How do people become close friends or SOs and then find out they had little in common?

[Kolga]

@Dave_Hartwick

Some people are a little stupid, maybe.

I vote for this for the understatement of the history of humanity.

[wonky]

@Kolga

People don’t know themselves as well as they think they do. So much of the time we are unaware of our attitudes toward things unless and/or until we’re forced to articulate them. It’s easy, therefore, to spend a lot of life without doing the deep self-reflection that we assume everyone does.

If you don’t know your own attitudes and opinions, it’s hard to share those accurately with others.

I think this is a key point, and clearly expressed.

One of the things I like about participating on a board like this is it forces me to think about questions I might not ask myself without a bit of prompting. There are lots of things couples might never get around to asking because they’ve never realized there was a question or never really thought about what their answer would even be.

[billfish678]

A variation of this problem.

Pick an “issue” that people might feel strongly about one way or another. Say, on average 50 percent feel one way and 50 percent feel the other on any given issue.

Two issues and only 1 in 4 will agree with you on both. 5 issues and now only 1 in 32 will. 8 issues and its one in 256. 10 issues and its one in 1012. It doesnt take too many more to get to one in million.

There are MANY things in this world to feel strongly about, way damn more than 10 or so. Even if you really know and like somebody, there is almost certainly something that will eventually trigger a “Bill is such a nice and smart person, I just CANNOT believe he thinks such and such about XYZ…I thought I really knew Bill but apparently I don’t !!!”

[The_wind_of_my_soul]

@MandaJo

For some things, I think people’s views are so hard-wired that they don’t even think to check that their friend/SO agrees with them because it never occurred to them that anyone would disagree. These are lifestyle things: when should money be spent? When should it be saved? How does one treat a guest? How should a child be disciplined? How do neighbors relate to each other? How are birthdays celebrated? What is a healthy dinner? How are chores divided?

Many of these things don’t get “talked out” early on because they never come up, and both people think that their standards or methods are universal.

Those specific examples you provided were very insightful. I was having trouble imagining what could be a real, significant issue that could fly under the radar for a long time, and those were all excellent examples that made me realize how much I still have to learn about my SO. Thank you.

[Staggerlee]

@Barkis_is_Willin

A lot of my college friends were people I only met because we lived in close proximity in the dorms. Our interests were the same…get drunk.

I second this. In fact, way beyond our college years, my last serious girlfriend and I had a lot of intoxication in common. We fell in bleary love, rat-arsed. This gives both parties an easy way to ignore the other’s faults and incompatibilities, and anything you do argue over can be blamed on the drink. For years. We clashed in politics, class, taste, interests and even sex, only really ‘clicking’ in the pub.