The Great Deal Breaker

In discussing past relationships with a friend of mine this weekend, we got to talking about that one thing (or collection of things) that is the deal breaker in a relationship. For one of my boys the deal breaker was his gender preference; for another the deal breaker was some choices he made that were taking him a different direction than I was headed. The deal breaker can be discovered in the first five minutes of meeting, or take years to actually come to the forefront. Deal breakers can be almost anything, and tend to be different for every person/set of people. Something that may be a deal breaker for me may be the deal sealer for another girl (she may actually love it when he assumes complete control over all decisions made). Similarly, what may be a deal breaker with one guy, might not be with the next. Perhaps he is just so amazing in every other aspect that I can overlook his habit of occasionally chewing with his mouth open. It really all depends.

This leads me to the introspective question of what tends to be my deal breaker with those whom I date. I can pinpoint one or two -- with the aforementioned fellows I found that my gender was the deal breaker for one, and my choices for the other. Those are really kind of obvious ones, but we each have them. If we didn't, any two people could get together and be perfectly happy in their relationships. Generally, however, I think we each have one overwhelming quality that is our unique and typical deal breaker. Rhetorically, I wonder what mine is. Feel free to not answer that. Oh, but you can tell me yours. ;)