TheChimera wrote:
As mentioned (and may seem a tad contradictory) the compatibility with another can work like a "hook" to a degree. Helping bring people together. But, in a way. Think about it?
The first hurdle of any relationship is getting to know the other person. You dedicate time and effort to learn of them, their interests, their dislikes. It's still a bit of work. Small-talk can be grinding and take loads of effort.
For the initial start?
I saw someone mentioned it earlier and it rings true for me as well. I'm attracted to that persons mind. How they think, what facets their personality has. Even their flaws sometimes. Are they funny and have high intrapersonal skills? Are they easy to talk to? Maybe they're calculating and stoic?
Honestly, with my current Master - I broke past my usual tendencies. I usually go for the charismatic, funny, class-clown type of personality. Master is relatively stoic, calculating, and a very deep thinker. Something way outside of my usual, but it's been going very very well!
I feel keeping myself free of that mentality of "I Gotta be with THE ONE for me!" kind of helps people to try newer things they usually wouldn't and break past their normal "go to's."
Thank you for this really good discussion post! It's been a hot minute since I've really discussed any topics here on The Cage.
Thank you for contributing. i cannot personally give or find and absolute, or black and white answer to the question (i tend to shy away from anyone absolutist). i appreciate all the people who share their views and experience. Which is not to say i don't have thoughts and feelings that go by and share, i just don't know them as absolute fact. I.e., i take peoples stated experience at face value, but i don't take a persons, or even a groups experiences as a universal fact. i see belief as one thing, fact as another.
It seems to me that compatibility can go beyond being a "hook?" To me the challenge is there is probably no such thing as 100% compatibility in human relationship and where there is incompatibility is where "work" can help? i see compatibility as important to the longevity of a relationship. E.g., Putting two Doms or two subs together in a romantic relationship seems hard to sustain if it's important enough to one or the other that they have their opposite for connection and fulfillment? Of course, there are all sorts of arrangements, like "open relationships." i know two Dom guys who have been married over 25 years, so that can throw all sorts of monkey wrenches in notions of compatibility lol.
i'm a gay bottom/sub guy who stayed married to a seemingly sub woman for 30 years (i had religious beliefs that kept me from self acceptance for a long time). i did/do love this woman (divorced 10 years), but we were not compatible and being together caused us both harm, despite the love. That obviously colors my point of view. We thought we were soul mates, that "God" had brought us together. i stood up in church at age 19 and "confessed" my attraction to guys, my wife to be was there. We were all a part of a belief system that simply didn't believe there was such a thing as "gay," that it just meant i had been "broken." i believed that and spend most of my life 'working' against a big part of who i am, trying to make a relationship work. To be honest, it was torture ( not the good kind... or it may just be because i am not masochist lol).
It took me a long time to realize that some things (apparently) do not change, so compatibility becomes a seemingly vital component. Which is not to discount hard work, but to me there seems to be a balance point?