Deal breakers: We can't be together if...

Seriously though – if you’re rude or disrespectful towards the woman who gave birth to you, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to date you. I speak from previous experience, of course, and in my experience, boys who are horrible to their mothers tend to be generally horrible people. It’s my deal breaker.

Everyone’s got that one thing that will quickly send a relationship from hot to so-not-happening.

They can be silly and superficial – like one friend who said that the way a person pours and crunches their cereal is dependent on whether or not he can ever spend every morning in their company. Or another friend who reckons that she could never even look at someone with the same name as her dog. “Sorry,” she said, “but how could you take someone seriously when they answer to the same name as your pet?”

Naturally, they can also be more serious. “If they can’t make me laugh,” seems to be a common one. And any smokers out there? You don’t seem to be popular – more than one person I asked said that they wouldn’t ever consider someone who lit up more often than the odd night out.

Recently, #WeCantBeTogetherIf was trending on Twitter. Check out some of the deal breakers people came up with:

Funnily enough, deal breakers often come out of that beautiful thing called hindsight that comes hand-in-hand with any break-up. “I should never have gone out with a guy who was 29 and still living with his parents,” one colleague said. “His mum was still packing his lunch.” Of course, this realisation only happened once the relationship had gone pear-shaped.

Another friend who dated a guy that didn’t have a car. Or a licence. And wasn’t interested in obtaining either of these things. “Nothing kills the romance faster than getting all dolled up for a romantic date, only to have to climb in your own car and drive thirty minutes to go and pick up the guy,” she told me. “And then drop him back home again. I wish I hadn’t had put up with it for as long as I did.” Well. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of walking yourself to your front door after a nice dinner and movie, right?

Luckily my current boyfriend’s deal breakers don’t include “loving trashy pop music” or “telling terrible jokes and finding them hilarious” otherwise I’d be single faster than you can ask, “what do you call a deer with no eyes?” (No-eye-deer! … get it?)

What’s your deal breaker? What do you wish your deal breakers had been?