Greentext

Deal breakers are things that are limits. Limits are--in general--a good thing. It's not that you're saying that women--or people in general--are fungible, but you're saying that people that fit any of these criteria won't work.

IIRC, Dan Savage has said that there's no settling down without settling. You can--should--have limits, but if it's more than five things, you need to look at yourself very, very closely. You aren't going to like every single thing about your partner, but you have to be able to accept them.

I could say, for instance, that I prefer people that are heavily tattooed, pierced, scarred, branded, and implanted. (...Which limits me to about .0001% of the US population.) But that's not a deal breaker; I'm not going to reject someone because they don't fit that particular preference, even though my body modification is important to me. On the other hand, I absolutely will not date anyone that doesn't have a worldview that's grounded in reality, e.g., is religious/"spiritual", or believes in any conspiratorial nonsense, because I couldn't have respect for a person like that. THAT'S a deal breaker. I won't date someone that wants children; I'm unfit to be a parent, and I had myself sterilized a number of years ago. Again: that's a deal breaker, because as with religious garbage, it's a question of basic values.