Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Great New Man but Not Keen on his Hobbies/Lifestyle

99 replies

MindMaking · 21/06/2015 17:42

Reading some of the posts on here, its hardly worth complaining about.

I've recently met a great new man, great chemistry after quite a few dates followed by (excellent sex) and I'm pretty sure its heading towards exclusivity. But its also become apparent that he has a very healthy lifestyle. That's great. But its verging on what I think its the obsessive. He is vegan, training to be a yogi, won't eat fat, sugar, and a whole list of perfectly normal foods and seems a bit over-invested in his admittedly very handsome appearance and figure. He doesn't work (because he is training to be a yoga instructor) so spends most of his time doing yoga, gym training and cooking (he goes to 3 different kinds of cookery classes).

To be honest, while I'm enjoying the benefits at the moment, I can see it getting a bit wearing long term. I'm wary of getting in too deep, as at the moment I could just walk away without being too overly emotionally invested. And the thought of a stringy yoga-tastic vegan in his fifties or sixties really doesn't appeal.

Would anyone else feel the same way? Am I being ridiculously picky? I think I'm also a bit wary because he tries very hard to come across as a decent guy, being seen as doing the right thing by not leading on women (that's why he says he is single), and he certainly seems very into me, but he is also very attractive and seems to have a lot of women hanging onto his every word when we bump into people he knows.

OP posts:
antimatter · 21/06/2015 19:05

I think in a relationship there either should be fairly wide acceptance of food/exercise choices or both have to follow the same lifestyle.

If my bf was vegan and cooked for me I wouldn't insist on cooking eggs to add to in my plate in his house. But if I brought an egg sandwich and wanted to eat it for lunch and he criticised me I would not be happy and discuss it straight away.

You need to talk about it with him because it clearly bothers you.

goddessofsmallthings · 21/06/2015 19:21

Two degrees, various jobs, no need to work? This could be just another passing phase for him but, unless you're willing to wholeheartedly embrace his beliefs, you'll find that having a relationship with a fanatic makes tedium look interesting.

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 21/06/2015 19:34

DW and I regularly eat things that the other finds "ewwww". But as we have good manners we don't remark on them.

Except for andouillette, because it smells of pigshit. I cook that outside.

LuluJakey1 · 21/06/2015 19:44

I would not be having a relationship with any man who thought he could comment on my chocolate habit.
Choose chocolate!

Laquitar · 21/06/2015 20:00

'Various jobs'?
How long did he last on each of these jobs? This would concern me more.

Did he use any of the 2 degrees? I am not against a 2nd degree and angaist people re-training but i cant stand people who retrain all the time because they are so special to do any job for more then 2 months.
So basically i would exam his CV . Grin.

Also people who are obseesed with their apearance are usually perfectionists in other areas too ime and personally i couldn't live with someone like this.

LumpySpacedPrincess · 21/06/2015 20:13

Enjoy it and take it one day at a time but do not modify your behaviour in any way, shape or form.

Timetoask · 21/06/2015 20:18

How old is he OP?

GreatAuntDinah · 21/06/2015 20:25

I had a BF like this. Very tedious.

MadeMan · 21/06/2015 20:30

"Would anyone else feel the same way?"

I couldn't be with a woman that didn't eat chips or chocolate; being healthyish is one thing, but not to take it to boring levels.

Who wants to be a bendy and stringy old fart anyway? Not me!

Marylou2 · 21/06/2015 20:37

Many years ago I had a BF who was a martial arts instructor so superfit and teetotal. Nothing at all in common but amazing sex while it lasted....Grin .

tallwivglasses · 21/06/2015 20:39

I have a great respect for vegans - the ones I know also don't wear leather, use anything that's been tested on animals, drink beer, etc. I'm veggie but I couldn't live like that. I've a feeling as well that if you ever got pregnant you'd be ultra - controlled and be barely allowed to look at a paracetamol during childbirth, all the while surrounded by gushing women who would be 'purer' than you Hmm

soundedbetterinmyhead · 21/06/2015 20:42

Is he friends/on speaking terms with ANY of these women that he so gallantly let go? I am very suspicious of a man who is not. He sounds like a bit of a wally and a control freak, so not a life partner but if the sex is that amazing...

Wideopenspace · 21/06/2015 20:48

He sounds...erm....earnest...He'll probably live til he is 103 too!

However, if the sex is so excellent, maybe just enjoy the ride for now?

Pandora37 · 21/06/2015 21:19

Maybe I'm reading too much into it because I had an eating disorder but it sounds to me like he has a bit of a problem. To not eat fat and sugar at all is pretty extreme - I still ate chocolate even when I was anorexic! Although cutting out 'bad' food groups like that is common among eating disordered people. Now I don't know if he's got orthorexia or whatever but it wouldn't surprise me.

But the fact he's trying to impose his diet on you this early on doesn't bode well. You might be able to handle his eating habits but to react like that to a mars bar that early on? Not good. I'd just take full advantage of the hot sex and forget anything else. Grin

KatieScarlettreregged · 21/06/2015 21:26

I could never be with a man who would never BUY me chocolate, far less get all biscuit arsed when I ate it.
Manys an atmosphere has been soothed by the judicious purchase of a Galaxy Ripple.
(And I say this as an otherwhile healthy eating non drinking fan of yoga).

areyoubeingserviced · 21/06/2015 21:31

You are not compatible. Simple

newnamesamegame · 21/06/2015 21:33

I wouldn't have a problem with veganism, doing yoga or healthy eating per se, all of them are fairly benign things.

But I think I would find it tiresome and tedious to be with someone who was so over-invested in what he would/wouldn't put in his body, and certainly not someone who lectures you on what not to put in yours. It suggests a degree of control and navel-gazing which I think would become quite tiring quite quickly.

I have also noticed that quite often people who are heavily into these things spend so much time worrying about this that it doesn't leave much space for fun or spontaneity or just getting on with things. And fewer things are duller than talking to people about their food restrictions and requirements.

scarletforya · 21/06/2015 21:37

It's the inheritance funding his lifestyle bit that would make me run for the hills. I couldn't respect another adult who couldn't/wouldn't support themselves. The self absorption of his diet and hobbies are none to attractive either.

All in all, he sounds like a bauble. Decorative but useless.

MindMaking · 21/06/2015 21:46

Your advice has given me a laugh. Its right about the chocolate. The Mars Bar is gone now, but I'm going to eat a Galaxy Ripple (possibly two) right in front of him next time I see him, while looking him in the eye. I worked out a while ago that while he can witter on a bit, I can play him up and he just puts up with it.

I'll have him converted to a more normal diet soon Grin

OP posts:
KatieScarlettreregged · 21/06/2015 21:49

Love it Grin
Can you hum "everyone's a winner" by Hot Chocolate while you stuff the Ripple down?

LentilAsAnything · 21/06/2015 22:15

OP, do you know how we get milk? Do you think cows willingly get themselves pregnant, sacrifice their calf for veal in order to donate the milk intended for said baby to humans so that we can make Mars Bars and ice cream, and then get themselves routinely pregnant/relieved of calf for five years before being sent off to the slaughterhouse themselves because the farmer considers them knackered by this point? You have a man with morals and you see fit to mock him? Leave him so someone else can appreciate him.

MadeMan · 21/06/2015 22:19

"All in all, he sounds like a bauble. Decorative but useless."

She did say he was pretty too... like a glittery christmas bauble.

LadyPlumpington · 21/06/2015 22:21

EVERYONE and everything is mockable, lentil, and I say that as a vegan! Nobody is sacrosant, no matter how 'purely' they live. I think any relationship which doesn't include a bit of mutual friendly mockery is not a healthy one.

Btw oreos are vegan and so is dark chocolate, oh yeah

LentilAsAnything · 21/06/2015 22:33

Sure, just didn't feel like happy mutual mocking, Lady. She may as well walk away - I'd ditch her if I were him, if she knew how I felt about the dairy industry and still saw fit to wave a Ripple bar in my face.

Hidsup · 21/06/2015 22:42

Interesting the people who would be put off by his lack of occupation. I'm amazed at the number of (young enough) men who don't appear to have jobs but seem financially solvent. I wouldn't date any of them as they have such a sleepy attitude to life