What Were the Deal BREAKERS?

[JewelFreak]

I go along with Miss Manners on bringing stuff. It is ok to ask but not required, and bringing something when asked not to is awkward. Unless it's understood as a pot luck or similar (no problem then), inviting people to your house & expecting them to provide the food is not great hospitality.

I love to cook & plan menus with care, sometimes spend 3 days making it all. We have friends who, no matter how strongly I said NO DON"T BRING ANYTHING, always showed up with a dry, horrid supermarket pie! Every time. First few times I was a wuss & served the toxic thing with my dessert. Finally I chucked it on the counter & ignored it till I could throw it in the trash. Didn't stop them from bringing the next one, though.

Erin, your date story is a hoot! I went out with a co-worker who was equally creepy. Only once! First to his apt. where he'd made sangria. He gave me one glass & finished the rest of the pitcher himself: "Girls [yes, 'girls!'] don't drink much, so I won't offer you another." Then we went to a weird restaurant where the waiters wore monks' habits & the food was awwwwful; he complained throughout about how much it cost. After dinner to the opera -- he'd bought standing room tickets because, he said, they were cheap & when people left at intermission we could take their seats. Holy cow! He also had the sloppiest, noisiest, most disgusting table manners I ever endured. Could not get away from that dope fast enough! When I moved home for a short while he actually called my mother & invited himself up for the weekend. Nope nope nope nope!

--- Laurie

 

[AmeliaG]

What gets me is when you have people over and they don't ask if they can bring something. Until very recently this scenario never happened to me but now that it has (3 times now) I am baffled. On 2 separate occasions the offenders (for lack of a better word from my tired brain) were/are both male doctor friends who are single.

I don't know. Do these doctors invite you over for something? My parents and their friends used to entertain a lot and nobody brought anything. When she invited a couple to her party, they just invited her to theirs.

 

[AmeliaG]

I think it's awkward to ask a guest not to bring something; its can be perceived as the host not appreciating the guest's act of gratitude. A guest is going to come regardless so their presence is not really a thank you for being invited. At least IMHO.

 

[Phoenix]

I think it's awkward to ask a guest not to bring something; its can be perceived as the host not appreciating the guest's act of gratitude. A guest is going to come regardless so their presence is not really a thank you for being invited. At least IMHO.

Well, I see what you're saying. But on the other hand, maybe the host doesn't want you to go to all the trouble of selecting a present for them and spending your money. Take my DH's best friend for example: as mentioned earlier, he and his wife really do not want people to feel obligated to come with presents to their Xmas and b'day do's, and that they genuinely just want people to come and have an absolutely fantastic time. They're incredibly generous, they always provide a massive amount of really top-notch quality food, all home-made and delicious, a huge quantity of high end champagne, wine, other drinks and a live band as well as waiting staff. We all very much appreciate their kind gestures; and in turn DH and I invite them to our house or to our club for several meals, drinks etc throughout the years..and I am sure their other friends do the same to reciprocate.

Mind you, when we invite them, they invite us back again and it goes on and on...

 

[junebug17]

4) The socially awkward guy who made really weird loud noises during...um...private moments. Yes, it is what you're thinking. That was a HUGE dealbreaker.

isn't that normal?...

DF, this made me almost spit out my coffee! Good one - thanks for the laugh!

 

[AmeliaG]

I think it's awkward to ask a guest not to bring something; its can be perceived as the host not appreciating the guest's act of gratitude. A guest is going to come regardless so their presence is not really a thank you for being invited. At least IMHO.

Well, I see what you're saying. But on the other hand, maybe the host doesn't want you to go to all the trouble of selecting a present for them and spending your money. Take my DH's best friend for example: as mentioned earlier, he and his wife really do not want people to feel obligated to come with presents to their Xmas and b'day do's, and that they genuinely just want people to come and have an absolutely fantastic time. They're incredibly generous, they always provide a massive amount of really top-notch quality food, all home-made and delicious, a huge quantity of high end champagne, wine, other drinks and a live band as well as waiting staff. We all very much appreciate their kind gestures; and in turn DH and I invite them to our house or to our club for several meals, drinks etc throughout the years..and I am sure their other friends do the same to reciprocate.

Mind you, when we invite them, they invite us back again and it goes on and on...

You do what my parents do. You reciprocate. I think that's the best way to say thanks. People who love to get together with friends and put forth a lot of effort to put something together really appreciate when their friends go to the same trouble and invite them.

It's not always practical. A lot of people don't have a lot of entertaining space or their homes are not set up for it. I'd love to entertain but my apartment feels small. So I bring a gift.

 

[Brown.Eyed.Girl]

5) Another really hot, buff engineer guy - also super boring, to the point where 3-4 drinks hadn't lessened that for me. And he was a bit too into his illicit substances.

LOL, I'm attracted to these 'boring' intellects. I like them NOT talking. I like talking. MEMEMEMEME! I like taking over conversations, and I can care less what my significant other does on their daily work hours. I guess I'm quite narcissistic, huh? LOL

Haha I like talking too! But the guy's gotta reciprocate at some point. Not to say I can't talk to walls (and as a former debater, I certainly have) but I need the guy to be able to respond too.

One of the issues I had with one of the boring engineers was that he was not only boring, but he liked pretending to be smart when he was clearly talking out of his a$$. I don't deal well with bombastic types.

On the subject of bringing things to others' places... my friends and I are comfortable enough that if I say don't bring anything, I really mean it, and my friends know it. If they want to bring wine or beer or something, totally great, but no begrudging if they don't. Conversely, I'm also comfortable asking them to bring something I need it. Clear communication is always important

 

[Brown.Eyed.Girl]

4) The socially awkward guy who made really weird loud noises during...um...private moments. Yes, it is what you're thinking. That was a HUGE dealbreaker.

isn't that normal?...

DF, this made me almost spit out my coffee! Good one - thanks for the laugh!

REALLLLLLLY weird. And uncomfortable.

 

[TC1987]

Ex-husband: In retrospect, I think the root of the problem was that he was mama's boy plus a very skilled liar and manipulator who would tell anyone any lie, either to manipulate or to make a getaway without having a confrontation. The last straw was he ran up credit card debts that exceeded his annual gross income, behind my back, still owed $12,000 on a 2-year-old truck, and still hadn't paid off his college loans after 20 years. I thought he was getting himself financially solvent, when he was just playing around and racking up even more debts. I was the one supporting both of us.

When I confronted him about this cc debt, he said he had already talked to a lawyer a couple of months ago about the possibility of divorce. That did it for me. First thing the next morning, I called up the best divorce attorney in town and I filed for a separation followed by divorce. Irreconcilable differences. The judge stuck him with every bit of that debt, too.

 

[NOYFB]

Cheating
Drugs
Domestic violence
Saying horrible things about my family
Endangering my life in a 21 mile high speed police chase

 

[TC1987]

Endangering my life in a 21 mile high speed police chase

Oh my gosh, you made me remember the cop that I dated. I dumped him after we were on a date in his personal car, and he decided to chase some guy at high speed about 3 miles, and we ended up at some ghetto housing project. He jumped out and CHASED the guy back between some buildings, and there I sat, alone in the car. What an azz hat.

eta, then about 4 years after that, I must have dated another from that same gene pool who was a fireman. We were to go boating with some of his friends. Fireman had a boat, and the friends had a boat, and we'd kind of been alternating between the two boats. Fireman made a date with me to meet them at the dock. When I got there, I was picked up by his friends in friends' boat but Fireman wasn't with them. I didn't think anything of it at first, thinking we were picking him up at the other dock upriver, or picking him up later. Nope, when I finally asked his friends when are we picking him up, they all looked sheepish and said "He isn't coming." How embarrassing! He stood me up, and made his friends cart me around for an entire afternoon. PIG!

 

[NTave]

Husband number 1:

1) Lying about being gifted 60k from my dad..while I thought we were struggling to pay household expenses, oh, wait, I was.
2. Gaming over 40 hours a week and not being able to get up off the couch for dinner, to help with our children, one being an infant.
3. Drinking while gaming.
3. Stop going to work and instead gamed at a friends home during the day.
4. Lying about the above.
5. Hiding a lien on the house from me from taxes unpaid that I had given him money to pay for, and the bills he was supposed to pay for utilities becoming negative into the thousands..gas, electric, etc.
6. Draining our childrens college savings account.
7. Hiding a drug problem.
But the final straw is he became abusive...I took a lot of crap. Got up on my own two feet..funny how I can support my own household, two children without ANY support with the same paycheck Ive always had. It took me 3 years to get out behind that mess but I did it and ended back on my feet. Im not well off by any means, but living without that source of stress is immeasurably better.
Except I didnt learn in the romance department. After I put myself back together, I met a man that I became romantic with after 5 months of being friends and seeing him out socially..who blew me away with an exotic life, great trips, loved fitness as much as I do, was an triathlete as well.. and a business entrepreneur..who lived a very busy life but always seem to make time for me. We moved into together, we became engaged, he was great to my children.
Deal breakers there were: 1. He didnt hide a marriage from me, but he hid that he wasnt in the middle of a year long divorce battle and never asked her for one AT ALL. I found out because his wife called me. Turns out a business trip he took right after we had been away together was really him going to Disney with his wife and son..and she had no idea about me until she became suspicious. I realized that although we were living together, that I was more a mistress than a fiance. It floored me, and hurt, and to this day I will never be able to figure out how that he had us both going for so long. I had him move out immediately, and he moved into an apt. During this time I didnt trust him but he swore up and down that I had it wrong, and was still trying to woo me. That was when I found out and also hid another girlfriend from me..the deal breaker there was that I found a blue girly bathrobe in his closet, and a love note on his night stand in his new place, weeks after move in. I realized then that he had been seeing this girl for quite a long time and not a few weeks..and I walked out and never spoke to him again, but at that point we were already done anyway.
Maybe that was wrong to go tumbling into something, it was definately a rebound from my divorce even though it was years later..my bad. Since then Im laying low, because it seems I tend to pick the very wrong men. So I have a new set of deal breakers, and my standards are much higher..gulp. I hope. Its enough to swear off men entirely. Im a nice woman..smart, educated, cute enough..why I did this to myself Im still working through..

 

[loriken214]

Missing my Junior Year High School Homecoming Dance because my date drove me out to the middle of a dark field and tried to rape me. I was barely 16 and was a virgin and HE KNEW IT. He was 18 and from a different school district from me. I had no idea where we were and there I was all dressed up with my nice dress and homecoming mum laying down on the front seat of his truck. He was on top of me trying to get to my panties and I managed to talk him out of it, but had to do other things to get him off of me. I didn't tell anyone cause my Mom would have literally killed him.

My current DH and I were engaged back in the early 80's. He lived at home with Mom and Dad and they spoiled him rotten. His Mom used to find jobs for him to apply for and he would dress up in his nice dress suit and leave to go for the "interviews." I had quit college and started working full time so we could get married....I had marriage on the brain. Turns out that FI was going to MY house and eating pizza and laying on Mom's couch all day instead of trying to find a job. He was fooling everybody, including ME, and Mom didn't know what he was up to. That did it....I told him to get lost!

I married the next guy who asked me and spent 10 1/2 years in hell....he was emotionally void and we finally divorced.

Went back to current DH to set the record straight and we ended up getting back together and have been married almost 15 years. It isn't perfect, but we do pretty good.

I don't take crap off of him and he knows it!

Lori

 

[TC1987]

(Thread hijack, but always report guys like that. ^ And talk to your daughters, y'all and warn them about that possibility. Guys like that have done or will do it more than once. My ex-BIL, I learned later, took girls out on dates when he was in hs, and would drive to some remote rural area, then say "____ or walk.")

 

[iheartscience]

My biggest dealbreaker was having boyfriends who just weren't good with my family/friends. I hated feeling like I had to babysit my boyfriends! My husband is super social, very friendly, and fit in with my family perfectly. When we lived closer he would go hang out with my dad without me!

Thing, I think this is so important! I do have to watch my family and DH a bit and it's so tiring. He's an only child who can appear snobby and somewhat inflexible when confronted with the chaos that is most people's family. We work well together, but he has no idea how to be with family. I don't think it would've been a deal breaker anyway, but it does make it complex because when we see my family for extended holiday because we live in a different country to them. I think thinking about the fit with family is very necessary!

It really does get old fast! My husband is actually an only child too, but he's ridiculously social and loves my big loud family. (I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters, 9 nieces and nephews, etc.) My family is very important to me, and not fitting in with them was a definite dealbreaker.

 

[HollyS]

What were the deal breakers???

Hmmm . . .

One guy was caught in a huge lie about 1) where he lived, 2) where he worked, 3) whether he was married. He was.

One guy was an ex-fiance, we were on a redo after the first breakup, and . . . while we were otherwise (ahem) engaged . . . he took a phone call from a buddy. After which he wanted to meet up with said buddy. Immediately. Never mind what we had been in the middle of.

Oh, and then there was the guy . . . who said he was separated and divorcing after his wife left him several months prior . . . whose wife showed up at my workplace to tell me I wasn't his first "affair". Even in my shock, I gave her a good lecture about staying with a jerk who would do this again and again to her, while assuring her that I had no further use for his sorry butt.

So, yeah, deal breakers. Buh-bye losers. Hello the rest of my life.

 

[GemFever]

Hmm... among a myriad of other things, this stands out as a memorable irritant -- saying he would kill/hurt himself if I left him. Noooo good.

 

[StacylikesSparkles]

Hmm... among a myriad of other things, this stands out as a memorable irritant -- saying he would kill/hurt himself if I left him. Noooo good.

Dated one of those in my youth. He told me this just about every weekend when I wanted to do things with people other than him (even if the friends were female). Thankfully I got out of that mess...after which he told me he had cancer and wanted me to be there for him. I told him that I would totally be there...if he could show me a doctors note with proof.

 

[GemFever]

Hmm... among a myriad of other things, this stands out as a memorable irritant -- saying he would kill/hurt himself if I left him. Noooo good.

Dated one of those in my youth. He told me this just about every weekend when I wanted to do things with people other than him (even if the friends were female). Thankfully I got out of that mess...after which he told me he had cancer and wanted me to be there for him. I told him that I would totally be there...if he could show me a doctors note with proof.

and

This kind of behavior sends just one message to me nowadays: TRAP!

Glad it's over!

 

[StacylikesSparkles]

Hmm... among a myriad of other things, this stands out as a memorable irritant -- saying he would kill/hurt himself if I left him. Noooo good.

Dated one of those in my youth. He told me this just about every weekend when I wanted to do things with people other than him (even if the friends were female). Thankfully I got out of that mess...after which he told me he had cancer and wanted me to be there for him. I told him that I would totally be there...if he could show me a doctors note with proof.

and

This kind of behavior sends just one message to me nowadays: TRAP!

Glad it's over!

RIGHT!!! It was crazy when it happened and looking back I think I should have been more scared than I actually was. I was 19 though, so for a good while there, I just didn't want to date ANYONE for fear that a commitment might turn int that crap all over again.

 

[iLander]

@NTAVE: So awful! This was an awful story!

@loriken214: I wish I could hug you through the screen, you poor thing.

 

[pregcurious]

1. After dating one month, boyfriend stopped exercising and started gaining weight by eating a pint Ben & Jerry's every night..it lasted 8 months until I realized that he had gotten comfortable and had completely stopped trying. He went from cutely overweight to going towards obese. We were in college. Imagine what would have happened if we had gotten married. Sadly, he was a nice person, but I believe people should take care of themselves (as health allows.)

2. A guy who was emotionally manipulative and borderline psychotic. He would be nice for a week, then do things like not call back in a reasonable amount of time, talk about exes, etc. He would make me wait regularly 30 minutes or more on dates, for no good reason. Each time I dumped him, he would say things would be different and act traumatized. He also had a bizarre, explosive temper and a few times I felt I was in the presence of a truly psychotic person. I finally cut off all contact. Afterwards, I realized he might have something like Borderline Personality Disorder. He definitely has deep-seated abandonment issues, and extremely low self-esteem coupled with megalomania. He does not have a good (or even much of a relationship) with any family members, has no friends from childhood, and appears to only have superficial relationships with people he shares common hobbies/work interests.

3. Horrible kisser on first date. Wanted me to "stay over" at his frat house in a room shared with 5+ other guys on our third date. Yuck.

 

[iLander]

After reading all these terrible stories, I thought I'd pass along this website, where you can look up a person by their birthday and read a bit about their personalities. I've used this advanced astrology book/site for over 15 years, and found it to be remarkably accurate

http://www.thesecretlanguageofbirthdays.com/

Plug in the birthday, (I do it without the year) then click on the personality tab.

Every time that I've ignored it (it soft peddles the bad news, so read carefully) I have regretted it and discovered it was right later in the relationship.

Maybe this will help everyone find more normal people to date?