When it comes to friendships and relationships, usually birds of a feather flock together. However, every now and then you see good friends or couples who are completely different each other. Some examples:
A strong democrat and a staunch republican
A Christian and a hardcore atheist
A really spontaneous person and a really rigid person
If you ever had a good friend and/or partner that was/is completely different from you, I want to know how did you all meet. What was it that attracted you to this person?
I can’t answer the first two, but the last one I can address.
Basically you fill each other’s needs. I am impulsive, willful, a bit flighty, optimistic, and cheerful. He is serious, sober, thoughtful, pessimistic, and a worrier. I am compassionate and good with people. He is responsible and the kind of person you can count on. He keeps me tethered to the ground so I can fly but not get lost, and I keep him from sinking deeper and deeper into murk. Together we make a wonderful couple.
If I had another person like me we’d never be able to pay bills or be serious at all. If he had another person like him he’d have a hard time having fun since he’d be worrying all the time. Opposites are better in our case at least.
My best friend is an atheist, and I’m fairly religious. We have a lot of other interests in common, though. My religion and his lack thereof just don’t generally come up in our conversations.
His head is usually in orbit around Pluto. The only reason she doesn’t walk on all fours and making sure three of them are safely anchored before lifting the fourth is that it isn’t socially acceptable.
He would be perfectly happy wearing the same clothes 25 days in a row; he’d change the shorts daily but sniff at the rest and decide whether each individual piece could be re-worn or not. She has been known to buy three separate outfits for one occassion, and of course only ever get to wear the last one. He contrived this deal about two years into their marriage where, if she wants him to throw old clothes away and get new ones, she has to give away to a local charity an equivalent volume of her own clothes (4 years since and they’ve kept the deal).
But
they still share the same basic values in many instances,
my mother and SIL often have more in common than SIL and her mom,
they went into their marriage knowing that Love Takes Work and being willing to work at it,
and, as my bro once said
“hell, I’d known her for half an hour and I already knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her!”
OK, works for me!
My grandparents’ 73rd wedding anniversary is next May 12. They’ve spent most of those years fighting because, you know, if you haven’t had a fight, you don’t have an excuse to make up. But they’re still in love; he can’t do no harm in her eyes; she can do no wrong in his. I think my mother would have had less issues with the fighting if they hadn’t been so obviously in love, it simply didn’t and couldn’t fit her own view of the world.
I think a lot of the differences get emphasized more than the similarities. For example, I have a good friend at work whom I definately do not see eye to eye on politics with. We’re not friends because of our political views, we’re friends because we have similar interests and beliefs. But we’re not going to sit and talk about things we agree on. Instead, what you’ll see is the 30 minute heated discussion about whatever the latest political issue is, and you’ll think, gee, how can these two guys be friends?
The same is true for me and Mrs Geek. The first thing you’ll notice right away is that she is a very sociable person, and I’m not. I’m very technical, and she’s not. But the things that are important to us (family, religion, etc) aren’t things that we’d discuss much in front of others. We have more similarities than differences. That’s what keeps us together. But it’s our differences that are noticable.
We also rely on our differences. I rely on Mrs Geek to keep conversations going at social events (something that if I had to do myself I would suck at). She relies on me to fix things around the house.
My husband and I have differing views and opinions on some issues, but we respect one another’s intelligence and never take disagreement personally. We spend countless hours in debates, something we both enjoy. (Going out to dinner with us is like reading a Great Debates thread.) It’s never a matter of trying to change the other’s mind, but rather exploring the reasoning behind differing positions.
As long as both members of a couple are open-minded and willing to accept and respect that disagreement, there should be no trouble. It’s only when one person stubbornly refuses to accept the other’s opinion as valid that there can be issues.
I’ve had a friend for 35 years who’s closer to me than my sisters. We don’t have that much in common on the surface – our politics, tastes and lifestyles are different, sometimes very different. None of that matters.
She’s got my back and I have hers. We’ve cried on each other’s shoulders through deaths, divorces, illnesses and job losses. We’ve celebrated marriages, births and other successes.
We confide in each other because we trust each other implicitly.
There never has been and never will be romance between us, because we know that if we were ever together, we’d probably kill each other. But there’s no limit to our friendship.
That’s a good question. I don’t know what the glue is. My best friend and I have known each other for more than twenty-five years. We live in different parts of the country, we listen to different music, like different movies, read different things, have very different family backgrounds and approaches to things, etc., etc.
I don’t really know why we’re still friends. But I think the world of her, love hanging out with her, and always get something out of discussions with her. She’s a “3 a.m. and I need bail money” kind of friend – she’ll do whatever I need, no questions asked. I’d do the same for her. I have a handful of friends like that. Another is a staunch Republican (I’m a liberal); another is a devout Christian (I have to avoid my favorite curse phrase around her).
I do wonder sometimes why we’re friends. Maybe it’s just because they all think so differently from me, and that fascinates me. I also trust them, but that’s a bit chicken or egg – do I trust them because they’re my friends, or are they my friends because I trust them?
I wish I knew what the glue was. I’d manufacture it and sell it at an exorbitant profit.
I had a friend for several years (he died two years ago) and we shared two common interests… We both admired the female form and we both liked bad horror/comedy movies.
I’m white; he was black.
I’m democrat; he was republican.
I’m a suburbanite; he lived in the city.
I’m a musclehead; he was a tech-head.
I’m a travel-guru; he was a MR/DD teacher.
I’m southern; he was a yankee.
But we got along marvelously. Ate lunch together every Tuesday.
One of our conversations was along the lines of relations and the differences between blacks and whites; and then moved into a discussion about food preferences. He talked about really liking the “rib-and-chicken-joint” downtown.
I said something like “Ahhh… that’s because you’re an urbanite.”
To which he responded…“No… it’s because I’m BLACK!”
…and I waited a beat before responding…
.
.
.
. YOU’RE BLACK?!?!
.
.
The whole bar went silent and stared at us.
And we laaaaa-aaaaughed!
This reminds me of something i read in a psychology book in school years ago on the topic of “opposites attract”. We notice the differences in for example a couple and not the similarities.
Sort of he’s an engineer and she majored in art history. Totally different majors but what they do have in common is that they are both college graduates. So they may have lots more in common than the engineer may have with a mechanic and the art major with a high school dropout painter.
My SO and I are just like that. He’s very spontaneous, I like to know my weekend plans by monday. He wants to run and do all the time, I’d be happy almost never leaving the house. I think and plan and ponder…he says “let’s just go!”. But what we have works. In a lot of ways we’ve learned from each other over the last 5 years, I’ve loosened up some, he’s learning to take the long view of things, etc. Opposites can be a great thing, it’s hard to grow and change if you spend time with people just like you.
