03.19.08
Best Breakup Songs: SF Chronicle’s Take
Peter Hartlaub of the SF Chronicle just tackled one of my favorite topics, best breakup songs. I like his criteria, especially his point that good breakup songs have to have a slightly psychotic element to them. The best breakup songs capture the extremes of emotion that you go through during that time — the desolation, the rage, etc. — in a realistic way. When your emotional state is threatening to secede from sanity, you need the small consolation that, no, you’re not the only one who’s ever felt that way. And if you don’t listen to country music — which I love precisely because it takes up permanent residence on the fringes of emotion — well, you need to find something to listen to.
I, like most of the commenters, disagree with his choices. Then again, we all process breakups differently, so of course we’ll be drawn to different music to get us through the heartbreak. Check out the discussion for more breakup song fodder.
Here are my two takes on the subject (In retrospect, the 2001 list was pretty lame, but hey, I was young):
02.13.08
Culinary compatibility, the ultimate test?
We editors are always looking for new angles for the same old topics — called “evergreens” — that we have to cover year after year. Holidays are particularly ripe: how many ways can you cover Valentine’s Day? But still, I was surprised to see that both the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle ran stories today on whether vegetarians and meat-eaters (or other couple who can’t line up gastronomically) can really make it work.
For me, it’s not so much about what a guy eats, it’s whether the person’s attitude towards food is an indicator of his attitude towards other things. My last boyfriend didn’t like food, period, and we started dating at a time when I was starting to really enjoy food and get in touch with my senses.
He was a really good sport at the beginning, trying different things that I would cook and places I would want to go to eat. At a certain point, though, he stopped trying, sticking to just the burritos, pizza, and one of three different brunch combinations (two of which involved scrambled eggs) that he ate before he met me. And he stopped trying in the relationship, too.
But when my unflappable friend Katie married a vegetarian, she took it all in stride. She doesn’t avoid meat when she’s out with us, but she cooks great vegetarian food at home. Rather than look at it as giving something up, it seems that she’s relished the challenge.
So maybe the real issue is: if someone can’t compromise on food, does that mean they can’t compromise on other things? After all, if you’re going to dig in your heels about not wanting to eat a meal someone’s cooked for you, when the real purpose of a dinner or meal is to spend time with each other (and satisfy one of our basic needs as humans), how will you behave when you reach an impasse over something important? You know, like how to raise your kids.
So it’s not that I wouldn’t date a vegetarian (vegan, I’d be wary of), but if he drew a line in the sand and only wanted to eat at certain restaurants — his restaurants — well, that’s a dealbreaker. Because someone who turns dining out into an adversarial situation is not going to be a fun person to have any disagreement with.
