How much does food really weigh in a relationship? Probably more than the zodiac sign

I have a confession to make. If we go out together and order a four-cheese pizza, I might already be thinking about the escape. It's not your fault. It's the cheese. I've always hated it. As a child, I changed places at the table when the grater appeared. Today I'll just hold my breath and hope the table is long enough. Rational? Absolutely not. But this food phobia made me realize that we all have a food compatibility score. Maybe we don't call it that, but it exists. It's that mental calculation that starts at the exact moment the other person opens the menu (at the restaurant, but also at home in everyday life). For me it's cheese. For someone else they are the ones who only order salads during a dinner. Or those who steal chips without having ordered them, ask for ten changes to the dish or say the phrase “I don't eat dessert”.

The first date has become an episode of MasterChef (with more anxiety)

Let's all say look at character, personality, emotional intelligence. Then exactly seven minutes pass from arriving at the table and we are already there to build a complete psychological profile of our date. Let's see how it reads the menu. How long it takes us to decide. If you order now or wait for our choice. If you taste it from our plate without asking. If it chews like a human being or like a tyrannosaurus rex. If he treats the waiter with kindness or with the energy of Gordon Ramsay on a bad day. Within ten minutes, we built an entire theory about his personality based on a carbonara. It's partly our fault. It is partly the fault of the Internet, which in recent years has decided that every eating habit hides an entire relationship profile. Olive Theory has convinced us that couples work if one loves what the other leaves on the plate. TikTok continues to churn out compatibility tests based on shared chips, on the bite offered. It all seems absurd, until we realize that we too have a very strong opinion on at least one of these things. And yet, for once, social networks haven't invented everything. Studies say that sharing the same food increases trust, cooperation and a sense of closeness. Sitting at the same table means synchronizing behaviors, lowering defenses and creating familiarity, even when we don't notice it. Food and relationships, in short, have been speaking the same language long before the reels with the green flags arrived.

The real food compatibility score isn't about what's on the plate

In recent years, we have individualized food like never before. Allergies, intolerances, ethics, wellness, medications that modify appetite, fasting, crazy diets, proteins to reach, personalized deliveries. Everyone eats something different, at different times and for different reasons. Nevertheless, we continue to expect the table to remain the place where we feel closest. It's something ancient. So, the issue isn't whether our crush eats meat, pumpkin, tofu or just butter pasta. I, for example, am a vegetarian. But I calmly cook meat for the people I love. I was raised by a Sicilian mother who hated being at the stove, and yet she taught me that putting a pan on the fire for someone is a form of care. It's memory. It's attention. This is why I believe that the food compatibility score does not measure the compatibility between two diets, but the ability to see each other. Remember that I hate coriander. Know that I drink coffee with two teaspoons of sugar. Also buy almond milk without turning breakfast into an ideological debate. Leave me the last potato chip because she knows I had been staking it for five minutes. In the end, food is just an excuse. What we are really asking the other is “have you observed me enough to know how to make me feel good, overcoming my food intolerances and my petty delusions?” . And if the answer is yes, maybe I can even turn a blind eye to the four-cheese pizza. Maybe. Or maybe not. I'm not promising anything.