Whenever we start a new relationship, we almost always experience an emotional upsurge, and in the wake of this surge of joy and positivity, the person we are dating looks incredibly wonderful in all respects. We admire the way they speak, the way they straighten their hair, the way they joke, and even the way they sneeze (yes, this happens too).
But time passes, the emotional background subsides, and a severe test of everyday life and reality begins. And here many discoveries await us, both pleasant and not. It turns out that next to us there's not such an impeccable human being, and that some of us are literally woven from shortcomings. Some of them are 100% deal breakers, and some we are ready to put up with. And this viral thread in the AskReddit community is dedicated to discussing such petty yet bearable shortcomings.
More info: Reddit
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Of course, each of us is a whole unique world, with their own characteristics and specific perceptions, and what for someone looks like an absolute 'red flag' in a relationship, for another, may be a unique feature or something like that. That's why it is so interesting to get acquainted with the opinions of different people - especially since the original thread has already gained more than 11K upvotes and around 9K various comments in less than a day.
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Another thing is probably interesting - how are we going to deal with these petty yet disappointing shortcomings that we find in our significant others? A couple of decades ago, many people would have said categorically: “Fight and try to make the other person into the best version of themselves!” Today, the perception of such problems is not so clear.
The best version - in whose opinion? According to us? But this opinion may not completely coincide with the views of the person whom we are going to “re-educate.” Perhaps they are quite comfortable this way, and maybe we are the very first person in their entire life who is outraged by this habit or character trait? What should we do in this case?
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“It is in situations like this that therapy and conscious relationship building come to the rescue,” says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist, with whom Bored Panda got in touch over this topic to get a comment. “On the one hand - yes, both parties should be comfortable in a relationship. On the other hand, you need to respect the traits of the person with whom you are walking through this life, and be able to make reasonable compromises.”
“And just to find this fine line, to realize where there's a violation of personal boundaries, and where you can just give in and relax - this is where a specialist can help. Well, or you can try to figure it out yourself or together with your partner. But then sincere mutual desire and mutual frankness is a must. Otherwise, conflicts are inevitable..." Irina summarizes.
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Or maybe, who knows, this is all just an abstract philosophy - and you just need to live, enjoy every day and night on this small yet beautiful planet, and be just glad that there's a person next to you whom you love. And who loves you. Even if they... well, forget to flush the toilet from time to time... Damn, or should we say this in a more diplomatic way, eh? What do you actually think?
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Putting unwanted items back in the wrong place at the supermarket.
>!Becomes a dealbreaker when they leave refrigerated or frozen items outside of a fridge/freezer.!<.Not liking or wanting dogs/cats.
Edit: I just want to clearify that I didn't initially mean a situation where one already own pets and your partner doesn't want you to keep them - if a partner enters a relationship with you knowing for well you have pets and then later on expects you to get rid of your animals on a whim that's some serious b******t and a dealbreaker I stand behind 100 %.If they have Live, Laugh, Love around their home.Following lots of scantily-clad influencers, liking and commenting on most of their posts .If she smokes/vapes. Don’t care for that smell at all.They run family 5ks on thanksgiving mornings.They go to Target and throw doormats on the floor to look at them and then just walk away and leave them on the floor.In college, watched the movie Donnie Darko for the first time and when it ended, I had so many questions and was analyzing the meaning behind it. Tried to talk to my then boyfriend and he seemed disinterested. Finally, after a half hour, he says "can you please stop talking about it? It's just a movie. You are just supposed to enjoy it, not analyze it."
Not a dealbreaker, but a huge disappointment.That he’s one of those men who cough up loogies 24/7 ?. Almost a dealbreaker.If they don’t love music. (This is my life. My husband doesn’t care for music. I LOVE music. But thankfully he doesn’t care if I play it all the time. He just tunes it out)
The ironic thing is my husband has a beautiful singing voice, and a very strange ability to pick up sequences of notes he hears in ANYTHING and link it to a piece of classical music he’s heard once or twice as a very small kid. He can recall song lyrics perfectly and replicate the tunes and s**t perfectly after hearing a song once or twice. And Im pretty sure he has perfect pitch, but he doesn’t care enough to test it. All things utterly WASTED on him. I can barely carry a tune in a bucket and I adore music. I’ve played multiple instruments and can read music and have been in multiple choirs, and making music is insanely difficult for me. It just isn’t fair ??.If they replace the toilet paper roll the wrong way.When you watching a tv series together and he or she watches an episode without you. thats a betrayal.If they stop the microwave prematurely, but don't clear the display.When they don't want to do things TOGETHER. I get some people need alone time but some people want to do things like dancing together or rock climbing together and some SO only like to spend alone time together. Which I get cuz Im both half the week but not doing ANYTHING together makes me a little lonely sometimes.The girl I’m into right now doesn’t like kissing. She thinks swapping saliva is gross which is weird because she’ll swap other stuff no problem. It’s not a dealbreaker but I do miss kissing.My dad hates movies with subtitles. My mom is a foreign film buff. She has been trying to change him for DECADES. And while he'll sit through (and sometimes even enjoy) them on occasion, he'll still groan any time she suggests a movie with subtitles.
The ultimate disappointing non-dealbreaker.
**EDIT:** Ok, I'm just going to add this here before anyone else asks if my dad can read. He's an oncologist. He's not dumb. He can keep up with the subtitles and the subject matter. He just does so much reading for work (he goes through medical journals like crazy) he wants to relax with something silly and mindless, that requires zero effort on his part. He feels the same way about tearjerkers (another of my mom's favorites) where people die slowly from some awful disease. He gets enough of that s**t at work. But he'll occasionally sit through them for my mom. We watched the old Julia Roberts film, Dying Young, a few weeks ago (where she nurses/falls in love with a young guy dying of cancer) and for half the film he was just looking at my mom with an expression that clearly read "why the f**k would you do this to me?".Needs to have the television on at bedtime.Vegan. I don't mind eating more veggies around my partner and it's good for my health and the planet but I do like meat and would want to eat it when they aren't around.If they are a sock-shoe-sock-shoe person and not a sock-sock-shoe-shoe person.They don't find the movie Airplane! funny.They're not into videogames. At all. Like not even willing to try.
Only crosses into dealbreaker if they're openly critical or judgmental of my enjoyment for videogames, and/or plans to never allow their kids to play videogames.Vastly different thresholds for bathroom related openness.
My husband and I met on OkCupid 13 years ago, back then they had you do this massive 50 or 100 question questionnaire, and you could pick if any of the questions were extremely important and they would show you how your match compared against your answers. My husband and I were in almost perfect match, 98%, and the only thing we had strong differing viewpoints was on how often would you find it acceptable for your partner to fart in front of you. My answer was never, his answer was the Shrek quote "better out than in I always say".
I swear to you-- two kids, a mortgage, 11 years of marriage and all the life and changes that come with that-- I still find this the least appealing thing about him. Everything else is pretty great (PS, yes, he loved when I was hugely pregnant and accidentally farted when I walked).If she told people personal details about our life.
For example, we’re having a kid and we just found out it’s a boy.
We agreed to keep it secret for the gender until we can get our families together to tell them.
Unfortunately we’re in a town of just 9000 people. Word gets around fast. She ended up telling her friends and her friends told their friends until it just spread like wild fire. Ended up spoiling the news before we can set up the family gathering.Doesn't listen to anything other than Pop music.My partner doesn’t have an interest in most non European ethnic foods, and I love well made Thai, Mexican, Indian wtc. (And since my ex was a literal world traveler, I’ve had authentic from several of those places, not the Americanized versions).
I now eat some of it so infrequently that my spice tolerance levels have actually decreased significantly.
The kicker is my partner loves soups. And I know he’d LOVE Phö, if he was brave enough to try it. Especially since it’s so customizable.Zero cooking skills.They clap when the plane lands.Doesn't put bowls upside down in the dishwasher.When there's things they used to do with an ex but aren't interested in anymore. For example, I had an ex whose ex used to force them to do couples costumes at Halloween etc. I had never had a serious bf before, and desperately wanted to do a couples costume with him but he was OVER IT at that point and didn't want to :(.Not being able to cook. I love to cook and would gladly cook for both of us most of the time, but every once in a while, I'd like someone else to cook (especially when I'm not feeling well).Picky eater.My boyfriend and I have been together 11 years. I’ve had the same favorite TV show since before I met him, and he hates it. Obviously not a dealbreaker but it’s pretty disappointing! ?.When you plan to watch your favourite movie together at the theatres but they already seen it with friends.I was very disappointed to learn that my partner refused to watch black and white movies. She makes up for that in many other ways, though.The big "aaaah" when he drinks something. Usually it's fine, but once in a while it's aggressive, and I just ????? You good hun????He didn’t like Scooby Doo.Someone with awful spelling.Sleep apnea (I know, it’s not anyone’s fault, let’s get it sorted so we can both sleep though).They can only sleep on the same side of the bed as I do and want me to switch sides.My current SO isn’t a huge massage person but it’s one thing I love doing, like massage trade offs w partners. It’s disappointing cause I would love a massage but he never likes giving them even if I initiate a trade off so he would get one too haha.If they don’t like ramen.If they wouldn't still love me if I was a worm.Being allergic to seafood.
