Why did the chicken cross the road? There were olives on the other side.

I love olives. Love 'em. And believe it or not, it's exactly olives i'll be talking about. 

See, I have this theory about food.  And maybe, now is the time to thank Ilina, a dear friend and a *fan*, who has inspired me to finally sit on my a*s and verbalise this interesting idea.

I find that, in many cases and in many ways, people's choices of food and of partners are related. I wonder, there may even be a causality factor. 

When I started writing this blog, I was dating someone, and this is when the theory started forming. Now we've split up and I am in a serious relationship with someone else, with whom I may have a real future. Yet, the theory remains. In fact, i've only become more convinced.


The olive theory. There was a vague idea for a while, lingering in the corners of my mind, and it was much later that it was verbalised in the TV show How I Met Your Mother, that a successful couple- be it friends or partners, is constituted of a person who likes olives and one who doesn't stand them. The logic behind it, unsurprisingly, is that in such a pair, people compliment each other- one wants the other person's olives, and the latter is happy to have gotten rid of them. Imagine the disappointment if you both like olives but there's only one! Or having to waste an olive because no-one wants it... Such a realisation slowly formed in my head, after years of experience of going to restaurants with my family and my friends- often, they would push a lonely olive around the corners of their round plate, and I would hesitantly submit to the temptation of asking, with some definite hope in my voice, yet still attempting to play it cool: "Oh... do you not want your olive?". "Naah." "Score!", i would think. 

Some foods, it is good if only one of you likes. Such are olives. Other times, it is preferable that your opinions of such foods match. Onions and garlic. And blue cheese. 

The reason why it matters- olives are whole, you can separate them. The sharp taste of onion and deadly stinkyness of garlic stays with you forever, even if you only kiss someone who's had a garlic bread 2 weeks ago. However, my partner chops the onions and garlic even before he knows what he's cooking. We've decided on a compromise- I will make my fantastic 3 cheese pasta when he's not around, and he'll consume his chopped-in-small-white-pieces-of-death garlic 2 weeks before he sees me. It is an entirely different situation to the olive one, you see, but it indicates what your relationship is like, nevertheless. In this case, it is not about compatibility but about compromise. I am happy my friends and my partner are willing to compromise. 


Finally, different styles of cooking tell a lot about the cook himself.  My mum, she cooks rarely and usually, when she does, it is purely out of necessity for food in the house. My dad, on the other hand, when allowed in the kitchen, along with the mess, makes home-y food, food for the soul, if you will. He is a man of imagination, and can make a meal from scratch. These two different styles reflect their personalities closely, in many aspects. My mum is more organised, and my father is a more chaotic. She is an engineer, he is in radio business. Where do I stand? I am much like my dad, both in life, and in the kitchen. Our attitudes match. We are both victims of gluttony. Which clearly explains why we seem to get along better and with fewer words. 

I have been in four relationships, including my present one, and three of my partners didn't like olives. You can let my Olive theory "marinate" with you, you're welcome to put it to the test, but I promise you, next time you find yourself in such a "salad" situation, you'll almost inevitably remember my article and will hopefully experience a deeply intimate moment, when you realise that you and your partner, or friend, compliment each other in more than the obvious ways. It will make you smile, and it makes me smile right now, as I type these words, to know that I may have caused it, regardless of whether it is a stranger, or a friend smiling. Let me know if and when you do. :)