Love is for everyone.
I adored the honesty of this book. Both the negative and positive aspects of the dating experience were described in vivid detail. Many of the men he dated were wonderful human beings who just so happened not to be a good match for Mr. Kingett himself. I also appreciated how the author described his own flaws and how they could also be deal breakers for others. No one is perfect, after all, and it takes maturity to acknowledge one’s own shortcomings.
Some of the most interesting scenes in my opinion were the ones that explored how factors like race and disability affect someone’s experience in the dating scene. Mr. Kingett met a wide variety of men during his years of online dating, and not everyone was looking for the same thing. In certain cases, his prospective partners were looking for boyfriends who fit specific criteria, but other dates were with men who were open to falling in love with all sorts of different people. I enjoyed learning about their reasons for their choices no matter where they fell on the spectrum of which races they were open to dating or whether having a boyfriend who had a disability was something they viewed negatively. There is so much to learn about how other people’s minds work by paying attention to how they think about such things. The author also had his own list of deal breakers that not everyone else in the world would necessarily see in the same way, and it was intriguing to see how his preferences did or did not match up with what his dates were looking for.
There were a few things about the ending that I wish had been explained better. For example, the beginning mentioned that some of the people the author dated are now part of his found family. I would have loved to have more details about their friendships and how they evolved from romantic to platonic connections. Knowing their names was helpful, but as a reader I wished for more information to help me better visualize what life is like these days for them. Obviously, I am not referring to anything that they’re uncomfortable sharing here! It simply didn’t feel quite complete to me when I finished the final paragraph given how emotionally invested I’d become in the author’s journey.
Pass the Salt was a sweet and heartwarming read.