Meat is No Longer Murder, Meat is Strategy

Usually I don't chew the fat on vegetarian issues too often. But many of you have noticed my devotion to bean burritos and cheese sandwiches. My favorite Sandwich Artist at the local Subway asks, "Veggie wrap?" before I even get to the head of the line. For this blog post, I'm coming out of the walk-in closet to say I just don't like hamburgers or steaks. I don't begrudge anyone else hamburgers. It seems like everybody loves them so much! If a meat eater is coming for dinner, I pick up those Black Angus patties at ALDI. I know there's a little pieces of a steer wrapped up in the box, but my desire to please my guests outweighs my squeamishness.
Despite my reticence to discuss my distaste for burgers and steaks, today I feel I must. I have a bone to pick with Allen Salkin, a dating advice columnist for the New York Times. Mr. Salkin's column today is entitled "Some Women have Stopped Being Chicken About Ordering Steak." Let me say Mr. Salkin, I've never been afraid of a steak. How could I be? The steer is already dead. It can't kick me now.
The gist of Mr. Salkin's column is that women can make a bit better impression on a date by eating red meat. He quotes a woman who says red meat sends a message that she's "unpretentious" and "not obsessed with weight." Do cheese sandwiches send a message that I'm pretentious? I wonder if when I was dating my husband, he thought my love of bean burritos indicated a weight obsession. Once he witnessed me chowing down on a bean burrito after the Nine Inch Nails concert, while I was covered in other people's spilled beer and sweat from the mosh pit. Yikes! I'm lucky he called me back after that. He was probably thinking, "I wonder why she didn't get the steak supreme burrito. She might be neurotic about her weight."
What makes me flat-out mad about this article is the quote from a lady who says ordering a salad makes a woman seem "wimpy, insipid and childish." Sometimes the most sexist statements, the ones that make blood boil, come straight out out of the mouth of another woman. Feminism is the crazy idea that women are humans too. That means we are big people that can choose our own meal at dinner, and shouldn't put up with anyone using a put-down like wimpy to describe us because of what we're chomping on. Men are humans too, and shouldn't have to hear put-downs for their food preferences either. I'm darn sick of those jokes about men and quiche.
Here's Mary's dating advice - my contradiction to Mr. Salkin's silly meaty ideas. When you're on a date, you're supposed to behave nice. That includes not making rude comments about the other person's food, whether they order steak, salad or frog legs. This goes for people that are partnered or married too. Be nice to your special someone and respect that they might like a different kind of food than you do. Dating is not about catching someone by eating a certain food. Mr. Salkin says, "Meat is no longer murder. Instead, meat is strategy." Using meat, or any other feigned interest to catch a dating pal is a flawed strategy. If you pretend to like something just to get a guy or gal, once you get them, you'll have to keep pretending to like that thing indefinitely. I could never pretend to like steak and I would never expect someone else to gag down bean burritos just for me. Honesty tempered with respect is the cornerstone of caring.