Vancouver (Research Co.) – – More than a quarter of Canadians would not be interested in continuing a romantic relationship with a person who had bad breath or poor etiquette at the dinner table, a new Research Co. poll has found.
In the online survey of a representative national sample, 28% of Canadians say they would stop going out with a person because they have bad breath.
More than three-in-ten Canadians aged 55 and over (31%) would forego a relationship with a person with bad breath. The proportion is lower among Canadians aged 35-to-54 (24%) and those aged 18-to-34 (also 24%).
There is no political divide on this particular matter. Similar proportions of Canadians who voted for the Liberal Party (30%), the Conservative Party (28%) and the New Democratic Party (NDP) (27%) in last year’s federal election would break up with a person who had bad breath.
More than a quarter of Canadians (27%) would stop dating a person because of their manners at the dinner table. “A third of Canadian women (32%) are willing to call off a relationship with a person because of the way they eat,” says Mario Canseco, President of Research Co. “Only 22% of Canadian men would follow the same course of action.”
Residents of British Columbia are more likely to stop going out with a person who had inferior etiquette at the dinner table (33%) than their counterparts in Atlantic Canada (27%), Ontario (also 27%), Quebec (26%), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (25%) and Alberta (23%).
Only 9% of Canadians say they would break up with a person because they have a different diet than theirs, and 8% would not date a person who ate animal products.
Fewer than one-in-ten Canadians acknowledge already calling off a relationship because their partner had bad breath (7%), inferior table manners (6%), a diet they disagreed with (3%) or consumed animal products (also 3%).
Methodology: Results are based on an online study conducted from January 28 to January 30, 2022, among 1,000 adults in Canada. The data has been statistically weighted according to Canadian census figures for age, gender and region. The margin of error—which measures sample variability—is +/- 3.1 percentage points, nineteen times out of twenty.
