The Charcuterie Test of Compatibility
If someone brought you a charcuterie, do you like them or do you like the charcuterie?
The charcuterie test of compatibility.
Because a charcuterie board can have basically whatever you want on it, there exists some charcuterie that each person likes.
Therefore, charcuteries are universally liked. QED.
Now, let’s create a field of hypotheticals. Imagine that a woman has brought you a charcuterie as a breakfast in bed situation. Or, you have been invited to a potluck, and your girlfriend says she will bring a charcuterie. Or, some friends are coming over and your wife whips up a charcuterie for the guests.
The chance that you do not like any of these three things happening is low. The chance that you find them nice is high.
Generally charcuterie related activities are nice! That is because charcuteries are nice and people like charcuteries.
The Charcuterie Values Quiz
We can use the general love of charcuteries to create the charcuterie test of compatibility.
Everybody has a charcuterie they like, but which charcuterie varies. And then there is the question of why they like this charcuterie and what sacrifices they are willing to make to have this charcuterie in their life.
Below is a list of some highly specific preferences you can have that display your values as they concern charcuteries.
Have a look and notice which of these resonate with you the most:
Is the process of making the charcuterie an important thing?
Is it important for the charcuterie to be neat? For it to be pretty looking so that it feels like a special thing?
Is it important for the charcuterie to feel effortless?
Is it important for the charcuterie to feel effortful?
Is it important for every part of the charcuterie to be present? The little breads, the little meats, the little cheeses, as well as a little jam, and a little pickle?
Is it important for the charcuterie to be well timed — for the charcuterie to magically appear right when you happen to want it?
Is it important for the charcuterie to be frequent? You want to have charcuterie every day, or several times in a week?
Is it important for the charcuterie to be part of an additional set of rituals?
Is it important for the charcuterie to have your favorite things on it? The specific things you’d already decided are your favorite, versus something new or what happens to be available?
Is it important for the charcuterie to be diverse and have something change every time? How much should change?
Is it important for the charcuterie to be healthy? Does it need to make you feel more energized after you eat it, rather than slowing you down?
Is it important for the charcuterie to be handmade? Or just for it to be there?
Is it important for the charcuterie to be cheap such that it can be enjoyed guilt-free?
Is it important for your girlfriend to be all dolled up and cheerful when she brings you the charcuterie, or should it be neutrally chill, or in fact royally somber?
Hopefully this got you thinking about your favorite dynamics around charcuteries.
Obviously it would be terrific if you were some sort of Greek God and your beloved wife checked off everything you care about from your list, every time.
But you are a person and so is she, and she is not spending all of her time making you charcuteries or thinking about your charcuteries.
She is probably spending some of her time thinking about your charcuteries, and some of her time thinking about her charcuteries that she either wants to eat or she wants to be making.
This is important, because if you could coordinate with her already-existing thoughts about charcuteries, you can hijack her charcuterie-thoughts for your own ends! Muaha!
In seriousness, if your thoughts about charcuteries augment hers, or if your secret charcuterie thoughts match hers, then you may be compatible here and have a very fulfilling charcuterie-life.
The Good versus Bad Charcuterie Fights
And this is where we get into the charcuterie test of compatibility.
Everybody liking charcuteries does not mean there aren’t fights about charcuteries!
I’ve seen dudes get mad at women who were spending too much time picking out the exact right jam for the event they were going to.
I’ve seen women get mad at men for not appreciating their handmade charcuterie enough, or not stopping what they’re doing to come eat it and appreciate the effort that went into it.
I’ve seen dudes get extremely happy at the random scraps from the fridge being put on a plate with some ranch in front of them.
I’ve seen dudes chide women for their charcuterie boards not being neat enough before being presented.
I’d seen women be extremely happy for being brought a cup of tea and a piece of toast while they are reading every day.
The compatibility comes into play in a few different ways:
Are you valuing the same things?
Do you respect or find endearing what the other person values?
Are you each happy to do for the other, what the other wants?
It’s possible to have a nice relationship where one person is really into artisanal jams, and one person really cannot taste the difference and doesn’t even like fruits, but is into their partner being that into their thing—be it jams or nuts or coffee or spaceships.
It’s also possible for this relationship to be a disaster.
We will dig deep into the difference between the cute relationship and the disaster relationship, because this is important. This is where you can look for differences that are pretty chill, versus differences that may signal an incompatibility.
Often incompatibility feels bad in a way that is noticeable, but then people cannot tell if this is a feeling bad that can be changed, or if it something that is likely to continue to feel bad forever.
The situation in which the above relationship is cute would be one in which the passion-energy of the jam-lover is seen as a positive by both parties.
In an ideal universe it would be used for the same goal (eating yummy jam together), but even if this is not the case (and couples always have some-to-many areas where this is not the case), in a cute relationship it is still seen as a positive thing. The generator of the activity (in this case, whatever is driving the love of artisanal jams) is either respected or liked.
The situation in which this is a disaster would be if the partner found the passion-energy of the jam-loving to be a negative.
This could look like a few different things.
It can be a belief that micro-obsessions, generally, are a waste of time. It can be a belief that caring that much about something so small is a mark of immaturity. It can be feeling unappreciated (that your partner is spending time on a slight distinction and is spending money doing so, versus doing something that helps the household). Each of these is not about the jam per se, and even in arguments this person may say, “It’s not about the jam!” but rather it is about something deeper than the jam, which is what their partner is drawn to and how they are using their energy.
The reason I have this set up as the charcuterie test of compatibility, rather than using something else as the foil, is because finding genuine incompatibilities can be hard if a person is doing something nice for you, because part of it will always feel good.
Starting off with something that is nice for everybody and by default you know will feel good means that you can focus on what specifically is nice about it, for you specifically, and if there is any coordination happening in your relationship about those nice things — both in the context of charcuteries and in other contexts.
You can also notice unique ways that something that should feel nice…doesn’t feel very nice. (Lack of appreciation, hostility towards your passions, strange sites of rejection, conditions for trades that you had not noticed before.)
Somebody bringing you tea and toast every day can feel amazing, unless they want you do to it back, and you actually don’t want to do it back; maybe you think you are already doing something different for your partner, and this is your reward for that other thing. You bringing your partner tea actually could feel like an imbalance for you, and you’d rather not have tea brought to you than sign up to do more stuff.
But perhaps she really wants both of you to be doing it as part of her spiritual-relationship goals. That can be hard to acknowledge and notice when you are very nicely getting tea and toast every day! But if you go through your charcuterie goals and your partner’s charcuterie goals, you may notice that you have different charcuterie goals.
This theory is beta. Let me know your thoughts and how it goes!