Having spent a long time in college, and even longer analyzing the human condition, I have noticed that people think in different ways. I follow closer to what common psychology models as the four areas of personal thought- being on two sides: Concrete/Abstract and Random/Sequential. Not that I believe something as complex as the human psyche can be condensed so crudely, but that it does give a common ground to which we can analyze and interpret the ways in which we all think, work, react, dream...
I have spent a great deal of time the last few months in a rather deep contemplative state regarding myself, those around me, those imaginary, those whose fabrication is only third hand to me etc.
It is interesting to begin with that I believe the saying "opposites attract" is more or less complete bullshit (when regarding relationships we form with people). I mean this in a long term idea- that without more common interest than not, any relationship will be completely strained. I took for an example of a friend I used to have. He was a drummer, a metal head, a bit of an emo, wandered from girl to girl with bad relationships all around. And here I was, musical, but seeing the world as a medical professional in training, and the only reason he and I were friends to begin with was because of marching band and classes. Well of course he dropped out of college to chase a girl, which ended with him calling me several times a month with tales of him being abused (physically, emotionally, mentally) and me saying the same damn thing every time: bite the bullet, get the hell out of there.
The point is, these sorts of problems persisted, and I noticed our "common ground"-that marching band, had been the only real glue to keep us as friends. Now that he was no longer in college we had nothing in common. We were too opposite of each other to work well. He was a good person, we both liked music, but not even the same music, and therefor a simple friendship was out of it.
You always hear of couples that are "opposite," such as the outgoing social butterfly with the mousy homebody. Now honestly-have you ever actually met this couple? Did they ever actually last (meaning in any long term duration)? Most likely not. Why? Because they are socially opposed. You have to understand that how you work socially is how you recharge your batteries so to speak. If you are outgoing, you relax and unwind through groups of people, while an introvert will prefer being at home by themselves. Now consider that most people work the 9-5, with the M-F week, and so they have weekends and evening together. So what do they do to keep common interests between each other? This is a tricky situation for EVERYONE in these relationships-not just romantic mind you. These things fail because they may have the same likes in subject matters-same tastes in music, literature, art... but they fail on how they approach these.
Now to bring back the foursquare idea. You may find someone who is a concrete-sequential that works well with an abstract-sequential or concrete-random. They remain on the same side of the rainbow, just on opposite ends, or same end different sides. So you know of that friend that always thinks in terms of logical sequence-one line of thought impeccably traceable from start to end. you know exactly how they reach their conclusions and where they started from. They can work with the concrete-random person who-you can follow his sequences in logical fashion, may jump points randomly, the kind of person who goes from A-C in a way. They could also be just as happy with an Abstract-Sequential who will jump topics but still follow a solid path. The multitasker is a good way to think of this person-they can follow several topics at once and just sort of moves between them. However the Abstract-Random just will never fly. They just pop from topic and point within the topic and don't really care to follow through with them or complete them. This is because of how people perceive and reflect the world. A person who views the world very sequentially, very black and white, but orderly, would not be able to comprehend the person who gets excited about the idea of a bird flying and immediately jumps to how butterflies pollinate flowers and sees the world in varying shades of fish. They perceive the same world too differently from each other to really effectively communicate.
If you have ever been around those people diametrically opposed to you, you know exactly how frustrating it can be. You try to explain something to them that you believe is the easiest way to get the point across-and they just stare at you blankly. Then they try and explain it how they see it, and you just scratch your head and wonder how they got THAT out of what you said. Can you think of anyone like that you spend a significant amount of your time around? I doubt it, though as humans we are remarkable and unpredictable in a way.
Then you have personality conflicts. You can go big between people- like morality. You are wronged for one reason or another, and you are given the opportunity to kill the person who wronged you, and you can get away with it. Do you? Or do you just live and let live? These examples are obvious and usually noticed at the start of getting to know a person.
Or you can go smaller- think about your favorite piece of art. Think WHY it is your favorite piece- is it because of it's color schemes? The contours it creates? The period it represents? The artist? The message of the piece? Now consider the person right next to you. What is their favorite work of art? Why do you think that they think that? Think about it.
You love Bernini's Apollo and Daphne because of its soft, fluid nature depicting the familial love only siblings can know. The person next to you is far more interested in Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire because of it's tightly wound, ingenious construction of such impossible density, that only a true master could pull it off. You don't care how Bernini made the piece, you merely enjoy the aesthetics, that it is made out of an impossibly dense marble means little, that it is in a certain specific style is irrelevant; and your friend next to you doesn't particularly care how Pierrot Lunaire sounds, just merely that it is ingeniously crafted.
Now those comparisons make a stronger statement about people's personalities and their abilities to get along, in my opinion. Only because seeing the bigger things about who a person is a lot easier to find out. Most people aren't afraid to ask about life philosophies, religions, beliefs and whatnot. But then getting down to the miniscule details about how a person thinks, communicates, feels, works, analyzes, reacts, likes, dislikes, or any other number of mental engagements that factor into what makes us, "us."
This post is a simple reflection on something I have been spending a great deal of time thinking about over these last few months. It is important to me because I care about how successful I am within relationships, and the only way I figure progress can be made is to try and understand relationships personally, as well as on a larger level.
It is not to say I don't believe that you can make a relationship work with only certain people, on the contrary I believe that a person can have a good relationship with anyone, just a matter of figuring out the length and strength to give those relationships. You can make a long lasting friendship or romantic relationship work with a diametrically opposite person, as long as the both of you are willing to patiently work hard for it, that though, is entirely up to you.
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