I'm with Camilla on this one - you aren't a snob just because you have some standards.


This is such an interesting question to me because my impulse is to say, "No, I would never do that!" - and then I realized that I am engaged to a man who, for much of his life, read very little. He is the only person I've dated like that (and it's no longer the case; see below).


It's always important to look at the entire person. When considering a stranger, we have to go off of clues, and my impulse would be to think that a person who doesn't read is a person who is not interested in learning or challenging his assumptions, and maybe is not even in touch with his emotions. If nothing else it would be one less thing to share and enjoy together. I would say no, too.

However - my fiance. He loves stories. He was an avid video game player when he was younger, mostly for the stories. He also wrote things and watched movies and, sometimes, tried to read. But it was always so much of a struggle for him that he didn't really get much enjoyment from the book medium. He is dyslexic. He will never be able to just glance at a sentence and get the meaning, the way an avid reader usually can. It is work for him.

But he is a very (very) smart person who excels at logical thinking, and when we started dating, I already knew that he had a natural curiosity about things. He likes to learn. Those are the most important reader-y traits for me.

What's interesting is that since we have been together, he's become a reader. Slowly but surely, he's worked his way through more nonfiction books in the last year than he probably had for ten before that. Then we talk about them, and I suggest another book for him to read, or I pick up the one he just finished. It's wondrous.

I don't know if he started doing this for me - he has said it was something he'd wanted to work on for a long time - but it really is great for our relationship, and it means even more to me because I know that it's not easy.


Well, if the other person absolutely cannot stand music of any kind, they'd be out. Likewise if they will mock and degrade my choices. But I'm fine with having different tastes.

It is really, really fun to go to the symphony or to an opera as a date, though.


No, now that you mention it. Fiance has been very busy with work, but maybe it'd be good for us. Thanks for the idea.


I like Camilla's ideas. What part of the country do you live in, roughly? In some places coffeehouses are a good bet.