It’s possible your friend is trying to counter an isolating illness, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Even if you find it tedious, don’t assume everyone else will too
I have a dear friend who I’ve known for over 10 years. She’s very intelligent, beautiful insightful and emotionally intelligent. She’s expressed to me that she wants nothing more than to find a good partner and have children, and I think she’d be a wonderful partner and brilliant mother.
However, after spending a week with her on vacation, I think I began to understand why she’s had trouble finding and keeping a partner: she has a gluten intolerance and talks about it at length daily. I want her to express her needs, but she doesn’t seem to realise that by giving so much airtime to her allergy, she comes across as high-maintenance and boring. I’d just accept it as an idiosyncratic aspect of someone I love if it weren’t for the fact I see how other people are also put off by her fixation.
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