lots of common interests v very few common interests

[tazzled]

Originally Posted by burgler09

Well I guess I just wouldn't date you and we'd move on with our lives and probably not worry about it lol.

Sports and beer are very general, but there are many other things like staying fit. Going to the gym, having a good body, golf, being active traveling.

If the girl can't enjoy drinking at the bar though, we probably wouldn't get along and all those interests would be pretty useless.

HA! I just mean that I don't get the big deal about sports. It's a very common thing - among both men and women - and it's something that doesn't compute.

Similarly beer. It's fine to say, in general, that you'd like to date someone that you can go down to the local dive with, but who cares whether or not she drinks beer?

[jade408]

Originally Posted by Billy_J

Totally agree! Not having things in common will cause problems...

If one person is a vegetarian and the other likes to eat meat, then you wind up cooking separate meals every day!

One of my friends is in a relationship like this. She is vegan, he is a southern meat eater. They eat veggie at home, and when he wants meat he goes out with meat eating friends. They've been together 5 years. Engaged for a year and moved across the pond together.....

Or one likes stupid TV shows and the other educational documentaries, they wind up watching TV in separate rooms.

My parents did this for most of their marriage. Until the past couple of years actually. It isn't working too badly, they've been married for 39 years, and together for 43.

Or one likes doing things outside, going for hikes or whatever - the other does not want to leave the house. They wind up doing different things.

This describes one of my best friends and her boy friend. He takes bike rides/weekend camping trips with the boys and leaves her behind. They hit their 6 year anniversary a few weeks ago.

Having some common interests it important. But they don't all have to overlap. More important is having similar preferences on level of communication and the amount of "apart" time.

If you like to be with your SO 90% of the time, and you have zero common interests, that's not going to work out to well.

[intelfan11315]

Originally Posted by jade408

One of my friends is in a relationship like this. She is vegan, he is a southern meat eater. They eat veggie at home, and when he wants meat he goes out with meat eating friends. They've been together 5 years. Engaged for a year and moved across the pond together.....




This describes one of my best friends and her boy friend. He takes bike rides/weekend camping trips with the boys and leaves her behind. They hit their 6 year anniversary a few weeks ago.

Having some common interests it important. But they don't all have to overlap. More important is having similar preferences on level of communication and the amount of "apart" time.

Both of this situations sound terrible. Might work for them, but man..that sounds ridiculously boring. I have my partner to sleep with and talk to but then to do what I enjoy doing I have to call my friends?

Yep, I'll pass

[jade408]

Originally Posted by burgler09

Both of this situations sound terrible. Might work for them, but man..that sounds ridiculously boring. I have my partner to sleep with and talk to but then to do what I enjoy doing I have to call my friends?

Yep, I'll pass

They have other stuff in common. Couple 1? They don't have the same food preferences, but they both like travel and outdoorsy stuff. So it works for them. They spend all of their free time doing those things. Couple 2: He likes camping around once a month. And he likes football. So he heads over to his friend's on Sunday football day (she goes 30% of the time) when he wants to do that. And he has boys camping weekend around 10-15 weekends a year. And she humors him with 1-2 short trips a year. But they both like cooking, dancing, similar TV and movies etc. So it works out that they spend lots of time together, and they each have their "friends" time when they want to do other stuff.

Both of these couples live together too. So they have a lot of built in togetherness.

[*Sixy*]

It depends on the relationship and the people involved, but I find that common goals and values matter more than interests.

I'm not a meat eater, my husband is.

I'm very social and would rather go out, he's not social at all and would prefer to stay home.

We never agree on movies, TV (I rarely watch it) and music.

He loves working in the yard, I'd live in a condo to avoid yardwork

He loves the beach, I prefer the mountains

He's very much a type A, list making, organized control freak and I just go along my merry way most of the times. That actually works for us because he keeps this household running most days (but I'd never admit that to him...lol).

The list goes on and on and on....

However, we indulge in a favorite past time with eachother pretty frequently. Sometimes it's fun to shoot off rockets in an open field or watch football on TV (now if it's hockey, I'm all for it!). It's not something I would have ever said "YES...I MUST do this in my life" but it's fun when I'm with him.

As for the food issues, it's not really an issue at all. I cook meat, I just don't eat red meat or pork. I don't cook an entirely different meal for myself. I have leftovers or I just eat the sides or I'll get myself a piece of salmon when I feed everyone else filet. Not a big deal at all. I can never understand people who think this will be the be-all, end-all to a relationship.

We both have common goals and values though, which seems to keep things ticking.

I will say this...I don't like to be suffocated. There is such a thing as "too much together time" and I will never be the type of person that needs to be around my husband (or anyone) 24/7 so maybe those shared interests don't really matter all that much for us.