threebyfate Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 I should add that my friend and her husband moved into a hotel for two weeks a few years ago when the same thing happened!
denise_xo Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Any guys find this to be a turn off? I definitely do. Growing up, my mom didn't cook and I vowed that I would never marry a woman that didn't know how to cook. Women expect men to be able to do certain things, so I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect your wife to know how to cook. I'm not talking about cooking like a chef. Just knowing the basics and able to be self-sufficient. Fortunately, I am able to cook and I believe it's a skill that is required if you want to be independent, male or female. I'm not particularly interested in cooking and I made that blatantly clear to my H before we got married, as he is from a social environment where roles are clearly gendered and women are expected to put a proper dinner on the table daily. I can follow a recipe when I want to and I enjoy having dinner parties now and then. I've certainly never had problems being 'independent', although I'm not sure what that really means in this context. I don't expect my H to have 'handyman' skills (which he doesn't) so no double standards here. We try to figure out together how to do things, whether what needs to be done is food or carpentry related.
Taramere Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 (edited) There's no special ability or magical feminine quality that's required to transform raw food into cooked food with the aid of a cooker and a few ancillary ingredients. Sure, some people turn it into an artform...but a person doesn't need to be worthy of a job as a chef in a Michelin starred restaurant to be capable of cooking a meal that is decent tasting by a reasonable person's (ie non food critic's) standards. If there are men out there who find that women are reluctant to cook for them, I think there are probably two likely reasons. 1. The woman thinks she is being pushed into that role and is resistant - either because of her own issues, or because the man involved has an off-putting sense of entitlement about him, or maybe a combination of the two. In any event, that relationship will probably fall by the wayside fairly quickly. 2. The woman lacks confidence in her own ability to perform these basic tasks competently. Maybe she's been paralysed by overprotective parents who never gave her the opportunity to participate in cooking and other household tasks. Or maybe the guy who would like her to cook for him is (or she perceives him as being) of a negative, criticial sort of disposition...and she feels that whatever she does, it will be slagged off rather than appreciated. Edited January 4, 2011 by Taramere
JustJoe Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 First off, Max, there are worse faults than not being able or willing to cook. My Mom was a first-rate chef, but she also cheated on my Dad. So in the greater scheme of things, I would rather have a loyal partner and I will make my own pancakes. Second, I think that there are aspects of cooking that are difficult for some people . Anything you can fry, grill, broil or roast, I can do. Baking, however, is another story. I can't bake a cake or pie for sh*t. Oh, I can do a box cake, but a real, honest-to-goodness scratch cake or pie or bread,fuggedaboudit. My GF made a Black Forest cake for new year's. I was in awe of her .
irc333 Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Meh, there's no reason to cook if you're single,at least not on a constant basis, right? I mean, why cook for one person?
donnamaybe Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 First off, Max, there are worse faults than not being able or willing to cook. My Mom was a first-rate chef, but she also cheated on my Dad. So in the greater scheme of things, I would rather have a loyal partner and I will make my own pancakes.Why does it have to be either/or? That's settling. I can cook AND I'm not a cheater.
jthorne Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Any guys find this to be a turn off? I definitely do. Growing up, my mom didn't cook and I vowed that I would never marry a woman that didn't know how to cook. Women expect men to be able to do certain things, so I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect your wife to know how to cook. I'm not talking about cooking like a chef. Just knowing the basics and able to be self-sufficient. Fortunately, I am able to cook and I believe it's a skill that is required if you want to be independent, male or female. I haven't read the entire thread, just this one. I can say that one of the things that "hooked" my husband was that I can cook, and that I can cook very well. I'm pretty sure what closed the deal was my homemade apple pie. Fortunately, he can cook as well, and it is something we enjoy doing together. It's a great way for us to decompress. I imagine that there are some posts here concerning sexism? I dunno... I guess everyone expects certain skillsets in their mate. I don't expect him to know how to apply false eyelashes, he doesn't expect me to know how to install gutters. BUT- I would not have been interested in him had he expected me to be the one to do all of the cooking and cleaning, kwim?
sally4sara Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 One of our friends is an excellent chef. He is average looking but always had luck with women because of his cooking skills. He is going to out shine anyone simply adequate in the kitchen. But even he is going to get sick of being the only one doing any cooking in the house after a while. You can't cook a 5 star meal every time you cook; its not practical. Ten years of marriage, would anyone be delighted to cook their 500th batch of spaghetti? Hell no! Add to it a simpering partner wearing out the I can't excuse and making that 500th batch of spaghetti is going to be a hateful chore. Even my 13 year old son knows how to make spaghetti. How will anyone sell him on the idea of not knowing how to do the same?
Mme. Chaucer Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 A real woman knows how to cook. Haha. No, not necessarily. Regardless, Mad Max is certainly entitled to have a preference for women who can and do cook that's not negotiable. Nothing wrong with that.
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