Is the Pizza Theory the Perfect Relationship Test?

Dating someone means you’ll end up sharing a lot of meals with them. And while eating with the one you love can be incredibly joyful, it may also present its own challenges. Do either of you have dietary restrictions that the other doesn’t share? Does one person hate Italian food while their partner craves it all the time? Or maybe most difficult of all, is if you love going out to restaurants but your significant other doesn’t. 

When you do find someone you like cooking, snacking, and going out to dinner with, that’s a green flag in my book. And as newly engaged couple and content creators Alix Traeger and Zoya Biglary — known for their cooking videos, Traeger’s reviews of her old Buzzfeed Tasty recipes, and Biglary’s skill at peeling fruit, among other accomplishments — recently demonstrated, there might be one simple test for whether or not your eating habits are compatible: sharing a pepperoni pizza.

The pair posted a video on Instagram earlier this week, captioned simply “the pizza theory.” In the reel, Biglary can be seen peeling the pepperoni off her pizza, and putting them to the side for Traeger to snack on. Once Biglary has finished eating a slice down to the crust, she sets that down for Traeger to immediately snap up too. It’s the perfect symbiotic system: one person wants to eat exactly what the other doesn’t.

When I asked the two content creators if this might be a sign of compatibility, Traeger told me “I wouldn’t say it’s a deal breaker but it sure makes things easier! I love finding the little ways we fit together like a puzzle piece, they feel like signs we are meant to be together.” The duo shared the pizza at Little High Eatery in Christchurch, New Zealand, where Traeger proposed back to Biglary two months after she had been proposed to herself. Biglary also noted that they do often order pepperoni pizza specifically so her fiancée can enjoy the topping, saying “I don't really eat pork but I like the spicy flavor it leaves on the cheese, so I often order pepperoni so that Alix can enjoy them.” 

As commenters are quick to point out, this caption and concept references the popular mid-2000s sitcom How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM). The show introduces “the olive theory” in its very first episode, when main character Ted explains that it’s based on two of his friends, a couple, Marshall and Lily. He hates olives and she loves them, making their relationship a perfect balance. It’s a silly metaphor, but a sweet one — and when it’s revealed later in the show that Marshall secretly likes olives, but gives them to Lily because he knows how fond she is of them, it seems like an even sweeter sign of a flourishing relationship. 

Alix and Zoya confirmed they were inspired by the original HIMYM bit, and the former told me “I remember the ‘Olive Theory’ went viral a few years ago, the thing is, we both like olives! So we found one of our own, hence ‘The Pizza Theory.’ I think other couples can do the same, to make the spirit of the trend fit to their unique relationship.” 

My good friend, acquisitions associate and avid restaurant-goer Noah Goodman, informed me that his fiancée Julia “...always eats the garnishes. She gets all the maraschino cherries and pickles.” My sister and Sam Houston State PhD student Ruthie Miller loves going to Tex-Mex restaurants with her boyfriend, because “...he doesn’t like avocados, so [she] can have any guacamole that comes on the side of his dish.”

Do I think every pair of partners needs to have one person who likes pepperoni and pizza crusts, and one who doesn’t? Of course not. But it is a nice reminder that you and your significant other don’t have to like the same things to work well together, and sometimes it’s even better if you don’t. I also think everyone’s personal “pizza theory,” or the eating practices that they develop within a relationship, can be a unique symbol of how they work together — in my case, my boyfriend always puts a little extra food on his plate when I say I’m not hungry, because he knows I’m going to ask for a bite.