This is number fourteen of the top 30 reasons for why normal people should not date a superhero(ine). Remember supers! This is all in good fun, BUT if you see yourself in these reasons you should consider altering your behavior in order to keep your beloved happy and safe, and in your life!

[In no particular order, except for number one because that’s my #1]

Note: This piece will be written using gender neutral pronouns (ze instead of he/she and hir instead of she/he and him/her) in order to make this non-heteronormative. I consider “bro” and “brah” gender neutral. I use them in my day to day life to refer to people of all gender identities.

14) I Can’t Intimidate You and Sometimes You Scare Me

We can’t all be Chi-Chi from the Dragon Ball series – completely badass and capable of keeping Goku in line with a well-placed glare and threat. I know that healthy relationships are not supposed to rely on threats and intimidation to work and need respect and equal footing to work, but sometimes you need to be able to put the fear of universe into your significant other. Sometimes being sad or upset or disappointed is just not enough to guarantee that ze will not eat the last piece of cake, will stop sucking on hir teeth, will never ever put jeans in with the whites again, or forget to put the fucking toilet seat down. Or the fear of disappointment. Whichever works best. But the point is when your partner is SO COOL AND IMPORTANT AND SMART AND STRONG AND SUAVE AND BADASS it is hard to really appear as anything other than cute and vulnerable. I mean you could probably get them to do things by crying, but that doesn’t make YOU feel good.

The other side of the coin is that it is very easy for a superhero(ine) to accidentally or purposefully terrify the shit out of hir significant other. Some of it falls under the auspices of if this person sneezes and I am in the wrong place something horrible could happen, to the level of domestic abuse that would be near impossible to escape, to inadvertent where ze wakes up from a nightmare and tries to kill you because of untreated PTSD.

So, yeah, don’t date superhero(in)es cuz that little bit of intimidation you need to keep them in line is not there.