CAROLYN HAX

You're right that a declaration of good intent is not enough to change his hotheadedness -- especially not if he's doing it just for you. But maturity is enough; please wait for that.

Dear Carolyn:

Neither my girlfriend nor I drink, so this question is hypothetical. She said a guy once wouldn't go out with her because she doesn't drink, and she thought that wasn't a valid reason to not date someone. I think it's a perfectly valid reason, along the lines of, "The ways you and I have fun are just too different." What say you?

Sobriety

I think it's valid, with an asterisk -- certainly you can pick out any little thing as a reason not to date someone, since it's everyone's prerogative to say no to anyone. Your girlfriend, just for example, might have seen this guy's refusal to date non-drinkers as a valid reason to rule him out. ("Huh?")

The asterisk: People don't always stay exactly the way they were when you first met them. AA or medication or allergies or whatever can make a non-drinker out of the most dedicated beer swiller; or the drinker himself could land in rehab. Other possibilities: Believers lose faith and the faithless find belief; the thin get fat and the fat get thin; the rich lose everything and ramen-eaters strike it rich. And so on.

So inflexibility in the mate selection process, while nobody else's business but your own, can backfire. Better just to find someone you really, really like.