This morning while eating my Cheerios with skim milk and coffee (coffee does not actually go in the cereal), I stumbled across a really interesting article about compatibility.
I stopped at this part of the article:
"From family researchers to matchmakers, each has watched countless couples draw together and pull apart. And each suggested the same thing: We're looking at love all wrong. Compatibility does not hinge on some personal inventory of traits. Compatibility isn't something you have. It's something you make. It's a process, one that you negotiate as you go along. Again and again. It's a disposition, an attitude, a willingness to work."
This last part hit me - and hard. Compatibility is a disposition, an attitude, a willingness to work. Our compatibility levels go beyond our interests ("You love Thai food? I love Thai food, too!") and expand into our willingness to work through the issues that get in the way ("You don't believe in marriage? Wait, I do.").
You've met your match is something we often times see as a sign of conflict, disagreement, a bump in the road. But meeting your match can in fact be very positive because you're forced to not only evaluate and communicate with the person in front of you but you're also forced to turn the mirror around and look at yourself. What is it that I do that makes it so challenging to be in this relationship? How can I address the issue I have with X? And more importantly, how can I communicate this need to my partner?
More from the article on chemistry:
"...While we're redefining compatibility, let's banish its more combustible cousin, "chemistry," that black box of a term too often invoked to denote the magic ingredient of a good relationship. Chemistry is an alluring concept, but much too frequently people use it to absolve themselves of the need to consciously examine their approach to one another. As if the muse of love will alight on their shoulder and sprinkle fairy dust on them, and then they will suddenly open their eyes and behold The Perfect Mate—without prying open their own heart, embracing an unwavering willingness to see the other in a positive light or doing the hard work of exploring, knowing and respecting another human being."
This part of the article was spot on for me. Chemistry is so often used as an excuse for why something didn't work out ("We just didn't have chemistry any more"). Typically these feelings come on after the initial dating stage has passed and the infatuation of your new mate fades. The chemistry you shared with someone is still there, it's the real world things that now start rushing in that can put chemistry on the back burner and force you to reexamine the connection with your partner.
This idea that fairy dust can be sprinkled and we'll be magically in love forever with tons of chemistry and never a tiff or quarrel is just not realistic. I'm not being negative, I'm just being a realist.
To find love, you have to give love.
To get past bumps in the road, you have to be willing to try and drive over them, tear them down, even if you have to dig them out.
The tipping point is our willingness to actually do it, to work on it, and to try and perfect it.
In my opinion this is in fact an art.
(Read the full article from Psychology Today / About.com/dating here.)
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