When thinking about all the things you should do on a date, it can be equally helpful to think of what not to do.

Think … where not to go, what not to wear, and a bit more existential - how not to behave.

Below is eHarmony's classic list of "can't stands".

It's interesting to look at the similarities and difference between men and women. There are nine-shared items, just ranked slightly higher or lower.

The lone unique qualifier for each gender is worth noting, with men ranking "excessive weight" in their top 10, and women ranking "racist" in theirs.

With that we could INFER some possible explanations.  

For men:

  • Maybe it's a biological/evolutionary thing, with men associating slim and trim women with health and fertility.

  • Or maybe men are more attracted to visual stimuli and so they value looks more.

  • Or maybe they just haven't run into a lot of racist ladies, so it's not really on their radar of things to avoid.

Another interesting takeaway is that for the most part, these seem to be under our conscious control (minus "excessive weight" and possibly "drugs").

Compared to physical attributes (attractiveness, height, etc), we can control whether we exhibit these dealbreakers or not.  Which is pretty great news.

dating-dealbreakers

Here's another list of deal breakers from a few universities

personality-dealbreakers
never-take-your-first-date-places
worst-first-dates
women-biggest-turnoffs

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