This is a ninth article in the series about romantic love and related issues. Here’s a list of all articles in the series.
There’s no rule as such that opposites attract each other in love. People get attracted to all sorts of people for various reasons. But many a time we see such people getting attracted to each other who share the traits sufficiently different from each other to call it “attraction of the opposites”. That raises the curious question as to why the people with different nature get attracted to each other.
The question is important because it is not an ideal situation for a healthy relationship. The prime reason why romantic love relationships fail is that after the initial romantic love magic wanes, the couple is left with no real substance. They don’t have common interests and passions, they don’t share each other’s thoughts; they have different nature. These are excellent reasons for any relationship to not be. So the fact that one does get attracted to the person with opposite (i.e. largely different) traits is, well, discomforting.
Ideally the attraction should work between the people with the same traits. That’s what is conducive to a healthy social association. Think of friendships. We make friends on the basis of what we have in common, not on the basis of what we don’t have in common. The more things friends have in common the better the friendship. Isn’t it? Life partnership is also a kind of friendship. So, ideal would be when the partners have the same nature. When the opposites are attracted, they can’t really even form a friendship; how then is successful life partnership possible? Their relationship is only based on hormonal attraction, and would last only till the romantic love magic lasts. But of course, under the effect of romantic love people (most of them anyway) are totally blinded and incapacitated to think all this.
Back to the question: If it is not ideal for a relationship then why opposites attract on the first place?
The answer lies in our genes. The researchers in the field speculate that the reason behind people of the largely different traits getting attracted to each other is to enable genetic diversity in the species. We know that romantic love is essentially a mating drive. (Refer to the first article.) It’s a trap of Nature to serve the purpose of reproduction and mating. Now suppose if I mate with a woman who is exactly like me, the offspring will not be genetically much different from its parents, which would be defying the purpose of natural selection in evolution. But if I mate with women who have the traits I lack, then the genetic pool of the human species will prosper. This is the reason our biology creates attraction between the so-called opposites. It is healthy for the overall growth of the species; albeit, at the cost of our wellbeing as conscious, rational beings!
Note that science still doesn’t have definitive explanation of it. Because there are also cases in which people with the same traits get attracted to each other. So, like I said in the beginning, there’s no rule as such that opposites attract. It’s a very complex human behavior, which even science has not fully figured out. However, there have been experiments confirming that attraction between the people with largely different traits does exist.
To conclude: Though we do get attracted to the people with largely different traits than our own, and it can be the same euphoric romantic love experience, this attraction is not a good reason to get into a serious long-term relationship (like marriage). Such relationship, if entered into, would be subject to the perils of the irrational romantic love relationship. A true partnership (true love) is not all about romantic love. For a true partnership to develop, the partners must not be different at least at the fundamental level.
There’s no rule as such that opposites attract each other in love. People get attracted to all sorts of people for various reasons. But many a time we see such people getting attracted to each other who share the traits sufficiently different from each other to call it “attraction of the opposites”. That raises the curious question as to why the people with different nature get attracted to each other.
The question is important because it is not an ideal situation for a healthy relationship. The prime reason why romantic love relationships fail is that after the initial romantic love magic wanes, the couple is left with no real substance. They don’t have common interests and passions, they don’t share each other’s thoughts; they have different nature. These are excellent reasons for any relationship to not be. So the fact that one does get attracted to the person with opposite (i.e. largely different) traits is, well, discomforting.
Ideally the attraction should work between the people with the same traits. That’s what is conducive to a healthy social association. Think of friendships. We make friends on the basis of what we have in common, not on the basis of what we don’t have in common. The more things friends have in common the better the friendship. Isn’t it? Life partnership is also a kind of friendship. So, ideal would be when the partners have the same nature. When the opposites are attracted, they can’t really even form a friendship; how then is successful life partnership possible? Their relationship is only based on hormonal attraction, and would last only till the romantic love magic lasts. But of course, under the effect of romantic love people (most of them anyway) are totally blinded and incapacitated to think all this.
Back to the question: If it is not ideal for a relationship then why opposites attract on the first place?
The answer lies in our genes. The researchers in the field speculate that the reason behind people of the largely different traits getting attracted to each other is to enable genetic diversity in the species. We know that romantic love is essentially a mating drive. (Refer to the first article.) It’s a trap of Nature to serve the purpose of reproduction and mating. Now suppose if I mate with a woman who is exactly like me, the offspring will not be genetically much different from its parents, which would be defying the purpose of natural selection in evolution. But if I mate with women who have the traits I lack, then the genetic pool of the human species will prosper. This is the reason our biology creates attraction between the so-called opposites. It is healthy for the overall growth of the species; albeit, at the cost of our wellbeing as conscious, rational beings!
Note that science still doesn’t have definitive explanation of it. Because there are also cases in which people with the same traits get attracted to each other. So, like I said in the beginning, there’s no rule as such that opposites attract. It’s a very complex human behavior, which even science has not fully figured out. However, there have been experiments confirming that attraction between the people with largely different traits does exist.
To conclude: Though we do get attracted to the people with largely different traits than our own, and it can be the same euphoric romantic love experience, this attraction is not a good reason to get into a serious long-term relationship (like marriage). Such relationship, if entered into, would be subject to the perils of the irrational romantic love relationship. A true partnership (true love) is not all about romantic love. For a true partnership to develop, the partners must not be different at least at the fundamental level.
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