Pro or con?

They were very anti-ketchup.

They were very anti-ketchup.

they're right - it keeps the Old Bay from making it to the eggs.

I think I'd draw the line at thinking the Left Behind books are the pinnacle of literature, but outside of that I'd like to think I'm open minded.

t points and nods

I read, on average, 120 books per year. DH reads about 10. Mine are about a 50-50 split between fiction and nonfiction; his are almost all nonfiction. I wish he read more, but it's hardly a deal-breaker. He's still intelligent and well-informed and interesting to talk to.

What would be a deal-breaker is if he thought my writing was trash just because it's genre fiction with happy endings. I work my ass off trying to improve my craft and be the best writer I can, and I couldn't stay in a relationship with someone who didn't respect one of my central driving passions.

I wonder if people who deeply love music would break up with someone who listened to music they hated?

I deeply love music and I would only break up with someone who judged the music I listened to. You can take your snobbery and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

I think with the food question, it shouldn't encompass the physically-harmful dealbreaker. Because "peanuts can kill me" is different than "omg, that's so gross!"

My brother will eat anything. And in fact, likes to try new stuff. He ate dryroasted crickets and worms, even. ( Crunchy! ) I'm betting his wife hasn't tried something new in the past 20 years. He makes sure if they go out to eat, it is somewhere she can get something she'll eat and she refrains from telling him what he's eating is gross. Ok, she doesn't, but he likes baiting her, so it works for them.

Eldest nephew is like his dad, with extra bizarre choices. (Juice from canned olives? Canned carrots? Wha?)

Food is hard. DH likes things much spicier than I do, by quite a bit. So if he is cooking, sometimes the food is hotter than I like. But he has things he only likes cooked only one way. However, we have the same attitude towards food - good food well-prepared, equals bliss. And we will try/eat almost any cuisine out there.

I admire people that can get along despite wildly different food prefernces

I am sure there are people who would never date a vegan, and people who would never date carnivores.

OOh! Me! I have stated I don't think I could date a vegan. And there are a lot of lesbian vegans. I can (and have) date a vegetarian, especially if they're not too fussed about me cooking meat for myself while they have extra salad or whatever. But vegan is too hard. Even if they were an amazing cook and made dinner all the time, it would limit the restaurants we could go to, adn they wouldn't eat my cupcakes! Too sad.

Music and movies I see as different from reading since the first two might entail you participating, while reading is basically a solitary activity that wouldn't really affect the partner.

Food falls between the two. When I kept a vegetarian kitchen and was cooking for one of my exes, he (I later learned) would eat something out on his way over. That's just doesn't seem sustainable in the long run. Plus, it really pissed me off.

Of course, he was a big reader, and actually knew a lot about French history, which probably kept us together longer than we should have. It's hard to break up with someone that actually wants to hear about your dissertation.

my dexh used to eat these dried shrimp thingies that smelled incredibly strong. We finally agreed that he would only eat them when I wasn't home and keep them tightly sealed when not in use. If he'd insisted of eating them when I was in smelling range... well we're divorced now anyway.

I deeply love music and I would only break up with someone who judged the music I listened to. You can take your snobbery and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Yeah, I stopped bothering to hate other peoples' music somewhere in my twenties.

If we can't stand listening to things the other likes? Well, that's why God made headphones.