Do opposites really attract?

Possibly, but there are also those like myself who repel everybody.

Im about 6’1, a gamer, stoner, enjoy a good beer and being out with friends.

My gf is about 5’ flat, a shopper, workaholic, doesnt like to drink, smokes once in a blue moon, always stays home.

But i love er.

I’m inclined to believe that you’re attracted to those aspects of another that are most like yourself, appearances to the contrary (and vise versa).

My wife and i are exact opposites, according to every astrogical site i have visited. i am a Sag. and she is a Cancer. my wife is a homebody deluxe. i like to travel, have fun and mix with people in a crowd. after we married, in 1965, we both knew we were opposites and sat down and had a long discussion with each other. we knew we loved each other, so a big understanding was necessary, if we were to survive. i agreed to furnish my wife a nice, comfortable home that would always be there for her and for me. that i understand the Crabs need a home to crawl back to. she agreed to travel with me and to become a people person. did we change each others personality for the benefit of our marriage? yes. has it worked? yes. its taken a great effort on both our parts to make this work. both of us are determined people. bottom line here is this: when two people love and respect each other enough, they can take their astrological signs and shove it where sun don’t shine. we are still together, having our fun and sometimes staying home for a day or two for my crab, for 44 years.

@JesusWasAJewbot Those are pretty opposite for sure!

@john65pennington Great answer, thanks for sharing!

I don’t have a SO currently, but looking back on my past SOs I can say that I tend to go for guys who are opposite of me, at least in looks. I’m 5’5, blonde, and fair skin; who I have dated in the past most have all been at least 6’4, black or dark brown hair, and dark skin. I read somewhere that people tend to go for the opposite of them in looks because if you have a lot of sampling of gene types, the children will be healthier. because they are diverse in genes. (Or something like that, I could be botching it)

As for being opposite of your partner in personality or interests, I find that to be exciting. I like it when you can learn something from your partner. I have a friend who is the complete opposite of me (gender, looks, personality, interests, hobbies, even family structure, etc) We rarely talk about something I already know everything about. And if I do, it’s nice to get a different perspective on something.

@JesusWasAJewbot HEY are u my boyfriend???

@john65pennington Cause astrological signs are really valid…

Depends on whether you’re a polarity responder or not.

Some relationships can be described by the attraction of opposites and some can’t. There is by no means a single template that can be applied to relationships. I think I have seen more like-mindedness and compatibility of temperament, intellect, values, and interests in successful long-term relationships than I have opposites, even though oppositeness can be very exciting in the short term.

Complementarity—one component having something that the other does not—isn’t necessarily opposition. Many things that we like to think of as opposites really are not opposites at all—the reverse of each other, or extreme endpoints on a continuum—but rather are complementary pairs. Male and female are one example. Men and women are more alike than they are different, but they are no more “opposite” than salt and pepper are “opposite.”

i tend to go for guys with similar personalities to mine. i have tried dating people with different personalities but those relationships never work quite as well as the ones where we are similar. i guess im the opposite of what everyone says…opposites do not attract me usually.

I guess it depends. Some people I can’t get along with at all because we are too much alike, and yet I am married to someone who is just like me, only better.

I have come to believe that this is a true statement. :)

My boyfriend listens to bands like Papa Roach , Nickelback and Linkin Park . . .
I listen to bands like Queen , Dave Brubeck Quartet , Miles Davis , Pink Martini . . .

Enough said (=

I agree with Jeruba.

In my experience, most long term relationships are based more on similarities than dissimilarity. Often opposites attract for pathological reasons as well, the extrovert and the introvert, both may ‘get’ some missing componant from the other, an initial balancing, but, ultimately the differences are likely to cause a lot of frusteration.

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. They do but only in the sense that you get excited when the carnival comes to town or you go on a vacation. It is a super charges roller coaster like experience, a depart from the mundane norm. It is unpredictable and a little dangerous sometimes, but they don’t last. When the novelty wears off those bells and whistles that attracted because they were different will get old and annoying. If you are pretty much a couch potato who is in to snacking off junk food while playing hours of video games mating up with a health freak who is up at 5:30am each day for a 1.5 mile run, eats healthy stuff and would never think of sitting around with you eating junk food playing video games when they could be out at the museum or painting by the river, you will eventually see there is little you have outside the bedroom that you share in common. And once the sex goes, you have nothing left at all.

@Hypocrisy_Central Can’t wholly disagree, but yours is an example of extremes. I would offer that even in your extreme situation, if these people cared for each other, maybe couch potato would get off the couch and go for a nice walk in the woods with their gym rat and maybe GR would sit and play some WI fitness with CP. Relationships where people share in their likes enrich the participants and help the relationship grow. Perfect world scenario…I know but it is when they fade away from their SO’s interests is when the relationship stagnates or dies.

@Cruiser True, as you say if one or both are willing to truly embrace the interest of the other than there is a chance it could work. And it will take work to make it happen. Many I have seen just were not able to stay the course or had the umph to do it completely, it was more out of necessity like trying to like scrapbooking because that gal you were really smitten with loved it. People are who they are and if there is something they really find boring it will be hard for even the person they are dating to make it exciting unless she is bringing a BJ with it or something.

If it’s work I don’t want it.

Uh uh…good stuff that flows is never work.