Is She Actually Compatible with You?
Guys, especially nerdy guys, frequently
mistake “compatibility” with “likes all the same things I do”. After all,
what’s not to love about a woman who digs all the same video games, television
shows and comics you do? You’d never fight!
On a surface level, this would seem like an
obvious must-have; after all, we prefer people who are similar to us. So
why wouldn’t we want someone who was into all the things we’re
passionate about?
The problem is that marking off a checklist of
things that you both like isn’t the same thing as compatibility. Geeky
guys make this mistake all the time; they internalize the idea that being geeky
or having geeky interests makes them un-datable and end up fetishizing Geek Girls as someone who
legitimizes them for being geeks. Other guys – especially ones
who’ve had conflicts with previous girlfriends over their interests and hobbies
– may focus just as quickly on sports or twee indie shoe gaze bands or craft
beers or what-have-you. Clearly the problem was that she didn’t like the same
things I did; find someone who does and boom: problem solved and its blowjobs
and champagne for everybody.
People who believe this way are sharing an
incredibly common misunderstanding about compatibility. Compatibility isn’t
about having everything in common; in fact, one of the ways to strengthen a relationship is to
have separate interests. Compatibility is
about being in harmony with one another. It’s not a question of
whether or not she’s as into fantasy sports leagues as you are or is equally
obsessive about Game of Thrones and True Detective, it’s about whether she
can appreciate that you love them. Can she understand
your love of tabletop RPGs and painting miniatures even if she doesn’t grok it
herself? Is she willing to indulge you and support you in your passions instead
of mocking them or telling you to give them up?
It doesn’t matter if she loves Vampire Diaries
and you think it’s a vapid storyline full of pretty people that goes nowhere
and goddamn it, 2/3rds of their problems would be solved if Damon and Stefan
would just quit fighting about Elena and start exploring the possibilities of a
poly triad. That’s a micro issue, one that’s insignificant as long as you match
up in the macro areas.
For example:
Can You Talk To Her? Can You Not Talk
To Her?
Communication is, hands down, one of the most important
parts of a relationship. Everything, and I do mean everything, in
a relationship ultimately comes down to whether or not you two can communicate
on the same level. This doesn’t just mean being able to explain your wants and
needs or the times when you feel hurt or upset (although this is important).
This means just being able to just be with her. To hang
out on the couch or at a coffee shop or what-have-you and just talk.
No agendas. Not trying to get into her pants or trying to build towards
something but just being able to chat, purely for the sake of wanting to connect.
To share. To relax. To just… be.
Someone who’s right for you is someone you can
feel comfortable with. Someone you’re not always putting on a
show for. You don’t feel like you always have to impress her or prove you’re
the A+ alpha dog living the life of Riley. You’re just able to let everything
go, relax and just have a conversation with her.
We make jokes about how the guy who has the
long and deep talk with a woman all night long has just missed the opportunity
to get laid, but that ability to connect with someone on an intimate and
emotional level is critical to a relationship. Someone who’s right for you is
someone you feel utterly comfortable with, someone you can share anything with,
whose insight you appreciate(either male or female) even if you don’t
necessarily agree with it.
But this also has another side to it: can you not talk
to her? That is: can you appreciate the silence with her, without feeling like
you have to fill the void with words and sounds and activity? That comfort and
intimacy means that their presence is enough; you don’t need
to babble or fill in the silence because sometimes words are very unnecessary
and they can only do harm.
Is She Really “Right”
For You Or Are You Repeating A Pattern?
One of the signs that you keep going for
people who aren’t right for you is that your relationships tend to follow
distinct patterns. If you’ve ever known somebody (or aresomebody)
who’s consistently dated women who’ve all turned out to
be “crazy bitches” or who inevitable dump
him for somebody better, then you’ve seen those patterns in action. Another
incredibly common example are the relationships that start off fireworks
and passion, then rapidly cool off to boredom and disinterest.
It can be tempting to want to write it all off
as bad luck or something about the inherent fickleness of women3 but
if you legitimately want to seek out the cause, then sometimes you have to
embrace a cold and hard truth: sometimes you are the only
common denominator in all of your relationships.
Everyone has their preferences, but just
because someone’s your type doesn’t mean that they’re automatically right for
you. In fact, there are many times when that “preference” is a form of self-sabotage.
It may be an unconscious issue – feeling that you don’t deserve to be happy, believing that
you couldn’t possibly get someone who is right for you so you
go for people who are somehow attainable – even when you know that a long-term
relationship with them is going to be the emotional equivalent of years of
dick-punches.
On the other hand, it could be behavior on
your part that drives women away – for example, falling in Twu Wuv every
time like a gosling imprinting on the nearest warm body. Or you may
be consistently mistaking sexual attraction and/or limerence for
compatibility and when that initial buzz wears off… well, there
was never really anything there except that initial
attraction.
Part of understanding whether she’s right for you is
knowing yourself. Nobody is going to be right for you if you’re
unable to recognize that you’re not making the right choices. You
have to have a level of self-awareness and a willingness to take an objective
look at your love life and the people you’re attracted to. Yes, cold and
dispassionate logic may feel like the antithesis of love, but it’s often the
way you avoid heartbreak. When you’ve chased after the same “type” over and
over again, only to find that it ends in disaster every time, then you need to
be willing to admit that maybe you need to look to other women. If the patterns
of your relationships suggest that you’re continually breaking up after a
certain number of months, then you need to examine the patterns that
lead to the failure and – critically – be willing to address them. If you’re
continually making the same mistakes, there will be no “right”, only varying
shades of “wrong”.
Can You Trust Her?
In the scheme of things, being able to trust
someone is a fairly glaringly obvious must-have. After all, if you’re going to
be forming a relationship with her, you need to be able to trust her.
But trust isn’t just about whether or not you
can expect someone to not betray a monogamous commitment. Nor is it just about
not worrying about what they’ve been up to when you haven’t seen them all day
or even whether you can give them a key to your apartment and not come home to
find all of your stuff missing. Yes, this is all incredibly important… but
that’s not all that trust is. Trust is a many-sided thing, and
something that’s going to directly affect whether or not she’s right for you.
The question is whether you can trust her
with yourself. Not just with your heart, but with your true self.
The “you” that’s there when you’ve removed all of your armor, the “you” when
you aren’t putting up the personas and false-faces we all present to the world.
Are you able to trust her enough to show her
your dark side? Are you comfortable enough, secure enough with
her that you can trust her with knowing the parts of you that you’re ashamed
of, the parts that you try to wish away, the ones you bury deep down and try to
hide from everybody – including yourself? Can you trust her enough to share
your entire self with her and to still have her accept you?
Can you trust her enough to be open, to be emotionally naked in front of her?
To let your real emotions flow, no matter how embarrassing or
“unmanly” they may be? Are you able to share not just your hopes and dreams but
your fears and anxieties? Can you trust her enough to admit that you’re scared
without fearing her thinking less of you?
That level of trust is hard
to come by. It’s easy to trust somebody on the surface – not to break a promise
to us, not to lie, to live up to their responsibilities. It’s another entirely
to trust her with your soul.
And it should be, because
someone who’s right for you is someone special.
So keep all this in mind. Because you want to
make sure that you’re right for her too.
Your views are most welcome...
But my husband has made some monumental mistakes in
our marriage, and
has said and done things I thought I’d never heal from. And I have made
some pretty egregious errors myself. Yet each time I’m convinced I’ve
had it, when I’m running on fumes and it seems our differences are far
too great to overcome, he somehow guides us gently back from the brink.
He’ll hang our wedding portrait on the wall, next to the picture of my
parents. Then make me a bowl of Cream of Wheat or take me out for
coffee, and remind me of the best marriage advice we’ve ever been given.
