I’ve been thinking a lot about music and dating recently. A good buddy just broke up and he cites music as one of the key issues. “Man, she was into opera and it made me crazy.” It wasn’t just that he didn’t like opera, it’s that she wanted to share opera with him. It was a rich and important part of her life, something that she felt he would enjoy with just a little effort. He tried to explain, “It just sounds like people wailing. It’s always in Italian or German which I can’t understand. I have been to an opera and I was asleep about 20 minutes in.”
So in the end music drove them apart, or her desire to share her love of music drove them apart. It’s easy to say, “I just listen to what I want and my love can do the same,” but what about concerts, car rides, and sharing music? Or is the idea of sitting and listening to music together a quaint old-fashioned notion?
So, consider if you were matched with a person that LOVED the following kinds of music. Would it matter at all? What if they wanted you to get into it?
Heavy Metal – and I’m talking about the crazy Swedish Black Metal. Very heavy.
Opera – and I’m talking about Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Long and Dramatic.
Country Music – and I’m talking about the most hillbilly country music you’ve ever heard.
Modern Jazz – and I’m talking about Ornette Coleman style a-tonal freak-out jazz.
Would any of it matter to you?
FINAL BONUS QUESTION – Which song best describes your love life?
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That’s a tough one to answer. I am the biggest fan of music but certain music I just can’t stand. For instance, that hillbilly Country song, would drive me past the point of insanity. I wouldn’t get into it for anybody. Black Metal is “SATANIC.” therefor absolutely not! Opera maybe. I think talented people are worth watching. Modern Jazz I wouldn’t mind. I can get into that.
Song that best describes me: Owner of a Lonely Heart -Yes
Okay, I have to say, I am just commenting on the image used here – from Chinese Opera. Love!
I think I can safely say this is a specific dealbreaker for me, because what music you listen to both mirrors and influences your values. So, anyone who was into any kind of metal junk, I wouldn’t date. Rap is the same story. Same with someone who was heavy into “country” music–although, honestly, most “country” today isn’t really “country” in the sense of hillbilly, back in the woods with banjos, fiddles, and mandolins, pickin’ and grinnin’ music anyway. Much of it is just artificially twangified rock or pop junk. So…all three are dealbreakers.
Now, I’m not a hick, but I ain’t no city boy neither.
(I’ve lived in Smalltown, USA all my life.), so I have no interest in opera, and if you do, that’s your problem. We simply wouldn’t be compatible.
I could probably tolerate some jazz, just depending. I’m not one to zone out to instrumental hypnotism, though, or jigaboo to freaky “music” either, so it’s a very thin slice of even jazz that I can tolerate.
Each of these types of music (Well, except opera) glorifies and promotes a particular worldview, and an ideal way of life, and none of them are the way I intend or want to live, so I won’t willingly subject myself to it continually. For these reasons, if a woman and I don’t have the same tastes in music, then we wouldn’t be compatible. It’s as simple as that.