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As a matchmaker, I get the appeal of “food divorce.” You can love someone without wanting the same dinner. The trend is basically what it sounds like: Couples are choosing to shop, cook, or eat separately instead of making every meal a joint decision. One wants pasta. The other wants salmon. One is hungry at five. The other had lunch at three. And neither wants to spend the evening negotiating dinner. I get it. You already make a lot of decisions together. What to eat doesn’t always need to be another one. Make what you like. Let them make what they like. Sit down together if your schedules allow. You can still hear about their day while eating something completely different. I don’t need a couple to agree on dinner. I want to know they can disagree without ruining the evening. “I don’t feel like having that” shouldn’t have to become an argument. But there’s one part of this trend I’d be careful with. If dinner was the only time you put your phones down and talked, what happens when you stop having it together? Eating separately might make your evenings easier. But you still need time to enjoy each other. Have coffee together in the morning. Take a walk after dinner. Keep a regular date night you both look forward to. It’s nice to spend less of your evening figuring out what you’ll both eat and more of it enjoying each other’s company. You can have different things on your plates and still be happy sitting across from each other.

You want a partner. You just don’t want your life to change. No disruption. No compromise. No changing routines. No inconvenience. A lot of people want love that fits neatly into the life they've already built. But a relationship doesn't work that way. Eventually, the other person wants more time. More consistency. More consideration. And suddenly, the relationship feels like a burden. There's nothing wrong with loving your independence. But partnership changes your life. It changes your schedule. Your priorities. How you spend your time. What you make room for. If the only version of love you can tolerate is one that asks nothing of you, you may not actually want a partner. You may just want company.

Your résumé can make you impressive. It can’t make you good company. A lot of successful singles are used to leading with their accomplishments. Their career. Their education. Where they’ve traveled. What they’ve built. What they’ve achieved. And those things can absolutely make someone curious about you. But they’re not what people remember after a date. They remember how the conversation felt. Whether you were genuinely curious. Whether they felt heard. Whether they laughed. Whether they felt like they could relax. I’ve met plenty of incredibly accomplished people who are great on paper. And they still struggle on dates. Because they’re so focused on being impressive that they forget to be themselves. A date is not an interview. You don’t need to prove that you’re worth choosing. People don’t leave a date thinking about your résumé. They leave thinking about how you made them feel.

Being selective does not automatically mean you have good judgment. Some people are very good at ruling people out. Too quiet. Too busy. Too polished. Not polished enough. Wrong career. Wrong lifestyle. Not enough chemistry. Too much baggage. Sometimes those preferences are completely reasonable. But after 20+ years in matchmaking, I've learned that being highly selective often just means you've gotten very efficient at saying no. And when you get used to looking for reasons to say no, almost everyone will give you one. Being selective can protect you from the wrong relationship. But it can also keep you from finding the right one. Good judgment is not just how quickly you can rule someone out. It's knowing which things actually matter.

She wanted a man who could take the lead. Then he did. He chose the restaurant. Made the reservation. Picked a time. Sent her the details. And suddenly, she felt like he was making decisions for her. She liked that he had a plan. She just didn’t like that it wasn’t her plan. There's a difference between taking initiative and taking over. But we don't always agree on where that line is. Does wanting someone to take the lead mean being willing to give up some control?