Opposites attract (sometimes), right? You are the yin to your partner’s yang. But what happens when your yin is a vegan diet and your partner’s yang is a love for baby back ribs?

Munch on this from The Washington Post:

Disagreements about food probably wouldn’t make a counselor’s top-10 list of couples issues. But in today’s food-conscious culture, what and how a significant other eats is becoming one more proxy for couples’ deeper conflicts about control and respect. Food obsessives divide the world into two kinds of people: those who seek out truffles, sea urchin and single-estate chocolate, and those who don’t. And when an avid food lover falls for one of the others, it can get complicated. Unlike fly-fishing or knitting, what to eat is a question that comes up three times a day. The result: Romantic dinners are ruined. Tempers flare. And though some couples find ways to make compromises, in extreme cases, relationships fall apart.

Has your picky palate ever come between you and the person you are/were dating?

If you were serving in Iraq, housed in a grimy outpost lacking electricity and running water, where soot, sewage, and boiling temperatures created miserable living conditions, what would you dream about? A nice long shower? Cherry Garcia? Dorothy’s ruby-red slippers? Maybe just your bed back home?

For military police sergeant Owen Powell, it was Natalie Portman. But not in that way. According to Powell’s haunting, piercing runner-up entry in the New York Times Modern Love college essay contest — Go read it! Run, don’t walk! — his take-me-away visions included the lovely Miss Portman glowing at him from across a romantic table, doing the lambada in his arms. Or, on a bad night, breaking up with him.

But either way, in a way, she saved him. “In the Humvee, I searched for that elusive image of Natalie from the night before; I hunted for her through the blood-warm passages of my mind, chased the feeling of her down tunnels collapsing with the weight of status reports and threat conditions. The thick brushstroke of a single arched eyebrow. A glance across that crowded dance floor, somehow simultaneously sharp and accusatory and mesmerizing. It was as if I had something secret and untouchable that was wholly mine, a delicate and perfect gift in a city that seemed to feast on hate.”

Powell is now back in New York City, both glad and sad to be home. The dreams are gone. But this is the reality: he could totally run into her on the street.