Comments on: Deal Breaker Books

By: Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:25:00 +0000

It seems most of the ‘litmus tests’ as one person put it that are used are obscure things from someone elses generation that the poster is proud to have discovered and made their own.

I happen to love The Yellow Submarine, Monty Python (shows and movies), and several other examples of media from other generations. Yet if someone I dated wasn’t aware of them, I often saw it as a fun oppertunity to expose them to something new or different. if they didn’t like it, so be it, and if they did, then yay.

Now I’m married and my wife hasn’t seen any of the above mentioned things, and real doesn’t show much interest in seeing any of it. So thats fine – it will be my personal interest which i don’t feel the need to force on her.

The biggest turn-off in this thread so far is the comment “I haven’t read anything written after 1920″. I don’t care what your justification for saying that is – it is closeminded. How can one contend that modern books are bad if one doesn’t read them?

Authors were not amazing thinkers just because they were published before an arbitrary date. There are ground breaking books, songs, and all types of media released every generation.

I think the only dealbreaker for me would have been closemindedness. I am fine that my wife is not interested in the exact same media as myself, although I wouldn’t have called her for a second date had she pulled some pretentious line on me about only reading books from a specific time period.

By: AKI

AKI — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:58:07 +0000

I once met a man who told me Mambo Number 5 by Lou Bega was his favorite song. The mental picture I got of being sonically assaulted by that song greatly diminished my interest in him.

By: tiffany

tiffany — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:58:33 +0000

my ex started our first date by asking the last movie i saw / book i read / concert i went to. newly single, i use this ice breaker quite often. you can tell a lot by those answers. coincidently both our last books had been the da vinci code, and we both liked it. guess i won’t be dating anyone else on this message board :) i also test out new relationships with the show arrested development. if you don’t think that is one of the best shows ever, we probably won’t get along too well.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 28 May 2008 05:32:10 +0000

I think a major deal breaker is someone who loves a single book to no end. Anyone who is overly in love with a single book or film needs to get out.

I have however seen the red flag with someone when they told me “Oh The Stand, I just didn’t feel like finishing it” that was the first of many signs of commitment issues.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:41:57 +0000

Hey, I read voraciously, and though I like to haunt the Sci-Fi genre, I have enjoyed (and I do mean enjoyed) everything from Steven King to Harlequin Romances; I have a reasonably varied library, and would consider being judged by an out-of-context selection from it absurd. Have even half the people who trash Grishom even read him? I have (I don’t trash him) and I find him to be entertaining. If I need enriching, I’ll pick up a textbook or browse through my Mathematics Encyclopedia. If I want to read a Harlequin, I’ll read it and enjoy it, thank you very much. Reading is like eating … you have your meat and vegetables, and you have your junk food. Who doesn’t enjoy a junky snack now and then (or if you have sworn off them, didn’t at one time)? As for those who do not read at all … Deal Breaker? Have you never heard of Dyslexia, or personal choice? Some people are just not wired to read, and nevertheless remain whole, enriching, vibrant and intelligent. If you want to read, why not read about how many great thinkers were illiterate for one reason or another, or just too busy doing their own thinking to wallow in the written thoughts of others. There are more ways to communicate than the written word. And haven’t you learned yet? … don’t trust everything you read! The written word can be a marvelous thing, a shedder of light, a voice of hope and unity and freedom; too often (more often than not, it seems) it is little more than useless sputtering. James Joyce’s Ulysses is often hailed as one of the greatest literate works ever created. I was taught that there are maybe seven people in the world who may truly understand it. Does owning and not understanding your copy make you a Literati, or a dupe who paid for a big fat book you will never actually complete? Wouldn’t you be better off reading The Shining, or a good cookbook? Was Joyce writing for seven people? Ha! It doesn’t matter! Ultimately, I believe he wrote it for himself, and that is sufficient. Read, don’t read it, understand it or not; whatever you do, you are more than the sum of your “Ulysses IQ”, and anyone who feels they need to Break A Deal with you over your choice to tackle Joyce or not need a rap on the knuckles.

By: Margie

Margie — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:14:41 +0000

I was once on the flip side of that coin. I worked at a prod. company that had boxes of biographies that had been submitted for TV show consideration.

One of which was a bio on a former Price is Right girl. I took it to give to a friend as a joke, but then forget all about it. (I had already cracked myself up by taking it, so actually giving it was no longer important).

Anyway, I had a date over one night and he meandered around my apt looking over my stuff, as you do, before we headed out to dinner.

At dinner he starts peppering me with questions about my reading taste. Particularly what my “guilty” reading pleasures are. I ramble on about my fine taste in books, and what-have-you, and it’s not until years later that he finally tells me he thought I was a total idiot based on finding the Price is Right bio.

I found it touching that he didn’t cancel the date, and in fact dated me for several years after the book incident.

So I guess my point is, if a guy’s horny enough, he doesn’t really care what you’re reading. And if he’s lazy enough, he’ll keep dating your idiot ass for a really long time.

So read whatever the hell you want.

By: jojo

jojo — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:02:32 +0000

A deal breaker for me would be if someone posted a snobby message on an Internet bulletin board about how intelligent and highbrow their reading taste was, and the post contained spelling errors. *ahem*

Racism, intolerance, or a history of homicide are deal breakers for me. Whether someone likes a crappy comedian like Adam Sandler? Not so much.

It’s possible to enjoy highbrow without being intelligent and to enjoy lowbrow without being stupid. But to willfully be judgmental and closed-minded about someone based on a single book or movie they like? No wonder a lot of you are single.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 20:34:38 +0000

I can’t think of any book, film, or album that would be an immediate deal-breaker just because the potential significant other owns it. Life’s too short to obsess about other people’s tastes. The corollary to that, though, is that a very one-dimensional book, film, or music collection might very well turn me off.

However, I must admit that once upon a time, I did have a litmus test for women I wanted to get serious about: Harold and Maude. You didn’t have to love the film, but if you couldn’t understand why I loved it, it was a pretty good bet we wouldn’t be a good match.

One day I was having a conversation with a woman I’d just met. She mentioned her love of Cat Stevens. My response was, “And now I will ask you about a movie.”

“Harold and Maude?” she said. “One of my favorites ever.”

We’ve been married three years now.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:48:27 +0000

I proposed to my wife the day she told me that Dumb and Dumber was secretly her favorite movie.
Be careful about judging people by what they read, some people read to research things they otherwise have no interest in.
Religions, almost religions, politics, etc.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:47:34 +0000

The only time a book was a deal-breaker was in my first year of college and I was checking out the bookshelves of a guy I had a HUGE crush on, who had finally asked me out… and I saw “Dianetics.”

Yikes. Pretty never trumps crazy.