Rachel Donadio’s clever article in The NYTimes this week explores literary dealbreakers. If you’re a Pushkin person, she says, and you discover that your lover is an Ayn Rand afficionado, well then perhaps the relationship isn’t meant to be.
In a cosmopolitan city like New York, where everyone has access to the most and best and coolest of everything, and everyone is constantly trying to build their own personal brand by accumulating cultural capital, literary tastes do say a lot about a person. I love to read, but I probably haven’t read that latest novel by the newest literary superstar, and as long my boyfriend reads anything, I’m satisfied. (Although if he told me he loved “”The DaVinci Code,” I’d probably reconsider the relationship). I’m a TV junkie. A TV person surely can have dealbreakers too, can’t they?
I only have one dealbreaker: reality TV. A favorite show has to have a plot. A plot written by writers, and acted by actors. Period. I accept the state of television today, and know that reality TV probably isn’t going anywhere soon. These shows have their audiences, and that’s fine. I acknowledge the right of Dancing with the Stars to exist, but it will never exist on my personal television.
Readers hold each other to high standards, but with TV, middlebrow tastes are not necessarily a buzzkill. The same viewer can adore both Six Feet Under and How I Met Your Mother equally. There’s room in a TV lover’s heart for more than just esoteric cable programming. Decidedly average shows like CSI or Family Guy have their merits, and can be enjoyed when Arrested Development is pre-empted by the World Series. Donadio writes that a person’s taste in books reveals “something about ... their level of intellectual curiosity, what their style is.” TV shows do that, too. A guy in his mid-20’s who professes a deep love of Friends might be stuck in a state of perpetual adolescence. A girl who adores Sex and the City has the potential to be high-maintenance. Finding out your partner never misses an episode of South Park at least says that they like to laugh.
The more accurate litmus test of someone’s style and temperament isn’t the specifics of what they read or watch, but whether they read or watch. What does it mean to be a “book person” or a “TV person?” Can book people and TV people co-exist peacefully? Perhaps book people are intellectual and thoughtful, and TV people are easy-going and fun. The greater compatibility is having two people who enjoy the same forms of entertainment; their specific tastes are small details, and potentially the source for endless and exciting debates. Picking apart the finer points of taste is like splitting hairs. At the end of the day, it’s important just to be able to curl up together on the couch. Whether you’re watching Twin Peaks vs. King of Queens, or reading Pynchon vs. Patterson… these are minor details. As long as someone’s a TV person, it’s okay if they really, really love Survivor. They can be taught.
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