Complements, not competitors

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

If you dated someone who was very similar to you, how long do you think the relationship would last, and if applicable, what would be the reason you break-up?

For this prompt, I’m forced to think about the stories you hear about people who meet their identical twin or even their clone. In those stories, more often than not, the two twins end up hating each other. They do so not because they have too much in common; rather,because they end up seeing their own shortcomings in the other person.

The myth of “opposites attract”

And for the record, I’ve never dated anybody who was so similar to me that that would cause this type of problem. I have dated people who I had a lot in common with. In many respects, I think that’s a not negotiable for me . People like to spout the old-fashion cliché that “opposites attract”. But the fact is, two people have to have some kind of common ground. Even, at minimum, if it’s only about how they perceived the world. The whole “opposite attract” notion is great for storytelling purposes, but sometimes it’s just too far of a bridge to cross. Opposite to me a trance in theoretical, or even real world physics. But relationships are not and never have been a science experiment.

Politics is my non-negotiable

Take politics, as a good example. I wish that political discourse was at a point in the United States, where people from opposite parties could joke around with each other about their different ideas of how to make things better. Unfortunately, politics in America has become so intertwined with personal ideology, And the two political parties have become such extreme opposites that I don’t believe that I could date someone who align themselves with conservative politics. And don’t think I haven’t tried…

Complementary, not competitive

In the best relationships, two people complement each other. That is to say, they compensate for one another, based on differences in their personalities. Perhaps a quiet man dates, a more assertive woman; and in that sense, the man is able to compensate that particular aspect his personality where he is lacking. When one dates, a partner who has too much in common with them, the pair not able to have that kind of complementary dynamic. In fact, if anything, they end up becoming competitive with one another. Couples are supposed to be partners, not competitors. Likewise, I’ve learned this lesson through personal experience as well.

Like so many other things in life, it’s important to have things in common with your partner – if nothing else, at least to create a fundamental base from which to work upon. In couples where the two partners are complete opposites, there is simply too far of a distance between them in order to create any kind of true connection. In relationships where partners have too much in common, they end up becoming competitors with one another

But it’s important to have a limited degree of common interests and common views. And it’s the two people are able to negotiate and compromise between their limited differences differences, great things can happen.

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