I think the best guys have a little bit of all those things, Connie. And, Hec, yeah, I think any town that even the alternative weekly describes as having an "inferiority complex" may have some serious problems with cool. But people do get together here...they're just not likely flaming liberals with crime fascinations who have to bum rides.

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I think allergies are different than not liking. Mild ones you can get over, but severe ones you are stuck with. The BF has allergies to down, so I had to give up my beloved down comforter or he would be sneezing and wheezing and having asthma attacks all night long. Like Tep, I wouldn't give up a pet for someone until we were serious, but if we were, I and it was a heallth issue, I would, but not before I found the pet a really good and happy home. For the same reasons, we didn't get a dog until our elderly and dog-hating cat died. He was too old and too cranky to live anywhere else but with us, and we were willing to give up something we loved and wanted to make him happy and comfortable.

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Nobody's gonna "Lie to Me" and tell me I'm going to meet LOML?

You wouldn't settle for just some schmoe, though. He'll have to be someone who will match you snark for snark. And those guys aren't as common as Larry Frat Guy. But they're worth the wait. (Or so I hear.)

Me, I don't want the responsibility of a husband OR a pet right now. Hell, half my plants have died in the past year. I don't know what that says about me. My theory is that they miss Jossverse TV, and expired from grief.

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No matter how irrational it seems, if your spouse is really freaked out about something, it's not good to force it on them.

Yeah, every time I think of logical reasons why something that wouldn't bother me (in this instance, a gun) won't really be a problem (unworking replica or whatever) I think of my reactions to bees. They scare the hell out of me. I'm not allergic. I've been stung and had nothing worse than pain and panic. But if I was with someone who found the intricate chambers of a honeycomb fascinating, and wanted to take a cross section of a hive, complete with thoroughly dead worker bees, and put it between glass and hang it in the living room? I just couldn't cope. I would recognize the fascinating complexity. I would know there was nothing in it that could hurt me. But every time I saw it I'd get a deep jolt of fear, feel sick to my stomach, and hate it. I would resent the person who put me through this, even though I know my feelings are completely irrational on the subject.

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yeah, I miss my down comfortor and down pillows too! but certainly not the same as gving up a pet.

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I think if I met someone who had a severe enough allergy to cats that he could never come visit me at my place, the chances of the relationship getting to the point where I'd have to choose human over pet would be very slim.

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I swore to myself up and down last night, that I wouldn't enter this conversation for all the tea in China. Apparently I already have enough tea.

I'm violently allergic to cats, and so I have sympathy for the allergic people who otherwise would spend eternity with their sweetie. I didn't choose to have allergies, but I'm not going to put my health at risk to be with someone. I'm a selfish bitch who likes to breathe, I guess.

Yeah. Seriously, I have loved my cats dearly (and my bunnies, one named Harvey, even; and even liked our dear, departed frog). My feeling for them doesn't exist in the same universe as do my feelings for Scott, our children, or my parents.

Had I had a cat, and then become involved with a guy who didn't like cats, if he couldn't slowly be won over to make my cat the exception to his rule, I would suspect that I wasn't particularly important to him (provided the pet wasn't nasty to him, as some pets *do* get nasty to their masters' romantic partners). Think of all the Buffy fans who are married to/living with non-fans. Think of all the people who loathe their in-laws. You tolerate stuff you don't like, when your important people love it (cf Football, Baseball, Disco, Country Music, cilantro).

That's an *entirely* different situation, from owning a cat, and then falling in love with someone who is allergic to them, and from owning a cat first, but then having my husband or child develop an allergy to the animal. The pet would go. Letting go of the pet would hurt, but it wouldn't hurt nearly as much as risking the health and comfort of one of my humans would disturb me. I would feel selfish to make one of my humans take allergy medicine on a daily basis, that they wouldn't otherwise need, just to live in their own home.

And of course, none of these situations is analogous to Susan's situation in the first place. Susan did not own this gun, prior to her relationship with Dylan.

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from owning a cat, and then falling in love with someone who is allergic to them,

A guy would likely have to come equipped with a note signed by God saying, "This is the one, your life will be complete and tales will be told of your joy and fulfillment if you stay with this guy" before he was around long enough for me to fall in that deep of love with him to give up an established pet.

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connie is me re: guys and pets.

On the other hand, once I was in love with the person, if he then developed life-threatening allergies to pets we had, I would find the pets other homes. Pets can usually become happy in other homes, and I have no definitive proof that people can be happy without breathing.

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A conversation clarified things for me - it's not that I'm not an animal person -- I'm not much of a pet person. The relationships that many Americans have with their pets mystify me. I don't think they're not deep or valuable relationships to those that have them, but I've tried living with pets in the house, and I'd have to like a guy a HELL of a lot to enter into that for perpetuity (or even just the lifetime of the existing pets).

Pets are for visiting, for me. Visiting at other people's houses, or going outside into the yard to visit. The whole litterbox in the house where you live, pets in your bed/lap/at your table stuff? I tried getting over it before. I'd love to meet a guy I liked enough to try it again.

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