Do Opposites Really Attract? What does your local matchmaker think?

Everyone knows the old saying “opposites attract”. You probably heard about it growing up from your parents, grandparents, and old time tales. As a matter of fact, when I am meeting with clients and I am going down their relationship history I always ask what initially attracted them to their partners and 8 times out of 10 they say something along the lines of “I liked that they complemented me” followed by examples such as “they were outgoing and I was shy” or “they liked staying in during the weekend and I needed to be tamed down“. Interesting enough, when I followed up with the question “Why did things end”, 9 times out of 10 it had something to do with what initially attracted to them- so I would hear things like “they had the Peter Pan syndrome and wanted attention all the time” or “they were so boring and never wanted to do anything”. As you can conclude, the very same thing that initially attracted them to their partner was the very same thing that led to the relationships demise.

So how did this saying come to be? Well, there is some truth to it. You see, opposites DO attract, BUT they don’t stay together long term. It Is actually sort of funny when I am meeting with clients and I go down the list of what I think would be their perfect match. The client will stop me halfway down the list and say “um, I think you are describing me”. And they are right! I am describing them because research shows that birds of a feather flock together and that holds true to relationships. The more your partner is similar to you, the better the match.

When working with your local matchmaker or if you are playing matchmaker yourself, I‘d encourage you to emphasize the importance of being matched with someone that shares the same values as you. While having SOME differences is healthy (that is how we grow as humans and learn from our partners” it is more important to have compatibility in the big areas of your life. Things like, wanting kids, politics, how you view money etc. It may sound like a lot of work but that is why you have matchmakers. We can take the work out of dating so that you focus on the fun part!