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.
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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.!<.
Meat left on a random shelf contaminates every around it and makes a bunch of waste
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.
My wife gave me a picture frame with "Live, Love, Laugh" and a few pictures of Skeletor in it to take to work :)
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.
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.
Nah, once the movie is over we're talking like we're film students
It is to me. What's the point in watching a thought provoking movie like that if you're not gonna talk about it after?
I get talking about it later. But maybe it was excessive. And yeah, read the room. She said he seemed disinterested but persisted for half an hour. I think the question should have been "did you like it" rather than attempting to analyze the hidden meaning of the movie. Or maybe "what did you think about the movie", sounds like she had a ton of questions and that generally means they did all the talking.
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That's why I go to the cinema with my cinephile friends and leave my husband to look after the kids!
my story's worse. my person only watches romcoms. sooo f*****g disappointing.
Following lots of scantily-clad influencers, liking and commenting on most of their posts .
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 🤣🤣.
This is a tough one. My husband likes some music, but can totally do without it. He doesn't sing ever. That's been a hard one because I am always singing and wanting to go dance at shows. We've been together 20 years, and he just lets me do my thing and will come along and enjoy concerts with me, but I have NEVER heard him sing. It's weird.
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?
If she smokes/vapes. Don’t care for that smell at all.
also the cancers/health problems that come with vaping and smoking? your lungs will look like damn prunes, not to mention all of the ways it could kill you!!!
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.
My mind is boggled by this one. Forget the not picking them up bit, why do they need to see them on the floor?
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.
That's a deal breaker. What's the point of being in a relationship if you don't do anything together? Do you even have anything in commong?
“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.
When you watching a tv series together and he or she watches an episode without you. thats a betrayal.
They run family 5ks on thanksgiving mornings.
That's a deal breaker if they try and get me to join in. I'll sleep in and start cooking the food, you go ahead and run in the cold for no reason.
If they stop the microwave prematurely, but don't clear the display.
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?
That he’s one of those men who cough up loogies 24/7 🤢. Almost a dealbreaker.
Some of us have problems with snot production and it hangs in the throat area. We can cough it out or we can gag until we throw up. Pick one
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?".
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.
Many vegans don't care what you eat around them they just do their thing
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.
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.
The best gender revels is the day when the baby is born. Anything else is a waste of time and money, another hallmark card selling scam.
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).
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.
Doesn't put bowls upside down in the dishwasher.
There is a correct way (my way) to load the dishwasher. This is a hill I’m prepared to die on. My way everything comes out clean and without puddles of water collected in the base of the big cups.
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).
If they are a sock-shoe-sock-shoe person and not a sock-sock-shoe-shoe person.
They clap when the plane lands.
I've never actually seen this happen, do people actually do this?
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.
Picky eater.
I... sensory issues. I'll find something to eat for myself but I'm not gonna be adventurous
Note: this post originally had 43 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
People are different. If you're identical, there's less chance of growing and becoming more than the sum of your parts (NB not a euphemism).
Hehehe if it's not a euphemism then it should be
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I really hope that the (if I was a worm) and (allergic to seafood) posts were satirical.
If they have a gigantic vertical "Welcome" sign on their front porch but there's another smaller sign you cant see until you are at the door telling you to p**s off (ie Don't ring my doorbell if you don't have Girl Scout cookies). Its fine to have boundaries but this combination says I don't want the world to know I'm a jerk.
People are different. If you're identical, there's less chance of growing and becoming more than the sum of your parts (NB not a euphemism).
Hehehe if it's not a euphemism then it should be
Load More Replies... I really hope that the (if I was a worm) and (allergic to seafood) posts were satirical.
If they have a gigantic vertical "Welcome" sign on their front porch but there's another smaller sign you cant see until you are at the door telling you to p**s off (ie Don't ring my doorbell if you don't have Girl Scout cookies). Its fine to have boundaries but this combination says I don't want the world to know I'm a jerk.
