attract, repel
I never understood the traditional, time-honoured adage of "opposites attract". Let's not even for a moment consider marital relations. Let's just confine it to the realms of friendship.We develop close friendships easily in our younger days due to our malleable personalities and search for identity. The desire to fit in propels our herd-mentality. Our personalities take the form of those we follow. Birds of a feather flock together. Opposites don't attract. Most will disagree that the close friends they now have are vastly different from them. And they may be quite right. But more often that not, these friendships date way back to their childhood days (secondary and jc included), so much so that such shared experiences will inevitably form part of the "similarities" they share. Personalities may differ or have drastically changed, but these treasured memories will hold them stead for a long time.
Look at our older, mature (current) state. Many of us are often unable (and sometimes unwilling) to expend much energy in forming friendships. Differences in personalities/interests will only add to such energy. Less memories are also shared. Which explains why it becomes more difficult to form close friendships when one gets older unless two people are very very similar.
Although I do wonder... Do extroverts have an easier time bonding with different personality-type people, since by definition, they're energized by the presence of people, similar or otherwise? Are friendships between like-minded creatures all that beneficial? How does a typical male and typical female actually get together and marry? By typical, I assume they are innately different, such as the male having male interests and likewise for the female. I guess this is where I challenge the "opposites attract" theory. To me (in a marriage context), it can only refer to the gender.
posted by solitude @ 5:10 PM
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