Everyone knows you dont order pasta on a first date. Slurping a string of spaghetti while marinara sauce sprays your potential future other half just doesn't look cute; Lady and the Tramp really duped us on that one. When you are first getting to know someone, food can tell a lot about where your relationship is at. Sometimes what you order or eat is a good indicator of how things are going. If you're sticking to salads or pretending you like venison (poor Bambi) in an attempt to avoid offending your new love interest, you probably aren't that comfortable. What about all those vegans and vegetarians out there thinking they surely won't be able to relate to my meat and animal byproduct-filled list? Well don't worry; these stages, though characterised by food, are stages that any relationship goes though. Some stages are represented by an actual food choice you might make, while other foods serve as a mere symbols for what happens during the development of a relationship. Maybe you don't actually like pizza (if people like that really exist), but the "Pizza Stage" of a relationship represents something much more complex than consuming cheesy-goodness at 3am. So, in sequential order, here are the eight stages of a relationship from start to demise or bliss, as told by your food.
8. The Salad With Grilled Chicken Stage
A salad with grilled chicken is a classic first date food. It's not messy, it's reasonably priced, and it says: "I'm conservative for ordering a salad, but I added chicken because I'm not boring." This is exactly how most relationships start out: conservative, but not so boring you want to cut ties. You start off playing it safe. You're probably in good shape, hitting the gym regularly, eating well, and overall trying to impress your new beau. In this stage, you want to have everything and anything in common with them. You're pretending to understand cultural references you don't get, asking the ins-and-outs of whatever boring hobby they have, and feigning interest in their music choice. When they text you "What's up?" you probably answer something like, "Hanging out with my friends, you?" rather than the true response, "Crying and watching proposal videos online, you?". In the Salad With Grilled Chicken Stage, you want to come off as your "best" self, even though that means compromising yourself.