The devil’s in the details, or so the saying goes. For those familiar with the TV series “30… The devil’s in the details, or so the saying goes. For those familiar with the TV series “30 Rock,” the term “devil” is better coined “deal breaker.”

For those not familiar with the show, I’ll use a personal example to illustrate exactly what a deal breaker is — who cares about burning bridges, right? I was once seeing a guy who sent me a text message. It included the phrase “Hey kiddo.” Not kid — which would at least conjure up some image of Humphrey Bogart — but kiddo, a term better reserved for use by my father or grandpa. At the text message and its disturbing Electra-complex implications, I recoiled. With phone still glowing in my hot little hand I realized, in a blinding flash of the obvious, that I didn’t want to spend any more time with this person. Ever.

Mind you, when I say I was “seeing” this person, I use the term loosely. I was already standing starboard, one foot hanging off the deck, waiting for any sign to jump overboard. Kiddo didn’t kill it alone. It was a lone straw breaking a camel’s back, after the camel had been heaped with a heavy bale of hay — a sea of warning signs indicating there was no way this guy and I would continue to get along for very long.

Testers determine the depth of feeling you have for someone. For instance, my testers are sweatpants — if I like a guy when he’s wearing sweatpants, I know what I’m feeling is real. If I feel queasy about them, I know I’ll find a deal breaker soon. Testers exist in every relationship, especially in old age. I’m thinking of my parents — my mom is willing to deal with it when my dad wears his loafers without socks.

What constitutes a deal breaker varies from person to person. There’s no set formula for what will spell out ruin. My deal breakers include: fashion scarves, hair to the nipple, white tennis shoes, stupid nicknames, Nickelback and illiteracy.

I realize this list makes me sound petty and superficial, sure. Shouldn’t I be worldly enough to know that I should judge a boy by the content of his character and not the color of his shoes?

Nope. Open-mindedness has nothing to do with it. Normally I’m against passing judgment, but deal breakers are our evolutionary fight-or-flight response kicking in to dating decisions. Deal breakers do us the courtesy of indicating when it’s time to Ghostbust our way out of a situation. They indicate a larger personality clash which will invariably end things, one way or another. If a guy listens to Nickelback, he really isn’t going to like my music selection, and we won’t be able to talk about it. Similarly, if he doesn’t read, half the things I talk about will be inane and boring.

As for the long hair, scarves and the white sneakers — I don’t know, it’s just not fashionable. The way I see it, if I’m gritting my teeth now I’m only going to be more annoyed later. If I can’t deal with the sneakers, I’m not going to be able to deal with whatever personality flaws become apparent as the relationship evolves.

This early in the game, when most of us are far from looking for marriage or, heaven forbid, someone to have children with, it’s good to be picky — not cynical, but picky. If I met someone with a really charming, intriguing personality, I know I would be blind to their white tennis shoes. We can’t help what we like or who we are attracted to, and most importantly, we can’t choose how we are going to respond.

I’ve written before about how love in the modern age should be easier because we have more freedom. But freedom gives us the ability to make choices. Being able to choose whether or not we want to deal with differing taste in music — or political opinions, to use perhaps a more common example — signifies how, even in a world more open to love, we find ways to close ourselves off.

But what’s the harm in being closed sometimes, or even knowing when it’s time to close a chapter? I’ll paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, author of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” and say that by the time we reach the end of our lives, we’ll look back and realize that most of it has been spent alone. I don’t intend this to sound defeatist. I just mean that companionship can be overrated. Experiences can be shared, but your perception of those experiences will belong to you and only you — perceptions that come with receiving an unsavory text message or seeing a reference to you in print. If those perceptions leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, better to brush your teeth of it now than have to deal with the lingering remnants of a poor time.

Write Caitlyn at [email protected].