Opposites, skinny bitches and the intercultural

He's a neat freak. She's a hoarder. He's in politics. She's in fashion. He's a carnivore. She's a vegetarian. Can love ever truly bloom? 

There comes a time in every couple's union when the inevitable question is asked: should we get more serious? Should we take this to the next level? Is it worth the risk? The answer, most often, is this: "Do we really have anything in common?"
Because let's face it, if you're constantly at each other's throats over fundamental differences in personality (and we're not talking toilet seat up or down, flirting with their best friend or their secret porn stash), then it's probably easier to resign yourself to the fact that there's a whole lot more fish in the single sea (4.7 million to be exact) and you don't have to end up with someone who you regard more as a lunatic than your partner in crime for life. Yet all this seems rather strange considering it's always been the age-old axiom that opposites attract. So it amazes me as to why people still harp on about having to have the exact same interests, backgrounds, religions, values, jobs, career aspirations and moodiness cycle as the date they're trying to woo.

But it seems many singletons are more closed-minded than we would hope. Take the story of blogger W says that when a mutual friend set her up on a date, she never expected the fact that she was Asian to be an issue ..."He called, emailed and messaged and for about four days and we got on really well," she tells me. "So we arranged to meet up. It then transpired that he had not checked out my Facebook page, so he hadn't seen my photo. My friend had not told him about my background either. When I did tell him, there was this almighty pause and an ''OK...alright...OK".
Since then she hasn't heard a peep from the bloke in question. "I was a bit disappointed, especially as we got on so well. I was surprised that my being Asian could still be an issue! But then I guess some people are just not cool with the intercultural dating thing. To me, it's the one stumbling block in meeting men."
It seems that diverse cultures aren't the only thing that is keeping women from meeting the man of their dreams. In fact, there's another growing population of women who are scaring the bejesus out of suitable suitors.

Introducing the "vegan-sexuals", the term coined by researcher, who conducted a study of female vegans and found that while they're attracted to blokes who eat meat, many said they did not want to sleep with them. While many have said that the term is useless and self-congratulatory, it does pose the question of how far some are willing to go in order to find a date that would be just like them. Because as the study found, these women aren't willing to budge, no matter how much like Prince Charming he might seem. From her survey, one vegan is quoted as saying, "I would not want to be intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of others who have died for their sustenance."

Another, as reported in Britain's Independent newspaper, had gone a stage further and tried to have a relationship with a non-vegetarian, but had found that "although he was attractive sexually, sex alone was not enough to combat the revulsion created by the smell of dead bodies being cooked".
And a third simply said this about vegans: "They definitely taste a lot better." A writer for the Guardian concurs, lamenting that "the idea of thrusting my tongue into the mouth of a person who has just devoured a pie full of cow gut is not especially appealing".

It doesn't sound too appealing to me either - not that I've ever thought of it that way really. But when it comes to food, while it might seem rather silly, trivial and downright superficial to judge someone by their type of chosen cuisine, it saddens me to report that I've seen many a relationship go down the gurgler thanks to a bunch of food issues that simply couldn't be resolved.

There was the one relationship where the carnivorous bloke couldn't stand the fact that his insect of a girlfriend refused to eat anything other than salads in front of him. There was the girl who only ate protein so her breath stank and she was constantly passing wind. And then there was the bloke who had the food issues himself, to which the female in the relationship couldn't stand it any longer. "How can I date a man who looks at the food labels and weighs himself more times a week than I do? It just doesn't sit right."