Last update: April 29, 2016
According to Freud, “when we make decisions of modest importance, it is always useful to analyze the pros and cons. However, in matters of vital importance, such as choosing a partner or a job, the decision must come from the unconscious, from a hidden place within us. In the truly important decisions of life, we must let the deep needs of our nature govern us. " For this reason, in a couple, affinity requires that the two partners have the same dream, but also that each cultivate their own individuality.
Over the course of the day, we make many decisions intuitively, we choose the clothes we will wear, we will take one path instead of another to go to work, we will eat a certain food and avoid another. If all these decisions were not made intuitively, our life would be a mess, because we would waste too much time doing anything or even just starting to do it.
"It was his voice, his confidence in saying things, with simple words he could touch my soul"
(Edgar Couple)
But what happens when we have to choose our partner? It would be difficult to compile long lists of pros and cons before dating someone, and even more complicated to tell our heart who we like and who we don't. When we have to choose the person to go out with, it is our intuition to choose, because it's about living a dream.
Choose someone to dream with
Although there is a myth that opposites attract, much research has shown that we tend to date and marry people like us regarding education, social class, ethnicity and even physical characteristics. This phenomenon is called "selective mating". This type of coupling ensures that cultural or social inequality is maintained, since it is opposed to inter-class mixing.
In 2009, in the journal Genome Biology, a study was published, carried out in Latin America, which concluded that people tend to mate with others depending on the similarities between their DNA and above all the similarities between their genetic lineages. In other words, we don't randomly choose our mate.
A more recent study, carried out by the University of Colorado, United States, led to the conclusion that people tend to choose partners who have DNA similar to theirs. In this research, the experts examined the genetic sequence of 825 North American couples and noted the existence of a greater similarity between the DNA of the two partners than between those of the partners and the rest of the individuals.
"We will never be the perfect couple if we are not able to accept that 2 comes from 1 + 1 only in arithmetic."
(Julio Cortazar)
The researchers also compared the extent of genetic similarity with the extent of similarity due to academic training. It turned out that the preference for a genetically similar mate was three times less than the preference for a similar mate due to studies undertaken.
The shared dream and the personal dream
Having an affinity with someone doesn't mean not having personal dreams: there must always be a part of our life in which we develop as people and learn to be ourselves, without stopping sharing other things with our partner.
The film "The circle of luck and happiness", based on a novel by Amy Tang, tells the life of a group of Chinese women who emigrated to the USA. The youngest are American, but the sense of having to offer themselves totally to others and their partner continues to be deeply rooted in them. One of them goes to college and one of her most popular guys falls in love with her when she shows sincere and authentic. After some time, they get married, but she abandons all his dreams and her ambitions to devote herself to him.
In one scene from the film, the young woman asks her wife where she wants to have dinner, whether at home or out; he replies that he can choose her, but the girl insists. Her husband begs her to decide, to express her wishes, but she is no longer able to choose because she has buried her dreams in such a deep place that she has lost her decision-making capacity. In the next scene, she realizes that the two are resorting to divorce.
This simple scene makes us understand that having a partner does not have to mean giving up our dreams, our decision-making capacity and freedom of choice. There will be dreams in common, but there must also be personal dreams and these will enrich each of the two partners.
“Tell me once again that the couple in the story were happy until death, that neither of them betrayed the other. And don't forget to mention that, despite the time they spent together and all the problems, they kissed every night. Tell me a thousand more times please, it's the best story I've ever heard. "
(Amelia Bautista)
