 18, 2008 10:19 PM
