Intelligent, unpretentious, friendly and gorgeous?
wait
Doesnt like metal?!?!?
Forget it then!
j/k its hardly a requisite. I only require that they either dont mind me hammering stupid riffs and musically nonsensical shred out (and playing music along the same lines), or can tolerate it!
As an aside, I often find this interesting. I absolutely could not be in a relationship with someone who's music taste run much the same way as my own, I'm at two or three gigs most weeks, I spend a huge amount of time in the house recording, I'm at a bunch of extreme metal festivals a year, most of my spare time is taken up organising another two festivals and I generally listen to music 99% of time I'm at home.
If they couldn't hack horrible noise, they likely just couldn't be around me for any length of time :lol:
I know they exist, but I've never even been trivially involved with a woman that more than tolerates metal, let alone likes it, let alone in a relationship with one.
I dont think its a big deal. My only pertinent requirement is that they have an appreciation of the fact that music is a huge part of my life and that metal is the single biggest part of that. I dont give it much thought beyond being aware that its a very polarising genre, and most people automatically think that the response most legitimised by popular opinion and perception is to deride it or look on it as weird in some way. It is of course just music, and many people know that and dont have an opinion one way or the other on it. Nonetheless, the ease with which victims of popular culture scorn metal without sufficient familiarity to have made a real (rather than culturally received) opinion of their own allow a persons response to it to be one of myriad acid tests of their independence of thought and taste. i.e. if anyone puts it down (or any other music) out of hand, without really having heard it, then they've simply told me that they're most likely an easily led, mindless vacuous pseudo-individual and such a stance is a disqualifying move for me when in the 'getting to know if you want to keep getting to know this person that looked nice from across the room' part of a proto-relationship. If they dont like it after having heard some of its incarnations then thats cool, its their opinion and they're entitled to it, but they better be able to tolerate it and not get jealous of music! If they dont really have an opinion or are willing to tolerate it because I like it, then thats openness and consideration for my tastes and interests that I'm appreciative of and try to reciprocate with whatever takes an equivalent place in their lives.
The person is vastly more important than the specific musical tastes, to me, and the people worth being around and getting involved with dont necessarily like what you like, in my experience, but they do understand that you like it and at least dont give a hard time over it (at best encourage you to indulge your interests and passions, even if they dont see what you see in them). This is of course, since I try not to be egomaniacal or hypocritical, I try to offer them the same consideration. Works pretty well.
It also, I think, resonates with Feline (Derek?)s wise comments on getting to know someone and empathy being the foundation of developing any sort of relationship - in this case, what youre passionate about not being important, but rather understanding being passionate about something.
Oh, since thats far too much pontification and womens-mag talk for one of my posts, I'll have to close with the fact that when given the choice 'the guitars or me' I chose the guitars ;).
