Complex Numbers

Clawless

And another one I can't fully answer from "JAFBG"  [XGC]... but I'm going to try anyway.

Channel your inner Seinfeld and tell us the most petty reason you've broken up with someone or lost interest in dating them.

I don't know, because I haven't broken up with, or dated, anyone except my most recent ex-wife since Seinfeld was originally on TV (you don't want to know how long ago that was; it was longer than you think and you'll feel old). I wasn't the one doing the breaking-up, usually, and the few times I did the reasons were eminently justifiable and not at all petty.

No, really.

No. Really. Stop laughing.

(Stupid canned laugh track.)

There was one time in the 90s when I dated this one chick, briefly. She was nice but incurious, and desperately wanted children while I desperately didn't. But that wasn't why I broke up with her (I was just very, very careful to never let the condoms out of my possession).

No, I broke up with her because she declawed her cats.

Like I said, not a petty reason. Though some might find it to be so. She certainly did. I consider it to be an inexcusable, barbaric practice which usually only serves to protect one's precious, precious furniture.

There are other ways to protect the furniture besides mutilating cats. And even if there weren't, a living thing's welfare is almost always more important than that of furniture. (One exception: cockroaches.)

It's not that I didn't know her cats were declawed when we started getting serious. It's just that I wasn't aware, at first, of how horrible it was, thinking it was only slightly bad and you just couldn't let the cats outside, which wasn't an issue for her at the time because she lived in an apartment. The internet was in its nascent stages back then, populated mostly just by nerds like me -- long before Failbook, before Wikipedia, even before WDC. (Did you know Writing.com predated Wikipedia? By about four months. Now you do.) But I started digging around on there and became appalled.

There really wasn't anything I could do about the poor kitties. She treated them well enough otherwise, and unlike in civilized countries, declawing isn't illegal in the US. But I just couldn't see the relationship going anywhere because a) I will always have cats, b) I will never have them declawed, and c) that was all I needed to know about her priorities.

And don't get me wrong -- I may be a little judgey on this subject, but I never hated her for it; I wished her well and moved on. She wasn't so cool with the breakup, though, so, unlike with most of my exes, I have no idea where she is or what she's doing (but I am certain based on discussions with mutual friends that the condoms, indeed, worked as designed). Since it's been about 25 years, the cats in question have long since gone to meet Bast. It was simply a sign for me that we were, ultimately, incompatible.

Hell, if she got what she wanted in life, she's got fully grown kids by now. I just hope she didn't declaw them, too.