Ahoy maties, red flag ahead

Did everyone enjoy Talk Like A Pirate Day yesterday? Good. I love to spend my afternoon discussing latitude and longitude with my 4th grader while incorporating treasure, gold and walking the plank into my conversation. Lovely.

A few days ago, Dooce was talking about deal breakers on dates. While all were very entertaining, I admitted to myself that I must have had pretty low standards. When I met LP, I broke so many of my dealbreakers it's not even funny (hello, he watched wrestling. WRESTLING.) But i've also been married for 9 years and 7 months so I must have done something right. And even though I didn't date a whole heck of a lot, I can recall not thinking it that big of a deal if a guy was 10 minutes late. You just never know how long that inning is going to take, ya know?

So I give you my top 5 deal breakers of dating, if I was in fact single and even knew what I was talking about, which I so totally don't:

P.S. (please refer to this post on my dating experiences, they are few but note worthy)

5. Any type of drug usage, especially when you discuss it with me on the first date. That was fun when we were in high school, but seriously? A guy who snorts a line when he's got a mortgage just is NOT husband material. Bleh.
4. Not that this ever happened to me, but someone who would answer his cell phone during the middle of a date conversation would infuriate me. Um, that is so showing my age, but when I was dating, cell phones were still the ones in the bag in your car. But it's still rude, I don't care how socially acceptable cell phones are nowdays.
3. Bad breath. Just....no.
2. Sycophants. Oh my gosh it is okay for you to have an opinion. Just because we're on a date does not mean I would get offended if you disagreed with me. Guys who say, "I'm not really into haiku writing," and I respond, "Oh, i love to haiku!!" and then they say, "Yeah, haiku is pretty fun." No, that will not fly with me. Grow some. Have an opinion please. (side note though--haiku probably isn't something you discuss on a date, but haiku rocks!)

and my #1 dealbreaker if I was dating and needed to have a deal broken:

1. Someone who tells you they 'love you' or have a 'connection' with you too soon.
I am not someone who has ever worn their emotions on their sleeve. I believe in order to be truly connected to a person, you really need to spend a good amount of time with said person. I do have an uncannily good judge of character, but that does not mean you know me after one date. Don't tell me you love me or that we were meant to be. Because it usually isn't true. I've had guys say this when I thought, "This guy is crazy!" and then I've been schnookered into believing it by another guy who was boinking someone else at the same time.

It took LP and I 3 months of 'getting to know you' time before we realized one night we were in love. It wasn't love at first sight. We went to Wal-Mart to buy a fan and sat outside eating potato chips together, and in one cosmic moment we both knew. That's how it's supposed to happen, folks.

And LP has NEVER written me a haiku.