A lot of dating advice ignores the concepts of compatibility and chemistry, assuming that most people have an intuitive understanding of what these words mean and why they’re so important to a successful relationship. Everyone assumes we know what compatibility and chemistry mean and whether or not we have them.
Dating advice often ignores compatibility and chemistry because they can’t be faked or changed. These ideas are either there or they’re not.
Instead, most dating advice focuses on the basics of dating: what to say, when to say it, and how not to look like a jerk. Dating advice also caters to people who want “breakthroughs.” They want to know how to turn off the guy they feel is out of their league, to trick, impress, or somehow convince him or her to notice us: 3 Things We Say to the Girl We Never Knew About Before. Here’s What to Wear to Attract the Guy We’ve Been Imagining. Don’t Talk About Pineapples on a First Date If You Don’t Want to Die Alone.
And if that guy or girl who isn’t right for us isn’t right for us, well, we don’t want to hear about it.
Compatibility vs. Chemistry
The terms compatibility and chemistry are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. Many people use the words loosely to try to define that thing that exists in the space between two people—the invisible, unspoken connection (or lack thereof). But they are not the same thing at all, and understanding the difference is crucial if you want a happy, healthy, long-lasting relationship.
What is Compatibility?
Compatibility is the natural alignment of two people’s lifestyle choices and values. A youth minister and a drug dealer might be incompatible, and I doubt many end up dating each other.
If I value smart, educated women, and then I meet a high school dropout who is attracted to muscular guys who love deer hunting, then we are faced with a fundamental incompatibility that we will likely never be able to overcome and will never date. At least not for long.
Compatibility is about the long-term potential of two people. High compatibility comes from similarities in lifestyles and values. In general, educated, liberal people tend to date other educated, liberal people. Religious people tend to date religious people.
What is Chemistry?
On the other hand, chemistry represents the emotional connection that exists when two people are together. When there is a high degree of chemistry, this strong connection can bring out warm and fuzzy feelings in each other, creating a kind of positive feedback loop where two people continue to make each other feel better and better.
Related : Narcissism: Where It Comes From and How to Deal With It
When you have a high degree of chemistry with someone, they monopolize your thoughts and/or free time. You will stay up talking until the sun comes up and it won’t even feel like an hour has passed. You will hope that every call or text is for them. You will go through life constantly wondering, “What would x think?” Where x is a song, a bird, a walk in the park, a traffic jam, or a colonoscopy.
Call it passion; call it love; call it a disease. The core traits of your/their personality and the lowest of your/their behaviors wreck each other’s dopamine receptors in a neurological festival of starry dreams.
Chemistry is made up of subtle behaviors and actions that mesh with the other person’s. What is created is a kind of closed karmic loop where both parties feel chemistry equally. The most important rule about chemistry is that no matter how you feel, he or she is likely to feel the same way. You become almost sympathetic to each other.
Artist Alex Grey once said, “True love is when two people have diseases that complement each other.” He was only half joking.
High levels of chemistry usually come from contrasting but complementary qualities in people. A woman who is uptight, active, and slightly neurotic tends to have high levels of chemistry with a man who is laid-back, easy-going, and open. Introverts often have a natural chemistry with extroverts. Organized, intense planners sometimes work better with spontaneous, disorganized people.
Unlike lack of compatibility, lack of chemistry doesn’t turn you off—it simply leads to a lack of emotional intensity. Things feel kind of dead and boring.
Chemistry is also reflected in the bedroom. A lack of chemistry will lead to boring, emotionless sex. High chemistry will mean intense, life-changing sex, heart-pounding sex that sends your mind crashing against the walls of your consciousness. Happy times.
Healthy and Toxic Combinations of Compatibility and Chemistry
Unfortunately, compatibility and chemistry don’t always happen together.
A relationship with high compatibility but low chemistry is likely to be a boring, comfortable series of dates and conversations. It will be a dry, boring relationship until both parties simply stop caring and break up, or they complete their mutual comfort by marrying and finding themselves in a life of uncomplicated (and often) non-sexual companionship. Unfortunately, this arrangement is not uncommon.
On the other hand, chemistry without compatibility usually leads to disaster.4 Sometimes it can be as simple as not living in the same part of the world, but often it’s much more complicated than that.
When two people are completely incompatible, their behavior becomes completely irrational. Often, two incompatible people begin a cycle of mutual emotional sacrifice, spinning together through cycles of love and hate at the speed of life.
People find themselves saying things like, “I don’t care if he’s married to a convicted felon, we’re meant to be together,” or “Look, I know she pretended to be pregnant to get me to propose, but you know, that might just be fate, right?” Meanwhile, friends stare, jaws agape, unsure whether to risk the backlash by trying to get them out of this situation or to feign support while their friend, the victim of blind love torture, continues to spin helplessly and deluded in a whirlwind of love.
High levels of chemistry with high incompatibility are bad news. Really bad news.
These relationships usually start hot and passionate, erupting like a fountain, before fizzling out just as quickly. This tends to happen when logic kicks in and reality makes itself known. Suddenly, you realize how abusive you are to each other, but getting out of such a relationship is easier said than done. Your heart says yes, but your mind says no. And then you convince your mind to say yes, which then makes your heart say no.
At this point, the decision-making process usually comes down to your genitals—though their decision-making record is about as good as a drunk third-grader’s—which only leads to awkward public arguments, unpaid drink bills, thrown iPhones, switched locks, missed phone calls, tearful voicemails, the sterile interior of a clinic, or, if you’re lucky, the “Oh my god, please don’t give me a false positive pregnancy test your piece of shit for $9.99” July 11 experience that’s sure to challenge anyone’s sanity. Then there you are (wherever you go, as they say), finding yourself unemployed with two never-used one-way tickets to Bermuda, six stitches, a flat tire, and a smashed cell phone. But at least the psychopath is gone (though you still kind of miss him). The experience is both fierce and exciting. Time, and you’ll never forget that we are animals after all.
I’m not talking from personal experience or anything like that. No. There’s nothing worth watching here. Move on.
