I was recently with a friend of mine and we were talking about deal breakers in dating.

Alongside all the legitimate and important qualities like being a good person and being kind to waiters, my list of must-haves for a potential suitor includes being a pickleball player. Duh.

Now, my friend who also plays pickleball basically said: “Take it or leave it. I don’t care if my romantic partner plays pickleball.”

I thought that was utter bananas. Pickleball is the foundation of my social life and if my potential partner doesn’t play, or worse is a tennis purist who hates the sport and thinks it’s only for old people, that’s a deal breaker for me.

I have the typical pickleball story. I play a few times a week, I’ve made so many good friends through pickleball, and I literally work in the sport. If my partner isn’t at least positive about the sport, I'm not interested.

But then I got to thinking… Did pickleball ruin my last relationship?

I was dating a guy who I thought was Mr. Right. Or should I say my Mr. Left (side player). Early in the relationship, we bonded over playing pickleball together. While we didn’t meet on the court, our first date was there. 

There were pickleball double dates, courtship on the court, and aspirations to play in a tournament together. We could be like the 4.0 version of Parris Todd and Hunter Johnson.

Then, something changed. He stopped playing pickleball.

After months of pickleball partnership bliss, he no longer wanted to play. It was like he woke up one day and decided he didn’t want to play with his new JOOLA anymore. The newness of the sport wore off. There was no injury, no bad case of the yips, just a sudden and strange lack of enthusiasm. 

I’ve truly never heard of anyone losing their love for the game. I thought it was a universal experience - once you start playing pickleball, you never stop. Addicted for life. Not my ex pickleball partner. 

He started playing tennis and making subtle comments about how loud pickleball was. 

In hindsight, that’s when everything changed. Suddenly, I was the only one who wanted to go play pickleball. I was the one making the court reservations when it previously was always him. I was the one coordinating with other doubles partnerships who were a good match for us. I was looking up tournaments to play at and ordering matching outfits for us to wear.

Unfortunately, it was all in vain. He didn’t want to play pickleball anymore. And that sealed the deal.

And then I found myself wondering… should I join a new league? Find a new doubles partner who has the same love for the sport as me? If my partner doesn’t like pickleball, he and I just aren’t a good match. And maybe that was behind the relationship downfall. He stopped playing pickleball. 

So, I packed up my pink Selkirk bag and went to open play alone. 

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