Do Opposites Attract?

I have been asked numerous times in my life if opposites attract. I have always been a firm believer in 'opposites attract'. I do think that people with different temperaments and personalities can have successful relationships, and friendships. I would like to point out that most of the time, 'opposites attract' is truer in friendships, in my opinion. However insightful I am about this topic, I am not an expert. So I can only speak to you on my experiences and hope that my input can be helpful in some way. But, to be safe, what do the experts say?

Research indicates that we prefer to associate with people who share our values and interests. What is interesting is that some researchers found that when it comes to personality traits, we are in favor of those with traits that compliment ours. For friendship and affiliation we like people that are the same as we are, and for romantic relationships we prefer a dominant/ submissive or an opposite.

Interestingly when in comes to romantic relationships researchers have found that greater complimentary pairings were found in divorced couples than in still married couples. A different study found high numbers of similar pairings in highly satisfied couples. All agreed that most couples that were successful pairs were similar in affiliation and different in dominance.

So what do I think about all this? I would say that the research reflects most of my personal experiences in my friendships and in my romantic relationships. I personally prefer to be friends with people with different personalities than mine, because I find others with my personality to be rude, presumptive, arrogant, and overwhelming. There cannot be two cooks in the kitchen, so for my friendships I appreciate people with different personalities, as long as our fundamental values and interests are matching.

An example would be the friendship I once had with someone named David.

David and I met in college around the time I was taking Algebra and Geometry. My Algebra class was from 8:00-10:00 pm, so we were usually the only students in the math study room. Now, I like math- a lot. In fact, I think its super fun. But liking something and being good at it are two different things. So I saw an Asian kid, and I took the opportunity to cultivate what I thought was going to be a very useful friendship. As luck would have it, I had found the only Asian at my school who had flunked math.  Before I figured this out, I would initiate conversations with him by asking him for help with my homework. I then volunteered him to help me study for tests and quizzes. Luckily, correcting David when he was trying to help me study, is what probably helped me pass my classes.

When I figured out math wasn't going to be the center of our friendship I decided we could still be friends and I began to get to know him. What I found was that we were the complete opposites personality wise. David is really a simple person. This does not mean he is stupid- quite the opposite. I can only explain this through an example: when I asked David if he thought one of our mutual friends liked me I gave him all these examples- pros, cons, stories, body language, lists upon lists,ect. Instead of taking all of that into account, David looked at me blankly for about 45 seconds and then said,"Well, he doesn't really talk. But he talks to you .......... I've known him longer, but you know way more. So I think he does."

I appreciated his succinctness. Anyone that knows me, knows that I go off on tangents, and go into a lot of detail when I speak. I found we were a funny pair. I am very animated and very very extra, in all things, David is calm, like the eye of a storm, he thinks before he speaks, and is slow to anger. Despite our differences our friendship blossomed over a similar sense of humor and a love for fast food.