The older I get, the more people-allergies I develop. There are things I don’t accept in a husband, but am ok with in others. For example, if someone neglects religious duties or has different views on life, I’m not going to hate the person. Allergies on the other hand are personality traits I cannot stand in anyone. So in a potential husband, an allergy is definitely a deal breaker. Experience has taught me I should run away from people with any of these traits. Here is the portrait of my nightmare husband!
They say you shouldn’t use a checklist to determine if a person is right for you. I guess I agree with that; you could miss out on a great guy because he doesn’t fit your list exactly. But determining your deal breakers – the ‘negative checklist’ – sounds pretty effective to me!
I’ll start with some no-brainers first. To be honest these deal breakers should be universal. I don’t think there is much to explain about these so I’m just going to name them and move on.
- Aggression is an illness and if you pity someone with this illness, then you’ll end up pitying yourself later. Trust me.
- People who are rude to servers are horrible people. Secretly I thank them for this clear sign.
- Liars are simply not trustworthy.
On to my personal deal breakers! I have a thing or two to say about these…
- Losers. I define a loser as someone stupid and irresponsible who keeps making bad decisions. Now, losers say stupid things all the time – you can’t have a conversation without cringing every few sentences – but the real stupidity is in their actions. Some people just have a talent for choosing the most stupid option in every situation. Say you’re a taxi driver in financial trouble, what do you do?
A Start working at night and in the early morning instead of in the afternoon.
B Go back to your old profession that paid better.
C* Loan money from people (because you can’t get away with not paying back a bank) for a trip to Marrakech with friends and get the wife a fancy kitchen to eat your daily take-away in.
*Option C was originally not an option but Loser is creative with his choices.
- Anti-social weirdos. There is always that one guy everyone thinks is weird and nobody wants to hang out with. He doesn’t seem to understand appropriate social behavior. Now, I don’t hate that weird guy, but I’m not a fan either. I used to pity this type because I figured it must be hard to have people want to stay away from you, but every time I tried to give a ‘weird person’ a chance I would learn that he/she isn’t considerate at all. They’re not just socially awkward and weird; they’re not nice either! They just don’t care about the feelings of those around them, or they’re not aware of them. I realized that exactly this anti-social behavior is what makes them so unappealing. It’s not just the weirdness – that just comes with it for some reason.
- Stubborn, difficult and harsh. The rocks of the community, and not because they rock… Holding on to someone with a heart of stone will only make you sink and drown. I’ve met several rocks in my life and they display more or less the same behavior. They’re intelligent, got their act together and have a strong sense of justice. So far so good, right? Their dark side, however, is pitch black. They are true pessimists, stubborn as a mule, passive aggressive and can be absolutely apathetic to others. No compassion.
Since they’re stubborn and fierce, so is their love. When a loved one makes a mistake, rocks get stuck in an internal battle. They can’t forget a mistake, but they can’t forget that person either – hence the internal crisis. When they’re in a bad mood they don’t care to be friendly or polite. It suddenly gets cold, the room gets dark and breathing gets difficult. They’re suffocation in human form. Not my cup of tea.
- Show offs. Arrogance is just poison of the mind, ok? I’m not sure if they are aware of the invisible high horse they’re on, but everybody else certainly is. You don’t want to get too close to a show off because they exude a toxic level of arrogance that’s notorious for draining the energy of all organisms within a ten feet radius. The arrogance is usually caused by insecurity (because of their high level of jealousy) and in some cases just by obnoxiousness.
Anyway, like I was saying, arrogance is the poison of the mind. There is intellectual arrogance, material arrogance, religious arrogance, racial arrogance, physical arrogance, creative arrogance, academic arrogance, technical arrogance, moral arrogance, political arrogance… that- that’s about it. If you meet someone that exudes this poison: run Forrest run!
No but seriously. Some people think that everything they own is better than yours. Some believe that wealth only exists when shoved in people’s face. Some suffer from the illusion of being the chosen one to explain everything to everyone because they know best and everybody is obviously in need of their wisdom. A common one: some have their nose permanently situated in the air because of a paper evidence of proficiency in textbook reproduction. Some are overall arrogant, a.k.a. narcissists. As Bubba showed, it comes in many ways and I find it very unattractive.
- Stingy people. Sigh, what can I say? There are normal ordeals, and there are stingy men. Stinginess is an allergy that kills me instantly. I didn’t realize how big of a deal this was to me until I spent three horrible hours with a stingy person one time in Morocco. Allow me to rant.
So I’m friends with these girls. Their uncle was going to take them and their younger brother out to the beach. They really wanted to take me with them so he agreed to pick me up. Note that this was 100% their plan.
It was lunch time and I hadn’t eaten yet, so I suggested to get some takeaway for all of us. I didn’t want to burden the man so I subtly mentioned that I had money on me. He kept making excuses not to get food at several places and eventually said that we would eat afterwards. I died a little inside but kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want to hurt his pride. I got that he didn’t want to pay and as a thirty year old man he couldn’t accept a teenage girl to pay for him.
At the beach he didn’t want to rent a parasol and naive me worried again about hurting his pride. I shouldn’t have. I should have worried more about the seven year old boy with us! I went overboard with sunscreen and I bought some snacks. That’s when I learned the girls and the little boy hadn’t eaten either. I wanted to die.
When we got back he complained about the parking costs. Then we got stuck in traffic and so he started complaining about how much gas he was wasting, especially in the extra mile to my place. ‘’No wonder taxis don’t drive this route.’’ This man isn’t dead poor by the way; just dead stingy. Meanwhile the kid was singing about food and I couldn’t feel more uncomfortable. Needless to say we didn’t eat and that was the last time he took me out.
I learned that stinginess is not just about living uncomfortably for the sake of a big bank account. It’s an unwillingness to share, because money matters more. I just can’t live a harmonious life with such a man. What kind of heart do you have if you refuse to tip a server in a third world country or give a poor kid a coin on Eid. A sick heart is bad for my heart, literally. Stress is bad.
Aah this rant felt so good! Thanks for reading 🙂
What’s your allergy?
Wow, I love this! Thank you for sharing such a wonderful and relatable post. These traits I don’t like seeing in women either – not just men.
That was phenomenally well thought out and written. My mother would always suffer from My father’s stinginess. She asked for a divorce and that was her main reason to hate him. She had put up with every flaw and shortcoming of his but she could no longer stand how much of a penny pincher he was. . If I were a girl, I’d want to find out first if my future husband had any symptoms of stinginess before deciding to tie the knot.
Everything you described, I experienced with one partner. The stinginess, superiority complex and image-consciousness, I found incredibly difficult. He insisted we split bills and when I tried to show him another way, he always reminded me when it was my turn to pay, like he didn’t want me to take advantage of the situation. When we would go out for food, he always chose cheap places, would never tip, was rude to and Indian waiter in Thailand, and there was never any romance associated with dining out. He made five times more than me, would buy designer clothing and stay in nice hotels by himself, but be unwilling to go to a nice restaurant or stay in comfortable hotels on holidays, even if we split the bill. He checked his bank account more than once a day and seemed fine with that. He made a comment about the birthday present he gave me – that it didn’t cost much money. I felt completely uncared for with this person and he was oblivious to his behaviour until I told him in anger about all the little things that were big things when we broke up. When we contacted each other again, he would tell me how generous he was with this and that person which was all just empty gestures. It’s sad because there was a part of me who tried to understand his background- economically unstable, no father, ran away from home as a teen. A part of me really loved him but couldn’t see past his money obsession. In fact, his true love was money.
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