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THEY HAD A FOUR-HOUR ARGUMENT ABOUT SALT
ZARAH BUTCHER-MCGUNNIGLE

She'd asked him if he'd salted the soup he was about to eat and he said no, it didn't need it. She said she always added salt to everything without thinking much about it. He said that was okay, as long as she didn't salt it without trying it first. She said she did. He said he'd be offended if she salted food he'd made for her without trying it first. She said it was an automatic behavior, and not offensive because it wasn't a reflection on his food. He said he would take it as an insult, even if she didn't mean it, because it would imply that he hadn't seasoned the food properly and she didn't trust his ability to cook. "Seriously, it doesn't matter," she said, "I don't salt while cooking so I'm used to putting salt on after, it's not a big deal." "It is a big deal to not try to think about someone's feelings though, to deliberately insult someone's cooking." "I'm not deliberately insulting anyone, there is no intention to offend." "If you know that it could have the possibility to offend, and you don't try to mitigate that, then that implies some intention." "I'd rather put my energy into being considerate about something important. This isn't high stakes, it's salt, it's not important," she said. "It might be very important, we don't know. It might be one of the most important things in life and we just don't know it yet. Anyway, I think it's important to be intentional in all areas. If you can't even make the effort to be intentional with small things, how can you be intentional and considerate about larger things?" "I don't think that's true," she said. They could both be right, no one had to be wrong here, they just had different ideas, and they should agree to disagree, she said. "No, I don't want to bother to agree to disagree, that's too much effort." "How is it effort? It takes one second to agree to disagree." "I can agree that it's okay that you're not intentional and you don't care about people's feelings all the time." "I am intentional with things that are actually aligned with my values and beliefs. I didn't grow up posh like you, with the time to worry about rules so removed from real life like salt etiquette." "Wow, okay." "No one I'd want to be close to would care about salt etiquette." "If you don't want to be close, maybe we should break up." "Yes, maybe we should," she said.