Simple answer for a complicated question (usually my questions are easy and my answers are complicated)…

My students claim to believe that opposites do attract. And that it’s always better to have someone who isn’t just like you. But what they are usually talking about is someone having complementary interests or likes that work with the stuff you like or the way you are.

But true opposites? Lots of research (hundreds of studies, actually) says that this just doesn’t fly well.

Simply put: we like people who confirm the way we think about things, the world, relationships, work, values, school, how to raise kids, what’s an acceptable amount of partying, how to train that puppy, how clean the house should be….the list goes on, right?

Because people who think about the world the way that we think about the world make us feel better. Yay.

Which brings me to the dogs.

Some fun researchers in California decided that we should really find out if dog owners look like their dogs. It turns out that yeah, people do look like their dogs – when their dogs are purebreds! The researchers replicated their dog research in a second study to make sure this wasn’t just a random finding. And yes, it turns out that random participants (who don’t know said dogs or owners) can match dogs with their owners quite well.

These aren’t the pictures used in this research, but you get the drift…

Like I tell my students, if you want to find people that are like you to date, hang out in places where people like you hang out.… read more

According to relationship research, there are two big types of turning points for relationships:

Reflective turning points – meeting partner’s family for the first time à sparks the discussion “Hey, what’s going on with us?”

Causal turning points – partner cheats on you and it sparks a different kind of discussion “Hey, we need to talk”

These are what I like to call a TSN Turning Point

According to relationship researchers, there are a number of stages to relationship development. Here is a hybrid version of the models:

Initiation (first impressions, light convo to see if person good fit for you)

Experimentation (partners try to find common interests/hobbies, most people never move beyond this stage because you might think “This person is boring, yo”)

Intensification (people ramp up disclosure to see what kind of impression they’re making once ‘dating’ has started happening, if the person introduces the other as their partner/boyfriend/girlfriend, does the other person lose their bananas? What happens when one of the partners goes away for the weekend? Do they stay in contact?)

“What’s going on between us?” (Often coincides with the condom conversation…hopefully!! If people were using them in the first place!!. So someone might say ““I’d really like to stop using condoms. Buuuuuut, that might mean we need to discuss where we are both at with things…are you seeing anyone else?”

And btw – the condo to go sans condom SHOULD be followed up with 2 other key questions: “When is the last time you were tested” and “How many sexual partners have you had since you were last tested?” = these are really really important questions!!!

Now, according to some relationship models, the sexual relationship would develop after the conversation about what is going on with us – but I think we all know that for many young adults that has changed and sex happens WAY before this convo. But back to the ‘model’….

Integration (two individuals start being known as a couple, do things together, only show up as a couple to social functions)

Bonding (people make a public commitment to other person – such as marriage or nowadays, a much more popular way to show you are legit in a relationship – being “in a relationship” with the person on Facebook). For more info on ‘becoming Facebook official, see this post by my colleague and BFF, Amy Muise 

So we’re all good right?

But then the bottom falls out…

(see the Break-Up post for the rest of the story)… read more