There are a lot of serious relationship dealbreakers to discuss in the early stages of dating. Inquiring about your partner's desire for marriage, kids, and travel will help ensure you two are on the same page and have the potential to live a harmonious life together. There are other dating dealbreakers, however, that can be just as important although ostensibly much less serious. According to a recent poll conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Ultimate Ears, 2 in 3 people say that bad music taste can be a dating dealbreaker.
Picture this—you're a few months into dating, and you decide to take a road trip together. Your partner gets control of the music and plays back-to-back artists you hate for the entire four-hour ride. You may not have guessed that music compatibility would be so vital to the well-being of your relationship, but it can easily be a make-or-break component.
Perhaps opposing music preferences is seen as such an immovable issue because most people believe good music taste is either something you have or you don't. According to the poll, 3 in 5 say they were born with good music taste.
Musical preference is a highly intimate matter, as music can be a great comfort through all your moods, so if your partner dislikes your music, it may feel very personal. To avoid confronting this dealbreaker head-on, some poll members even admitted to being dishonest about their taste in music. Of the people surveyed, 3 in 10 confessed they had lied to a partner about their love for a specific song or artist—talk about a guilty pleasure!
Ultimately, the key to peacefully maintaining a relationship where your music tastes clash is being honest about your preferences, and trying to find some common ground for times when you want to share some tunes.
Wondering what else people consider dating dealbreakers? Read on to find out. And for issues you should probably move past, These Are the Relationship Dealbreakers You Need to Get Over.
1 | Temperature preference
ShutterstockA shockingly polarizing plight in relationships is what temperature to leave the thermostat on. In another survey conducted by OnePoll with Trane Residential, 48 percent of respondents said they wouldn't date someone if they didn't have the same "thermostat etiquette." The June 2020 poll found the rift over temperature can be so severe that 25 percent of those surveyed actually ended a friendship or relationship over a thermostat argument. And for more on how this preference can ruin relationships, Almost Half of Americans Won't Date Someone Who Does This.
2 | Using poor spelling and grammar
ShutterstockIf you're texting with your desired date, you may want to cut out any shorthand abbreviations, capitalize proper nouns, and make use of the Oxford comma. A 2020 study from Word Tips found that the number one turn-off for women when online dating is poor spelling and grammar. The study found that 45 percent of women said they wouldn't date someone they met on an app who was physically attractive but used improper grammar or spelling, while only 24 percent of men felt the same. And to learn more about how poor spelling and grammar could put you at a disadvantage, This Is the No. 1 Turn-off For Women Who Date Online.
3 | Credit card debt
ShutterstockHitching your wagon to someone with an excessive amount of debt can be scary. A 2019 poll from Self Lender found that for 50 percent of people, a prospective date having credit card debt is too significant of a red flag to ignore. However, college debt is often looked at differently because of how prevalent it is, according to CNBC. And for more useful content delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.
4 | Tidiness
Prostock-studio / ShutterstockIf you're a clean freak, you may not be shocked to find that cleanliness ranked above intelligence in what people are looking for in relationships. A 2018 poll from YouGov found that those surveyed ranked a lack of cleanliness as the biggest relationship dealbreaker. And if you want to stay happy with your partner, avoid these 50 Relationship Tips That Are Actually Terrible Advice.
