I feel that I need to clear something up about those of us who are into serious relationships.
I think the most common misconception by single people about serious long term relationships is the 2 people have to be at least mostly compatible emotionally with common interests. And the single people who tell me that's how they see serious relationships should be always ended up not being able to stay in a serious relationship for long.
Back a few years ago, my friend and I got into a conversation about relationships. A question came up in my mind and I asked her "if someone makes a clone of you but it's a guy, would you date him?" She answered very quickly "I'm not my type."
This made me think. The last time I was in a long term committed relationship with someone who pretty much was a clone of myself, it ended up in disaster. We started hating each other for no apparent reason. It took me years to figure out why. We had common interests, common goals, even common education and intelligence levels. And that's just it. When we looked at each other, after a while we could only see each other's faults.
While I didn't consciously make the decision to look for guys that were different than myself, after that experience I started going for guys that were not completely compatible to me. The most successful relationship I've ever been in is the current one I am in.
Physically, he is nothing like me. Totally different family background. 7 year younger. His interests are nothing like mine. Heck, even with music he and I listen to totally different stuff. I can confidently say we have almost nothing in common. And yet we've been together for more than 2 years and are still going strong. We spend a lot of time together, and we don't ever get tired of each other.
How do we get anything done if we have totally different interests? Where he wants to go, for example, is totally different than where I want to go. But see, both of us are very willing to compromise, and in the end we always work something out.
He and I have talked extensively on why it is that we're so compatible even though we ain't got anything in common. He thinks our differences are what spice up our lives. And I agree.
See, having compatible emotions and interests only work the first few months. Then it gets extremely boring. But having almost nothing in common has forced us to make an effort to make our relationship work.
Let me tell you this. If I had met my boyfriend at any other time before, we would never have stayed together. Why? We're too different. But it just happens that at the time I had just broken up with my boyfriend and was in the mood for just sex with no commitment. I was on the look out for a young, hot twink.
Nowadays, my boyfriend has admitted to me that at the time, he was just looking for some fun also after his ex went to prison for having child porn on his computer.
In other words, we both started out just looking for some fun. We noticed right away that we had nothing in common. Who knew that's exactly what both of us needed?
