If we find our dream girl, the one that is bad ass and amazing, are we destined for compatibility?
Justin Timberlake has it. Jennifer Lopez has it. In Hollywood it’s all about the triple threat: the entertainer who can sing, dance, and act. When it comes to dating, if there’s a triple threat girl, she’s smart, cute, and kind. For me, I’d add has a good sense of humor, and call her the quadruple threat girl. Or to some, the bad ass chic (BAC).
Over lunch, my friend Chloe tells me her latest dating predicament, going on date after date with the wrong women. She describes the challenge is not in meeting women, but in meeting women that are her type. As I shake my head I disbelief as she shares her stories of dates gone seriously awry, it occurs to me that her type is very specific, as I suspect everyone’s type is. As a visual person, I imagine the dating pool grouped into subcategories that make up a URL. I fantasize that the quadruple threat URL /smart/cute/kind/humorous will lead me to the right girl, my right, forever love.
I tell Chloe as much as we clink our glasses to toast. She takes a drink and tells me that her quadruple threat lesbian is far more specific: /femmy/smart/kind/audacious/
I nod, pursing my lips together, raise one eyebrow and tell her, “Impressive,”
She tilts her head toward me to indicate it’s my turn. I sigh and answer with my more specific URL,
/athletic/emotionally available/funny/sweet
And then I meet a woman who is my URL. After dating a few months, I realize that everything is there except one small detail: compatibility. No matter how great we look together on paper, we can’t ever seem to meet in the middle. Nothing is easy, even stupid things, like where to go to dinner, or how much time to spend together, feel uphill. It’s exhausting. I am stumped. After all my talk (albeit tipsy talk) about my URL theory, I had forgotten the one thing that I’ve had to learn over and over in dating: without compatibility you got nuthin.
After all, it’s rather confusing. Girl meets girl. You’re into her. And amazingly, she’s into you. Yet somehow, you’re still not compatible. She has 800 Facebook friends, you have 6. She likes being on the constant go, you like staying in. She is happiest when you spend 6 nights a week together, you’re happy with 3. And so it goes. Quadruple threat girl, bad ass chic, whatever you call her, does not equal compatibility. If not our URL, then, who are we compatible with? What is compatibility, exactly?
Compatibility is when enough traits, habits, emotional capacity, and values line up that you can grow together and sustain a long, healthy relationship.
When I look back on 20 years of dating and relationships, I realize that only a few relationships fit my compatibility definition. The rest were defined primarily by physical attraction or shared interests. The compatible relationships were the ones where I felt like the relationship brought out the best in both of us, pushed me to grow, to learn about myself, and to step a little more into myself. The incompatible ones were like existing in a constant state of confusion and conflict. We didn’t agree on anything, from appropriate boundaries, to what is and is not respectful, to how to manage time and money.
These days, when going out, I am less apt to think about my quadruple threat, BAC URL, and instead I try to dial in to how authentic I am being in each moment, and how I feel around a girl. If I find myself feeling that old, familiar, confusion, and everything-is-hard angst, I know I’m trying to force love over compatibility. What I realized is that love just doesn’t trump compatibility. Even if she’s my quadruple threat, BAC, can’t-believe-she’s-into-me girl, if I can’t be me, don’t feel like I’m myself when I’m with her, she’s not the girl for me.