What does compatibility mean to you?
Thanks for those thoughts. I've been thinking about this all day because I would say I once had a solid answer, and I likely need to solidify it again after obtaining lots of new information. For one, this may be semantics on how one uses the word. I don't take healthy patterns into accountability. If someone is unhealthy in some manner (like I would say lacking communication is not a healthy pattern (though people may communicate differently)), I don't think they are good for anyone until they work on their own health. But when someone is incompatible, they just have a different way of doing things than you do and the two of you don't function well together.
I liken a relationship to a legal partnership. You are a legal individual, so is the other person. Together, you form a third legal entity. You have to be forming the partnership with the same goals in mind. If you don't, it will go bankrupt. Doesn't mean the idea isn't exciting or forming the partnership isn't fun for a time. But once you actually try to function, you will fail. I always see goals and values as compatibility issues. One person isn't right or wrong for having different ones, but you may not function well together. I see compatibility as necessary for long term functionality and generally separate from attraction and a lot of emotional issues because, in my experience, a lot of people get into relationships for self esteem and they think things don't work because the other person doesn't provide them with self esteem, so they find them incompatible. I will say emotional issues may come into play in relation to how I'm defining compatibility, but more in the course of two emotionally healthy people. If both are healthy, it is natural for them as humans to form an emotional connection in a romantic partnership. Maybe though their love languages are different, and one may struggle to show love in the other's love language. Maybe this is where an emotional incompatibility may come into play.
I brought up on another thread being bored with most men. This ties into me being sapiosexual. While intellect is an attraction matter for me, it also ties into compatibility, because if I don't have someone on my same wavelength, I will never trust him to handle important decisions. And I am looking for a partner who I can rely on for those things at times.
In the view of how I define compatibility, I see your first and third issue more as basic relationship traits that every person needs and if they aren't there, that person may not do a great job in any relationship. This, to me, is a whole new layer of questions to figure out if someone can even function with another person. Not having these qualities are would be when I start using the term "red flag." Regardless of what the goal is in a legal partnership, if you can't function with a partner, it's not the partnership that is the issue. However, if you have different ideas of where the partnership should go or what it should produce, that is where I think you have a compatibility issue.
Another example would be having kids or not. How you would raise kids. Where you like to live (i.e. city life vs. country life).
We tend to make decisions on entering into a relationship because of the current exciting state of attraction and emotional connection (because those things can be energizing and fuel us) as opposed to "Hey, we have different ideas on how to do life. Will this actually work in the long run?" It doesn't matter how emotionally connected you are or how well you communicate, if one partner really wants kids and the other doesn't, those individuals aren't compatible. And neither is wrong, neither is unhealthy. Each one will be able to form a better partnership with someone else who has the same goals.
That is mostly how I personally see and define it. I'm curious on other perspectives though.
