I think it’s justifiable too. People who are consistently late are essentially saying that their time is more important than yours so you can just wait until they’re good and ready. I leave without them or find something better to do it they make me wait often.
Your former friend sounds like an ass, but I can understand not wanting to date a vegetarian. I have friends who are vegetarians and it’s fine because we only eat together sporadically. They’re also not the type to be all “ewwww!” if someone eats meat in front of them.
But living with someone who refused to eat any meat or had a serious moral aversion to it simply wouldn’t work, because I’m not about to give it up and cooking separate meals all the time is a pain in the arse.
I wonder how many married couples actually make it work when one is a vegetarian and the other isn’t. One person would have to change their eating habits eventually.
First, thanks to those of you who find my dealbreaker justifiable. I was wondering if I was the one who is out to lunch just because my friends seem to tolerate this behavior in their friends. I do not, but I also don’t refuse to be friends with people like this. I just set boundaries and try to teach people how to treat me. “We’d like you to be there at 8. If you can’t make it by 8:30 please call; otherwise, we will not wait for you.” There. Now you know what I’m doing to do, regardless if you have enough class to treat me with the same respect. But there are certain people I refuse to go to movies with because I like the trailers and I don’t like missing the first 20 minutes of a movie. Especially if I’m going to pay around $10 just for the movie and another $10 for snacky-treats.
Second, I wanted to ask about this vegetarian thing. I’m a vegetarian (not a true veg, because I eat seafood and fish and dairy/eggs. I’m ovo-lacto-pesco-terian. I just say I don’t eat land animals) because my cholesterol is high and I’m too young to take Lipitor for the rest of my life. Cutting fat from my diet by not eating meat is just healthier for me.
Having said that, I frequently and usually eat with people who think nothing of ordering a bloody rare steak and chowing it right in front of me. I would consider it the height of rudeness to comment on what someone else chooses to dine on. I can’t stand vegetarians who feel compelled to comment on everyone else’s meal. I wouldn’t date one either, if we can all be painted with the same brush.
How married couples make it work, I can’t comment on because I’ve never been married, but this is how I made it work with my last BF. If he wanted to eat a land animal for dinner, we had three choices:
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He cooked at his house, but he had to make sure the sides did not have land-animal fat in them so I could eat too. I did not demand, nor require that he make something special. (Generally, I can make a meal out of bread + cheese + salad and will try to supplement with non-land-animal protein later.)
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Or I would cook at my house and was happy to prepare a meat main dish just for him. He had to take the leftovers home. One year, I made a Thanksgiving turkey for him, with all the trimmings, including gravy and stuffing with turkey “juice” in them. I ate only the sides and dessert. (Of course, I made about four different veg dishes so that it was a “feast” for me too.)
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Or, we’d just go out and both order whatever we wanted. Problem solved. What I had a bigger problem with was the fact that he could never learn to close his goddamned mouth when he ate, which drove me batshit crazy. Then he’d get mad at me if I gently reminded him, “Close your mouth, please, baby.”
So I wonder if people who have an aversion to hanging with vegetarians are just reacting to bad experiences they’ve had in the past with rude/inconsiderate/selfish/preachy vegetarians. Maybe you haven’t met a vegetarian who doesn’t actually care to try to control your eating behaviors. I would never ask a BF or partner to give up meat; much in the same way I’d expect not to be asked to start eating meat again.
I’m just sayin’. Respect should work both ways. If it doesn’t, that’s the problem, not that one person is veg and the other isn’t.
I empathize with vegetarians. I have celiac’s disease and have to avoid anything with wheat or gluten in it (yeah, like pizza and tons of other stuff).
There are times when watching my boyfriend scarf down bready goodness kills me, but I don’t expect him to forego his foodstuffs for my sake. (For the record, there are many times when he goes without on my behalf - so please don’t look unkindly on him.)
I would hate to find out someone wouldn’t date me because I can’t eat what they eat. But on the other hand, I guess somebody who finds that unattractive makes my life a lot easier - cause I don’t have to waste my time on them either 
I don’t understand the issue with vegetarians. I’m about as carnivorous as you can get, but I wouldn’t have had a problem dating a vegetarian back when I was dating. I eat with vegetarians fairly often. Who cares? In fact, I just had a nice lunch of mattar paneer with no meat in it.
Now if you’re one of the “you can’t eat a steak in front of me” types, you’re right outta here.
But if I’m making lasagna, I’m cool with making half of it non-meat. I’ll cook up a pork chop for me and an eggplant for you and we can share all of the side dishes. You want to make a vegetarian dinner for me? Fine. I’ll eat it. I may have a burger for lunch that day, but I don’t have to eat meat with every meal.
I agree. I had a veggie friend who was completely obnoxious about this sort of thing, and this is, I suspect, why vegetarian = dealbreaker for some people. I’m pleading to the Teeming Millions to consider veggies on a case-by-case basis, please.
For me, that would defeat the purpose. How will you prevent your land-animal fat from leaking into my meatless side? It’s not the land-animal flesh that makes me violently ill; it’s the fat. That’s why I can’t just pick the pepperoni off the pizza. The 'roni grease is still on the 'za.
Recently, some carnivorous friends invited me to dinner. They made a lovely asian-inspired rice-noodle soup that they usually make with chicken. They simply cooked the chicken separately and added it to their bowls when they served themselves. Everyone was happy.
To go the other route, I find someone who pays attentions or makes special efforts in regards to my dietary issues to be very, very attractive.
I met my bf’s family for the first time at Thanksgiving and not wanting to make a fuss about my CD, my bf and I brought a salad and gluten-free dessert to share with everyone. I was able to enjoy several items that day, and ate a very large salad and I was fine. After all, it was more about the getting to know each other, not the food.
But you can imagine how touched I was at Christmas when we returned, salad and dessert in hand, to find that my bf’s brother and sister-in-law had gone out and bought GF crackers to go with the dip, GF brownies for dessert, and had made a separate mini-green bean casserole without the fried onions just for me. I almost cried right there.
If that ever happens again and you start feeling both plump and sleepy…get out fast man!
Yeah, most of the vegetarians I know wouldn’t eat a half-meat lasagna. I was under the impression that anything cooked in the same pan as meat was a no-no.
Again, In no way do I hate vegetarians. My veggie friends are not preachy at all and I’m happy to dine meat-free once in a while. I’m just not sure I could marry one. I really enjoy cooking and sharing meals as a couple, and that would be a major hindrance. Lucky for me I married a serious carnivore, so we’re both happy. 
My lactose-intolerant girlfriend agrees with you. She thinks it’s really sweet when I call the restaurant, ahead of our arrival, to alert them to her needs, not to mention appreciating how I’ve adjusted my cooking to take her diet into account. Heck, her own mother doesn’t always remember.
:: snerk ::
Duly noted.
I’m pretty crabby most of the time, so there’s not a whole lot I really like about anybody. But here are silly things.
facial hair
any jewelry except a watch
picky eaters
talking too fast or mumbling
baldness
Vegetarian who say “ewwww!” when people eat meat around them are rude, condescending assholes, IMHO. As rude as making fun of someone who says grace before a meal, and on par with being rude to wait staff. My (former) friend has eaten in my home, and me in his, and has shared countless meals with us, and yet over 16 years never even realized I didn’t eat meat.
Nah, it’s not hard at all. Most of my exes, even the long-term cohabitation ones were meat eaters. It just takes planning. We never made two different dinners, except for when my one ex ate liver. Okay, that is just “ewwww”, but I never complained and I know plenty of meat-eaters who think liver is grody to the max.
ETA: Actually, if I dated another vegetarian who made a big pridcution about being grossed out by someone else’s choice, that would be worthy of a break-up.
Forgot to mention: I refuse to date (or, I guess, sleep with) a closet case. I see my friends bend over backwards to make sure people on campus don’t see their closet-case SOs being affectionate. Come on, people, you go to an overwhelmingly liberal/radical college in an overwhelmingly liberal white-bread neighborhood in an overwhelmingly gay-friendly city in the gayest state on this hemisphere. At a certain point, I start to think that staying closeted is just a sign of extreme neurosis.
Somehow, I just can’t see you hitting it off with someone from the JLA.
As long as we’re on a roll, I’ll go ahead and nominate anyone who goes “ewwwwww!” when I eat something they don’t like. One fucker at the LGBT center just can’t help himself–I brought in a box of lemon cookies to share with everyone and he had to tell me how disgusting lemons were, at the top of his lungs. I’m not looking for recognition when I bring food to share with my friends, I’m just hoping to avoid having assholes stand in my face and scream “Ewwwwwww! You’re eating and I don’t like it!” I mean, really, why is it all about you? If you don’t like it, don’t eat the damn thing. More for me.
Hostile Dialect,
Hostile Dialect, Narcissist
No no no! Let her keep doing this. Many women have no sense of humor (though all think they do). This could have been his way of checking her out on this
Not being comfortable around very dark senses of humor. I was graced with parents who spent part of their careers working in the ER, a family friend who was a mortician, and the uncanny ability to take any joke farther then the last guy. If the idea of baking someone’s ashes into the brownies served at the funeral isn’t amusing to you… well, I doubt we’ll get along.
The corollary to this is that you need to know when to stop. The above discussion would be out of place at a wedding or funeral, except, perhaps, mine.
Giggling when you don’t know the answer to something. For some reason, this makes anyone sound completely vapid to me.
Ah. Hadn’t thought about that. Okay. I’d just use two smaller pans instead of one big one. No biggie.
So the wedding ring would pretty much kill it for you then? 
Surprisingly, some guys seem to find that more attractive, rather than less.
:smack:
As **melodyharmonious **said, I’m one of those people who actually finds it more attractive if the person does have a wedding ring on, but that’s a fantasy thing. I have no idea why, and as I am not introspective I don’t want to know why.
But yeah, for real, no wedding rings! 
Salting food before even tasting it drives me nuts.
Tattoos on a woman are a complete deal breaker for me. I don’t know why, it just is.
Muffin top. Sorry, you are not a size 6.
I don’t want to hear about how fascinating your job being a receptionist or hair stylist or whatever mundane job you have for two hours. If you are working on a cure for cancer or designing a faster than light star ship, I’m all ears.