Tuesday, 22 March 2011
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Deal Breaker Dos: Just One Thing You Want To Do Before You Die
When I was a much younger bird (still absurd, by anyone’s standards) I found myself dating someone whose name I couldn’t bear to say aloud. It was an awful name. I didn’t tell my friends about him. In my phone he was a euphemism. I can’t even repeat the name here, nearly seven years after the fact. This is how bad the name was. And yet, I knew his name when we started dating, so apparently an awful name is not an immediate deal breaker for me. It's not like he chose it, after all.We had been dating for maybe a month when the night came that we were in his car, on the way to some party that his friends were throwing. I was looking out the window as we crossed the bridge, thinking of my pending graduation and how liberating it would be to have all that freedom to do whatever I wanted. I turned to him and asked: “what’s one thing you want to do before you die?”
He frowned and squinted at the road ahead. “I don’t know.”
Fair enough. Maybe he'd misunderstood me. “I’m not asking, like, ‘what do you want to do with your life’. Just one thing that you want to experience before you can’t have any experiences anymore. Like, I don’t know, skydiving. Or swimming in the Pacific Ocean.”
He continued frowning and squinting while I regarded him expectantly. Finally he said:
“I don’t know. I can’t think of anything.”
… Really? Of the whole range of experiences that this Life makes possible – from comfort to challenge to clear and present danger – you can’t think of a single thing you want to do before you die?
Yeah. We didn’t last long after that.
Have you ever had a red flag crop up suddenly?
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About the Author
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- From: ThatBirdisAbsurd
- About Me: I just moved to New York after studying and living abroad for five years in Canada, Europe and India. One amazing thing about being back in America: knowing EXACTLY how to say what you want to say, RIGHT when you want to say it. English makes dating a lot easier.
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Comments (28)
What a bummer. Sounds like he didn't really want to share much with you. You'd think if he didn't know, he would at least want to discuss it, or find out what you want to do.
You'd only been dating a month...were you friends before? Maybe he just didn't feel comfortable with that level of depth.
well i have not had a red flag pop up suddenly, but i really only have one deal breaker for dating or having a relationship with a woman. and that is she can not smoke. as for wanting to do something before i die? go on a glider flight.
I just want to hear this name that is so horrible.
@Kill_GaryLarson@xanga - I second that. I'm really curious now.
@Chronicles_Of_The_Aquatic_Poet@xanga - Third! Whats the name???
lol i asked that question before because the song 'live like you were dying' came on... so i asked him. and he said 'hook up with a bunch of hot chicks, get drunk/have a big party and jump off the bridge' (there was water below) i wasnt dating him but lol. at least he was honest..
Can you really gauge a relationship or someone's character on such a question? I think that's a pretty silly way to judge someone.
Maybe he was caught off guard with the question, maybe he hasn't come to grips with his death, or just didn't want to think about such a morbid subject on the way to a party.
Or maybe he wanted to give it some real thought, a real genuine answer instead of spouting off with something cliche/generic.
Lots of maybes I suppose. All the more reason not to hold it against him.
@Lordv16@xanga - yeah i agree, i don't really like to be put on the spot like that. i mean its also possible he had thought of a bunch of things before but got nervous and blanked out. happens to me. i'd eventually think of something, i'm sure, but still. besides the point.
@Kill_GaryLarson@xanga - @Chronicles_Of_The_Aquatic_Poet@xanga -
@Footballblogs@xanga -
me too. wth. tell us the horrid name!
Yeah. You can't just leave us hanging by not giving the awful name. Of course it would make sense that the horridness of his name is a little overplayed, and now it won't sound that bad...but aside from that..telllll ussssss. Especially because it wasn't that important to the actual story...at leats I don't think.
@Kill_GaryLarson@xanga - I do too.
@Lordv16@xanga - Agreed
OP:
That's a pretty deep subject and after a month of dating..it's hard to really get that kind of information. If you want to know more then you have to date longer and get to know the person. Some people don't open up about that so easily. You don't always have to know about what you want to do with your life..it's a pretty big question onto anyone's shoulder. I'm 21, and should I be judged because I don't know what I want from my life despite being a great girlfriend? That's really a loaded gun. I don't think basing a relationship on that on the first month, gives him much of a chance.
AND TELL ME the horrible name! I wanna know!
I found out she was a racist around the third date. Well, as she put it "I'm not a racist, I just hate Chinese people." Yeah, that didn't win me over.
LOL Can't say that that particular flag popped up, but I've had a few red flags come out of no where.
I wanna know the name!!!!
@Kill_GaryLarson@xanga - @Chronicles_Of_The_Aquatic_Poet@xanga - @Footballblogs@xanga - @StillNotaPrettyGirl@xanga - @Hinase@xanga - @catchandrelease_x@xanga - ME TOO!!!!!!!! :)
his name is TOUCAN-SAM! is his first name, Dick?! like dick tracy
that's quite pessimistic, because I don't really think about things that I'd do before I die. however, I do ponder about things that I'd like to do while I'm alive
that would be the nerdy thing that I'd say if a guy asked me that question
Anything that shows that we are basically incompatible is a red flag. What is one person's red flag is another person's green flag.
A recent red flag I experienced came when a man asked me out to a really expensive restaurant, because he had a special discount coupon, when the check came and he found out his coupon applied only to HIS meal, he expected me to pay for my own. Other people might think that is perfectly fair. I thought it was an unclassy move, we didn't date again. But the real red flag was that we spent 3 hours together and didn't laugh ONCE. There really was no point in going out again.
Previously he had talked up his intelligence like he was Einstein or something, and then I found out he had failed biology and got a D in drama. Intelligence without common sense and/or creativity (which he also did not have) means nothing. I suppose it was more that he still maintained to be smarter than me after I found out, growing even more blatantly arrogant.
I personally admire and commend your ability to trust yourself. My intuition is great, but in the past I've often second guessed myself.
Let's see, for me (no particular order/person)...
-Crying on the phone to me before we were even officially dating in a need for reassurance
-Constantly comparing me to his shitty/uncaring ex-girlfriend
-Caring what his shitty/uncaring ex-girlfriend thinks of me, though anything at all should have been
-Letting his best friend (an asshole) put him down in front of me: the girl he was trying to impress
-Lying about his sexual history (exaggerating it), among other trivial things to "impress" me
-Having a family that worries about him and he seems to isolate from should have been a sign that it was not necessarily about them
-A 24-year old who does not live at home anymore having a mother freak out when he doesn't tell her what he was doing for a weekend (ie: me)
-constant interruptions/nondirect answers
@Footballblogs@xanga - Sorry friends, I can't say the name in good conscience, not only for the guy's sake but also because I can't release such an awful name to echo down the endless halls of the internet forever
@ThatBirdisAbsurd - You tease :P
@Hinase@xanga - I wasn't asking what he wanted to do with his life in the sense of 'what do you want your entire life to become' - I agree that this is rather heavy to expect a quick response. But I do expect people to harbor some excitement and sense of possibility about their lives, especially since we were so young at the time. If you're spending time (as in a relationship) with a person who can't think of single thing that excites them, what impact do you think that will that have on your level of excitement?
- @align___t@xanga - Also, on a related and unrelated note, I think that we suffer for living in a society that dismisses people as "morbid" whenever death is mentioned. After all, we discuss everything else - from politics to sports to sex to personal hygeine. Why should Death, the biggest certainty and uncertainty of Life, get to hide out in the dark where it can take any scary shape we give it in our imaginations? It is the belief that we CAN'T talk about it that gives death it's power over us. In my opinion a basic awareness and acceptance of Death is essential to appreciating the beauty and transience of Life.
@ThatBirdisAbsurd - I still really can't agree with that. I can't even think of any exciting things to do with my life that is quite plausible or within my grasp to do. I think perhaps you were just a bit ambitious and you guys weren't compatible. You don't have to do the exciting things for one's life, like swim in the ocean. I think it's how you live that is important.
@Hinase@xanga - I never said 'exciting'. There were no specifications!