the deal breakers of dating...

#8 The restroom of your public high school is nicer than his bathroom

In other words: he’s dirty/filthy/gross or has a home that is.

I dated a guy for a few months who lived in a rented house with several other 20-something guys. Now, we all know that when dudes live together in a house setting it’s rarely “Martha Stewart” living. Heck, even when several ladies share a bathroom it can get gunky at times, though women typically have a much lower threshold for dirt than men do in a communal living situation (or at least they’re expected to).

The first couple times I hung out at Pig Pen’s place I didn’t notice anything too off. His room had a comfortable clutter, but nothing skeevy. He was an aspiring musician and writer. He’s probably too busy being creative to organize himself, even though he knew I was coming over, I thought. Sure the kitchen always seemed to have a several dirty dishes in the sink, but I assumed they were from one of his other three roommates. His shared bathroom however should have told me all I needed to know.

Let’s go down the list shall we:

***a warning for those of you who easily get grossed out you may just want to scroll down the page

1. For the first month of our dating I was under the impression that his house must have old plumbing. Why? The toilet bowl was stained this weird black/dark brown color. I attributed it to rust. Until one day, I went in to pee and saw the bowl was—-white!. I asked my then beau if he had gotten his toilet fixed or replaced. He replied no.  They just finally cleaned it. EWWWWWWW!
2. Someone clearly “manscaped” in the bathroom. All over.
   
3. There was a brown ring around the tub the entire time we dated.
   
4. The garbage can in the bathroom was never emptied the entire time I dated him. How do I know this? Early on someone had thrown away a rainbow clown wig after a party. I saw that wig for the entirety of our “relationship”.
5. I’m fairly certain there was at least a long period of time where there was no soap in the bathroom.
6. He kept his toothbrush in his bedroom.
   

I’m sure you’re thinking wow I bet she broke up with him after Toilet Bowl Gate. I wish I could tell you that. Sigh.

One Sunday morning, I was cleaning up French Toast we (mainly me) had made from scratch. While he was putting the freshly washed dishes in the dish rack I think he said, “Oh no” or “Eww” I don’t remember. But I do remember what happened next.

“What?” I said.

“Mouse droppings.”

“Are you SERIOUS?! Where?!”

“Uh, no I’m just joking” he said noticing my alarmed tone.

“That’s not funny. Are you joking or is there really mouse poop underneath the same DISH RACK THAT WE TOOK ALL THOSE ‘CLEAN’ PANS AND PLATES WE JUST USED TO EAT FROM?!”

“Yes?”

“I’m gonna be sick” (I still can’t believe I wasn’t)

“Just calm down. It’s no big deal. It’s just a mouse”

“How do you know it’s ‘just a mouse’? Is this the first time you’ve noticed this problem?!”

“We used to have a rat but then we got rid of it,” he said.

“When did you first realize you had a rat?” Part of me was trying to help him. I had dealt with rats in 2 New York apartments and had been victorious as a Pied Piper. The other part of me was angry that I might get bubonic plague and wanted answers.

“A mouse. A couple months ago.”

“A. COUPLE. MONTHS. AGO.”

“A month ago.”

“Where have you seen it? In the kitchen?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Anywhere else?” I paused looked at his open bedroom door directly off the kitchen. “Has it been in your room?”

“I’ve only seen it in there once.”

“WHAT!”

“It’s just a mouse.”

I will spare you the kanipshin I had, mainly because it makes me seem like that girl. The “high maintenance” girl. I’m not. I tried to look past a lot of his “mess” because I have my own “mess”. I’m so beyond scatter brained. I get cluttered when I get overwhelmed. But I do not let ANYTHING live in my house unless it’s paying rent!

Now, I know that even clean people get roaches, rats, bugs only exterminators can identify. But clean people (even scatter brained people) DO something about it. Immediately. It was the fact that he was so content to live with a mouse and a messy house and unapologetic about it that bothered me. If he had been actively trying rid his home of vermin or make the bathroom sanitary I might have felt differently. Instead he that he tried to make me think I was overreacting to a cleanliness level that would cause a health inspector to shut a restaurant down. It showed irresponsibility. It showed immaturity. It showed me that it was going to impossible to date a guy who’s house I would never feel comfortable sleeping or eating in again. And that became the deal breaker (well that and the mouse and the toilet).

In case you’re wondering we broke up about a week after. Too bad. He was pretty cute.

1am

#7 A “Potty” Mouth

No, no, no. Not cursing. Cursing has yet to be a deal breaker for me (probably because I curse when I get very excited in a conversation). I’m not even talking about your basic bathroom humor. If you don’t want to date a guy who still laughs at a fart or poop joke you might just want to scratch the whole gender all together. I’m talking about dating a guy who announces what he his going to do in the bathroom—-specifically if he calls an uncomfortably childish nickname.

I hopefully won’t face some serious bad karma for revealing this, but whatever it’s the truth. I was in a very serious relationship with a guy who would tell me he was going to have a bowel movement by saying he was going to “make (insert name of wild animal here)” and would call passing gas “stinky (name of fruit here)”. Now, I am not some uptight, elbows off the table, “sip don’t slurp” girl. I think it was more about an immaturity thing. At 20-something I would hope that you no longer use the silly name your friends made up in middle school for bodily functions. And if you want to still use those words when you’re hanging out with your buddies by all means do. I still revert back to my 13-year-old self when I’m with my childhood friends too. But please DON’T share it with me. Yes I know everybody poops, but not everybody announces it. I’d rather you be like a stealth ninja in the bathroom and just give me the warning eye not to walk into the room if you’ve just burped up something horrible. But don’t direct my attention, then proudly fart, and then maybe do what my kid brother does and shout “Safety”.

I don’t care if we share EVERYTHING, I don’t ever want to be that close. Or if you reveal it as a funny anecdote that’s fine, but don’t use it on a regular basis. It makes me feel like you’re the child in the relationship. And if you’re the child then I’m the mommy and I don’t want to be anybody’s mommy just yet.

4pm

#6 Unbearable accent

This one is submitted by ABM124. She writes:

“Deal breaker—-bad accent, like long island”

Totally.

Now, I know there are a lot of women out there who have a thing for guys with “Hot Accents”. Hot accents typically are British or Spanish or Southern. Hot Accents can turn a guy who would usually be about a 7 at least a 9.8. But I am not one of those women (I’m also not a woman who gets all excited by a man in a uniform—-unless he’s an employee at American Apparel) But I get it. It makes someone seem more exotic or at least gives him an edge over the rest of the guys on your recreational adult kick ball team.

But Hot Accents Guys are never from Boston, Fargo, or as AMB124 pointed out Long Island. I wish I could delight you with a hilarious tale about the time I dated a guy with a super thick Brooklyn accent who was an attorney and able to win a very important case in Alabama using the most unconventional of methods. But I can’t. For one, I have never dated a guy with a “non-hot” accent (maybe it’s a subconscious deal breaker for me). And two, that’s the plot to My Cousin Vinny.

But why is a bad accent a deal breaker? I don’t think there’s any proven scientific reason. So I’m just going to give you my personal theory I am still testing called “The Two Utes Theory”: If a man, regardless of how good looking, has a strong “non hot” accent that makes it hard to understand what he is saying even in the most casual of conversations he will thus seem stupid in the woman’s eyes much like the famous scene in My Cousin Vinny where the judge stops Vinny mid-questioning because he doesn’t understand that Vinny is saying the word “youths” with a strong Brooklyn accent.

A guy who seems stupid is never sexy (see deal breaker #1) and maybe it’s the idea of hearing that same accent in bed that makes him even less sexy. Or maybe some women just find a bad accent so unbearably annoying that they can’t even see a man’s good qualities. Regardless, ladies don’t feel bad if you didn’t give that guy at happy hour your number because just because he sounded like he just took the train in from Little Neck. Just think of all the guys who wouldn’t ask out Fran Drescher because of how she sounded on The Nanny.
***Please do not be offended if you or your boyfriend has one of those “bad accents”. Chances are you have the exact accent. Remember if two people have the same bad accent they probably don’t notice it in each other. Your deal breaker accent is probably something totally different.

12am

#5 Lame email/lame screen name

In 4th grade my friends and I were doodling our names on the chalkboard in our Hebrew School classroom before our teacher arrived. I was writing my full name really big and ran out of room midway through my last name. It was in that moment that I realized that I had “one of those last names”, you know the ones that if you’re not careful can be mispronounced or dissected into something crass or dirty.

I’m proud to say that I somehow managed to navigate the murky waters of grade school teasing and I only occasionally have to correct people of the pronunciation as an adult. And when it came time to selecting my first post-college Gmail address, the one that would be printed on every resume, the email address that would come up in all of my potential career opportunities I didn’t use some weird anagram or nickname;  I used my full name even if when first read it brings on a middle school giggle. You know why? Because I am an adult (most of the time) and I function in the professional world (some of the time).

This is part of why someone chooses to have an unprofessional and inappropriate email address or it’s widely used companion the AIM screenname I consider it a deal breaker.

I mean really, at what point are you too old for inital_lastname_number of your favorite baller_name of favorite team@hotmail? When do you think it would be a good time to switch to an account name (at least for business and potential dates) that isn’t funnyFamilyGuyReference_YearYouGraduated@yahoo? You like Family Guy? Great! So do I. Let me read about it on your Facebook or Myspace page or tumblr. Having it as an email address just lets me know that you sir might be 27, but you are not a grown-up and probably aren’t ready for any kind of serious grown-up relationship.

And the screen name. Sigh. Look we all have the screen name that our friends from college and high school know us by. And while they’re 10 years old and lame it’s okay because the people who IM us there also know us as that version of ourselves from 10 years ago. But if 10 years ago your screen name was something like TiTzMcGee and you are still choosing to go by that name I’m sorry I might just have to block you.

6pm

#4 Bad Teeth

I’m 26 so by now I’ve dated just about every smile there is. I’ve dated guys with perfect teeth. I’ve dated guys with crooked teeth. I even dated a guy who loved that his incisors were a little fang-like and I was totally okay with that. But BAAAAD teeth like one tooth that is half the size of it’s neighboring teeth, a tooth 7 shades darker than the rest, or serious snaggle teeth is a deal breaker.

And it’s not just the visual turn off. When I was 14 I got what I called my “David Letterman Teeth” bonded (if only I could have shaved down my “Jay Leno Chin”). I thought EVERYONE would notice that my seemingly huge space between my teeth was gone…they didn’t, but I did smile more in pictures just to show it off. I think since then I’ve had a problem with any guy who is at least making a comfortable living who hasn’t get around to getting his teeth fixed. Now, I’m not talking about fixin’ what ain’t broke and going out and investing thousands in “Denzel Washington” porcelain veneers—-yikes. I’m talking about a guy with a very fixable problem who won’t fix it. I mean, he HAS to know, right? Even if he won’t because he’s just so comfortable in his skin I think I’d have to let him go. I’d like to think that I could over look a dental nightmare, but I might just be that shallow. Plus maybe I deserve to not have your snaggle tooth distracting me during every conversation for the rest of our lives.

11pm

#3 Bad Sneakers

No, not the Steely Dan song (that would actually be a huge plus for me—-weird I know). I’m talking about actual foot gear. Now, that’s not to say that there hasn’t been a Romeo or two who used his Dunks to walk all over my lil heart, but let’s be honest George Michael was wrong some times the clothes DO make the man or at least his footware does.

Deal breaking footware for me

1. Those damn bowling shoes. Now, if he’s wearing actual stolen bowling shoes that’s a different case. He might be a bad boy or a straight up skinny jeans wearin’ hipster. But if he shows up in his nicest duds sportin’ those “fake bowling shoes” it’s just a huge turn off. Wish I could tell you why, but I can’t. I’ve always hated these, plus that trend is from like 4 years ago. Which means he hasn’t bought nice shoes in four years. What? Has he not been dating?  It just makes me wonder.
2. Tevas. Okay maybe you met him white water rafting. That is the ONLY time those belong on another man’s feets in my book. They do not belong on his feetsies when he shows up to your office to take you to lunch.
3. Anything that looks like it was once on a snake. Oh wait, are you dating Ludacris? No? Okay then he should not be wearing those shoes
4. The biggest of all shoe sins to which breaking no mea culpa will redeem you from: socks with sandals. Even if all your bunkmates were doing it back at Camp FakeIndianTribeName you are not here to pick me up to go to the end of the summer dance. Take those bad boys off now!

****Now a word about Crocs. Crocs are iffy. I still haven’t figured out if they’re a deal breaker or not cause I have yet to date a man who wore or knew what they were. I mean if he was a chef I would consider it acceptable, but definitely not on a Friday night dinner and movie outing.

7pm

#2 His friends suck.

It’s hard to really think about taking the relationship for the long term or even consider exclusively dating a guy who’s friends (for lack of a more eloquent word) suck. I can remember dating a guy I was serious about and dated for several years who’s friends just never showed the slightest interest in warming up to me and they were out right rude to my friends. I would just picture having to spend the rest of holidays and big events like a divorced kid splitting my time between my parents.

And look it’s not just about whether you can see yourself happily sharing many a booth at a restaurant or bar with his friends for the rest of your lives. The old saying still holds true: you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep. I dated a guy whose friends were all shady as fuck and (not to be too judgmental) seemed like they were losers. There were already other problems and huge deal breakers I’ll get to in later posts that I was trying so hard to ignore. But all of this came to a screeching halt when I was introduced to his loser “best friend” who just plain creeped me out. It finally hit me: his friends weren’t just losers—-HE was a loser and if I continuted to date this guy soon enough I wouldn’t just be a girl dating a loser I’d be a loser too.

4pm

#1: Inexcusably stupid

Back in my lil high school in South Florida I some how landed what I thought was THE catch. He was uber popular. And not just like 2 or 3 rungs up the social ladder. No. He was Mr. Popular. We jokingly called him the Scott Blank (not his real name) as testament to his popularity and he used it as a nickname. Seniors, teachers, PTA members knew who the Scott Blank was and LOVED him. He was tall, hot (to 16 year old me), cocky, on varsity football AND basketball, and though he was a sophomore and I was a Junior we were taking the same math and history classes. So according to our teachers and National Honors Society he was no dumb jock. I was an honors student myself, but nothing that would have ever gotten me noticed (I spent most of my time in class playing the Song Lyric Game or talking out of turn.  And instead of doing homework I was busy making up dances in my room or watching MTV’s Daria).

I was pretty convinced that I was damn near lucky to be dating the Scott Blank—-and so was he. He actually had the balls to tell me a friend of his asked him why he was dating me. I think his response was something like “I don’t know”. That should have been the deal breaker right there, but I had the self-esteem of most awkward 16-year-old girls who spend their free time making up dances in their rooms, watching Daria and reenacting SNL sketches at inappropriate times with their friends.

But Mr. Popular wasn’t so perfect.

One night I remember him standing in the doorway of my house I don’t remember the circumstances but I believe he had caught a cold and my internal Jewish mother was coming out as I told him to make sure he drank lots of fluids and eat lots of citrus and get vitamin C. To which he replied “What’s citrus?”

“You know like citrus fruit”

Blank stare.

“You live in Florida and you don’t know what citrus is?”

I was so angry. I felt like the kid in the Emperor’s New Clothes. I just wanted everyone to know that this kid might have everyone impressed with how smart he is for a jock and nice he is for a popular kid did not know simple life like what category an orange, lemon, or grapefruit fall into. I felt like someone should be asking me why I was dating him!

I think that was the beginning of the end for us. Not that the relationship really could have lasted. It was hard to feign interest in his football and basketball games. Playing sports might help make you popular in high school and being popular in high school might be really important, but it really bores the shit out of me.

Ever since then I can’t do it.  I just can’t date a guy I think is dumber than me regardless of what he got on his SATs.

2pm