One trait where opposites attract is money. I noticed often in couples, there is one with money and one without. I guess this is out of necessity and it satisfies both the poorer person's need for sustenance and the richer person's need for control over the relationship.
In general, in many relationships, one is controlling and the other is controllable. Relationships with two tigers often don't last because they can't stop fighting and few people tolerate that kind of constant emotional discomfort. For relationships, it's probably best if both people are moderate.
Are you describing not an opposite, but a difference? Obviously, given any two randomly selected persons, it is much more likely that they will earn different salaries than that they will earn the same. Men tend to make more than women, largely because of differences between what men and women prioritize in life and career, because women often leave their jobs for extended periods of time to raise children, etc. Ergo, you can expect that for any married couple, the husband is more likely to earn more than the wife. This is desired by many women, because someone has to earn a living when they are on maternity leave.
> I noticed often in couples, there is one with money and one without.
Where did you "notice" this exactly? Because this is false. People tend to mate according to similarity of socioeconomic class. That means similarity of economic class. Cultural factors (the "socio" in "socioeconomic") are also important and correlate with economic factors. Greater similarly of cultural factors and economic factors creates greater opportunity and affordances for pairing. There's a greater common ground to work with. You're not going to find many classically educated billionaires married to barely literate burger flippers.
> I guess this is out of necessity and it satisfies both the poorer person's need for sustenance and the richer person's need for control over the relationship.
I don't know what bizarro world you live in, but this is not the general case. Again, people tend to mate according to socioeconomic similarity. That means both are earning within a similar-ish range or some from families with similar socioeconomic characteristics. The only way you can conceivably control someone in this manner is not to out-earn them, but the one earning less must earn less than needed to survive, have no realistic prospect of providing for themselves, and have no family or friends he or she can rely on. Telling someone you'll take away their Birkin bag isn't much of a threat to a poor person; starvation is. Your view of what most marriages are like is, frankly, delusional and dark, like something from an incel forum.
> I don't know what bizarro world you live in, but this is not the general case.
So called "west" is not the whole world, it's actually minority of the world. What you describe as "general case" is probably accurate in case of many western countries but not in many countries in Asia, Africa and South America.
Whenever you appeal to anecdata, you might want to pause a moment and check for actual data. Turns out that no, wealth alignment is likely one of the largest factors for finding a partner[1] and the number of couples with similar wealth is increasing [2].
"Relationships with two tigers often don't last because they can't stop fighting and few people tolerate that kind of constant emotional discomfort."
And no, most relationships aren't divided in "controlling" and "controllable" either. In fact, that's a pretty good predictor for partner violence. [3]
While this may be true and borne out by data, I believe jongjong is trying to delicately illustrate something along the lines of the “women be shopping” phenomenon illustrated by the 1996 economics treatise “The Nutty Professor”
It was many years ago, but I recall seeing some kind of study with a considerably large n and it basically boiled down to male doctors marry secretaries, schoolteachers, and nurses and female doctors marry other doctors and CEOs. There is definitely some kind of sex-related factor controlling for how important partner income is viewed to be.
What I haven't seen is any data on same sex relationships. Are men as indifferent to a male partner's earning potential as they are to a female partner's? How about for women, do same sex attracted female doctors also prefer other female doctors, or do they pair with female nurses and secretaries?
Out of curiosity: Let's say the poor person is sexualy attractive. Is sex appeal vs money always in favor of the later? I know couples where the sexy one is the controller even against a person with more financial leverage.
I agree with your assessment. I guess the more wealth imbalance there is, the more room there is for physical attractiveness imbalance. There is some kind of equilibrium at play.
It's tempting to think that the one with money is getting the better deal (e.g. in terms of evolutionary biology) but I feel like it's a flaw in our psyche as it overlooks the power of capital and capital's ability to make itself more valuable over time. Attractiveness generally only declines over time, unlike capital which only appreciates.
> richer person's need for control over the relationship
Sometimes, it's not necessarily about control, as a sexually attractive female alpha may not be controlled by a male beta, the dynamics can be the other way around. However, it still works because a wealthy male can have a trophy wife/gf that can show off around, get satisfied sexually, while female gain control and access to resources.
I'm averse to drawing too many conclusions, as impressive as the study is. For one thing, it always seemed to be that the primary feature in finding a long term partner is simply geography: everyone in my hometown linked up with people in highschool, many got pregnant, and that was that.
Second, I'm looking through the article and not seeing analysis on whether this idea of similarity in partner choosing is a mechanism in choosing a partner or holding a partner, or both. Personally I've found I have a habit of being initially very attracted to people with certain traits that I find really unattractive long term. As I got older it tempered me into working a bit harder to learn more about someone to find what traits they have that I find long-term attractive that you really can't know from just a few dates.
I know so many people in unhappy relationships that are either truly stuck or believe they're stuck, due to economic factors, a child, or simply being unable to face the uncertainty of life without the partner they don't love or even hate. That's without even getting into abuse traps.
People with good career prospects tend to marry each other. A side effect is increased household inequality. The day of the high-wage finance guy marrying a low-wage school teacher are mostly gone. Now it’s a well-paid lawyer marrying a well-paid doctor.
I mean, how many interracial couples do you see around you? In PA, USA, I see around 98% of white girls with white guys, 99.9% of Indian girls with Indian dudes, and around 85% of Asian girls with Asian guys (the rest are exclusively with white guys). Interestingly, even among white-white couples, I've seen the majority of blonde girls with blonde guys (the rest prefer black dudes for some reason).
Yes, it's a relatively small sample (just a US state), but I've seen enough to conclude that at least when it comes to ethnicity/race/skin-color, opposites don't attract each other. There's a term for it—homophily.
Over 40% of marriages in Hawaii are interracial and around 15% of new marriages nationwide are [1]. And this is 10 year old data. I'm sure it's more now.
My dad one time told me that the reason he married my mom was because they were opposites. He's antisocial and she is a social butterfly, he thought it would be a good idea... 27 years later, ¯ \ ( ° _ o ) / ¯
Introversion/extroversion is very surface-level. If you look at the study, you see that "value-oriented" traits (views on politics/religion/children/education/family etc.) tend to have higher correlation when compared to personality traits:
> Across analyses, political and religious attitudes, educational attainment and some substance use traits showed the highest correlations, while psychological (that is, psychiatric/personality) and anthropometric traits generally yielded lower but positive correlations.
See an interesting chart here[1]. Anecdotally, I'm also pretty introverted and attracted to extroverted women. On the other hand, I'm also a Christian and have a hard time dating someone that doesn't at least share some set of overlapping moral and ethical values. I also don't smoke, and could probably never date a habitual smoker (no matter how attractive she was on other axes).
Values is definitely the thing that needs to overlap. My wife and I have talked about this quite a bit, and my anecdata would roughly support the study. I think one person being anal, and the other carefree, outgoing vs homebody, that’s the opposites attract part. But if you have one person that thinks you need to go to church, or that school is the most important thing for a kid and the other doesn’t, it’s trouble. My wife and I are from different cultures and are different types of people, but are values really overlap where it counts.
Given how much social filtering is implicit in much of life, self-assorting, it should be seen as "opposites [in a mere few attributes] attract".
Narcissism of small differences provides an informative context for opposites. People from deeply similar niches, of social habits, education, work and other attributes, pair well with other people, highly similar, who maintain a few essential differences.
> including millions of male-female co-parents, engaged pairs, married pairs or cohabitating pairs
The study was looking at long term couples which is fair to do. I believe internally, we all know this - I'm looking for a long term partner with similar desires.
Opposites attract during short term relationships - a lot. There's something "exciting" about it, but long term the excitement doesn't make a healthy relationship, probably the most toxic.
We do the - Marry, Fu__, Kill for a reason. Many times Fu__ turns into Kill given enough time.
The less punchy title would be: Opposites Don't Attract in Long Term Relationships
Hard disagree. What are some obvious opposites - fat/skinny, smart/dumb, rich/poor, short/tall, crazy/not crazy… does anyone really think the greater the distance between those qualities the stronger the attraction, in any type of relationship? No. Sorry. That is just silly and not born out by anyone’s experience.
To be fair, for the average male when looking for a quick hookup, it makes no difference if the woman is his "opposite" or not. The only variable that matters is "is she hot or not". Knowing that, it makes perfect sense for the study to focus on long term relationships.
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In general, in many relationships, one is controlling and the other is controllable. Relationships with two tigers often don't last because they can't stop fighting and few people tolerate that kind of constant emotional discomfort. For relationships, it's probably best if both people are moderate.
> I noticed often in couples, there is one with money and one without.
Where did you "notice" this exactly? Because this is false. People tend to mate according to similarity of socioeconomic class. That means similarity of economic class. Cultural factors (the "socio" in "socioeconomic") are also important and correlate with economic factors. Greater similarly of cultural factors and economic factors creates greater opportunity and affordances for pairing. There's a greater common ground to work with. You're not going to find many classically educated billionaires married to barely literate burger flippers.
> I guess this is out of necessity and it satisfies both the poorer person's need for sustenance and the richer person's need for control over the relationship.
I don't know what bizarro world you live in, but this is not the general case. Again, people tend to mate according to socioeconomic similarity. That means both are earning within a similar-ish range or some from families with similar socioeconomic characteristics. The only way you can conceivably control someone in this manner is not to out-earn them, but the one earning less must earn less than needed to survive, have no realistic prospect of providing for themselves, and have no family or friends he or she can rely on. Telling someone you'll take away their Birkin bag isn't much of a threat to a poor person; starvation is. Your view of what most marriages are like is, frankly, delusional and dark, like something from an incel forum.
So called "west" is not the whole world, it's actually minority of the world. What you describe as "general case" is probably accurate in case of many western countries but not in many countries in Asia, Africa and South America.
Whenever you appeal to anecdata, you might want to pause a moment and check for actual data. Turns out that no, wealth alignment is likely one of the largest factors for finding a partner[1] and the number of couples with similar wealth is increasing [2].
"Relationships with two tigers often don't last because they can't stop fighting and few people tolerate that kind of constant emotional discomfort."
And no, most relationships aren't divided in "controlling" and "controllable" either. In fact, that's a pretty good predictor for partner violence. [3]
[1] https://academic.oup.com/sf/advance-article-abstract/doi/10....
[2] https://www.niussp.org/family-and-households/homogamy-among-...
[3] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/088626051988468...
If you’re comparing yourself to your partner in any capacity there will likely be tension.
What I haven't seen is any data on same sex relationships. Are men as indifferent to a male partner's earning potential as they are to a female partner's? How about for women, do same sex attracted female doctors also prefer other female doctors, or do they pair with female nurses and secretaries?
It's tempting to think that the one with money is getting the better deal (e.g. in terms of evolutionary biology) but I feel like it's a flaw in our psyche as it overlooks the power of capital and capital's ability to make itself more valuable over time. Attractiveness generally only declines over time, unlike capital which only appreciates.
Deleted Comment
Sometimes, it's not necessarily about control, as a sexually attractive female alpha may not be controlled by a male beta, the dynamics can be the other way around. However, it still works because a wealthy male can have a trophy wife/gf that can show off around, get satisfied sexually, while female gain control and access to resources.
Deleted Comment
Second, I'm looking through the article and not seeing analysis on whether this idea of similarity in partner choosing is a mechanism in choosing a partner or holding a partner, or both. Personally I've found I have a habit of being initially very attracted to people with certain traits that I find really unattractive long term. As I got older it tempered me into working a bit harder to learn more about someone to find what traits they have that I find long-term attractive that you really can't know from just a few dates.
I know so many people in unhappy relationships that are either truly stuck or believe they're stuck, due to economic factors, a child, or simply being unable to face the uncertainty of life without the partner they don't love or even hate. That's without even getting into abuse traps.
Complements and mutuals.
That is, individuals who balance one another out, but also share at least some common foundation.
Yes, it's a relatively small sample (just a US state), but I've seen enough to conclude that at least when it comes to ethnicity/race/skin-color, opposites don't attract each other. There's a term for it—homophily.
[1] - https://www.staradvertiser.com/2012/02/16/breaking-news/hawa...
My comment is indeed about ethnicity/race/skin-color. In this context, I've noticed intense homophily.
> Across analyses, political and religious attitudes, educational attainment and some substance use traits showed the highest correlations, while psychological (that is, psychiatric/personality) and anthropometric traits generally yielded lower but positive correlations.
See an interesting chart here[1]. Anecdotally, I'm also pretty introverted and attracted to extroverted women. On the other hand, I'm also a Christian and have a hard time dating someone that doesn't at least share some set of overlapping moral and ethical values. I also don't smoke, and could probably never date a habitual smoker (no matter how attractive she was on other axes).
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373552866/figure/fi...
Narcissism of small differences provides an informative context for opposites. People from deeply similar niches, of social habits, education, work and other attributes, pair well with other people, highly similar, who maintain a few essential differences.
I feel quite baited into replying.
The study was looking at long term couples which is fair to do. I believe internally, we all know this - I'm looking for a long term partner with similar desires.
Opposites attract during short term relationships - a lot. There's something "exciting" about it, but long term the excitement doesn't make a healthy relationship, probably the most toxic.
We do the - Marry, Fu__, Kill for a reason. Many times Fu__ turns into Kill given enough time.
The less punchy title would be: Opposites Don't Attract in Long Term Relationships
My parents are as different as can be, yet somehow they work well together.
Difference is not just difference. There are different kinds of differences.