I want to talk to you guys about personalities and personality traits. I don't think I ever mentioned that I met my boyfriend on Ok Cupid, right? Okay well, that happened. So on my introduction page, I talked about where I am in the 5 axioms of personality (as we understand them today and as Professor Peterson explains them in his lectures). I thought putting it there would serve two purposes: to accurately describe my personality, and to attract men who are somewhat literate (and subsequently repel men who couldn't understand the concept).
Obviously it worked. My boyfriend isn't actually very interested in this stuff, but it's one of my favorite topics.
So the five axioms of personality are Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Extroversion. They have opposites, but the idea is that you fall somewhere on the Openness spectrum, somewhere on the Agreeableness spectrum, etc.
And you do. So do I, and I talked about this in my intro. I am high in Conscientiousness (I tend to be aware of the comfort of those around me, and I am industrious) and Agreeableness (I am generally more submissive and willing to take one for the team even if I am uncomfortable). I am low in Openness (I am slow to try new things and get out of my comfort zone, although this has been improving since I got out of high school and into the workforce). I am also low in Extroversion (spending time with people drains my energy) and medium range in Neuroticism (I find myself plagued on occasion with negative emotions and sometimes get into a rut).
There are a few amazing lectures on Professor Peterson's YouTube on compatibility and how it relates to all these axioms. I found them really interesting and studied them carefully.
I think it paid off, because my boyfriend and I are compatible beyond belief – I don't know how much of that is due to me being careful to choose conscientious, slightly less agreeable than me men, or how much is due to Ok Cupid telling me he and I were 91% compatible in basically every area of life.
Either way, we're 91% compatible in almost every area of life, and it seriously shows. We like the same genres of movies (although he's showing me anime and I'm showing him arrowverse) but we're just different enough to have plenty of things to show each other that we hadn't seen/heard about. We tend to like the same food but we both have plenty of restaurants to show each other. We have a pretty much identical ideal for how much time we should spend together as the relationship moves forward and what we want to do with that time (we don't have to argue that we want to go out one day, stay in the next – it feels like it just all happens naturally). We have the same timetable for relationship goals – i.e, when we start meeting family members, when we start staying over each other's places, when we give someone a drawer, when we'd like to get a place together (although these things aren't spoken and just happen naturally).
We have the same opinions on health and wellness, we have the same ideas about recreation and how we spend our free time, we have just about the same sex drive and a lot of similar preferences for how that goes, but we're always showing each other new things and trying out something fresh.
We have the same senses of decency, about how it's okay to behave in public – he never embarrasses me, he doesn't draw unnecessary attention to me, he doesn't make fun of me in front of people or tease me too often (although we tease sometimes).
Our fights consist of pathetic squabbles where one of us says something sad and then the other one is sad and then we cry and maybe get confused for a little while.
It seems like we have the same priorities. It's like we just want the same kind of life.
I'm reminded of this constantly throughout the day and have been hoping to write about it, because still after almost 8 months it's unfathomable. I don't think everything was fireworks and spectacles (although there were plenty of those) when we met, we just fell into this relationship so naturally, it fit like a glove. When I talk about him to my friends and family it's not that I gush about how he would DIE for me, MOVE MOUNTAINS for me – it's just that we work. We're compatible.
And I think a lot about the personality traits that allow that, and I wonder, if more people knew where they stood, would they have an easier time putting together an ideal for a good partner?