someone mentioned arranged marriages and it reminds me of factors affecting mate selection. Do opposites really attract? I have a theory that anti-Oedipal taboo causes people to be attracted to the opposite of their same-sexed parent. That is, if you are a man you look for someone unlike your mother. If you are a woman you look for someone unlike your father. But if that happens to align with your own personality, you may have difficulty finding a mate. Because opposites attract. Example using U Minn Behavioral Matrix: Father is Controller, daughter is supporter. Not wanting someone like father, she looks for a supporter. But in shopping for supporters she and her potential mates sense the lack of strength that their unions would have, with no one willing to take control. Of if the situation yields a controller trying to find a controller, you are going to have two people struggling for control all the time. Two analyzers will never be able to make a decision. Two promoters will get along fine for about six weeks until they run through the newness of the relationship.

So you see? It's not easy. As to initial attraction, I think people who go with the old opposites attract philosophy, when they take it to extremes, are the ones who are forty, wondering where it all went and why they aren't married. In fact, they have probably gone through years of broken relationship after broken relationship, wondering why they always pick losers. For the girls, these are the ones who ignore the "nice guys". Well, if they're going to be that stupid and stubborn, I can't feel too sorry for them.

I would have to go with the "complementary" personalities attracting, looking at long haul success (we've been together almost 13 years, and have never had a fight, though we've had misunderstandings). We have different approaches to some things, but that means we can help each other out in a jam! We just get better with age. I've seen the same thing with other successful relationships. I do think opposites can attract, but would not be sure of long-term success. That doesn't mean you can't be different, but different in ways that go together, like pieces in a jigsaw. We complement each other.

I think many of my favorite characters in reading, when there is a "love interest" or two people working together who end up together, they are "complementary" - they need each other to be complete, and often to be successful in whatever the author's goal is for them. They can be different, but that is useful - they approach issues from different angles, so come up with more solutions, or different methods that can be used to resolve those issues.

I do think that there are a lot of "egocentric" qualities--qualities that look completely different from the outside looking in--a person can have which would make them completely incompatable with another person with the same qualities.

Simple example, someone that always needs to get in the last word will never get along with another person that feels the same need. Two control freaks spoil everything. A pair of emotional martyrs will have more problems than either is used to suffering. And so on.

Of course, all of these examples are only attractive to "opposites" that seek a co-dependent relationship.

In many cases, we are very attracted to those that have qualities we find lacking in ourselves. I would like to marry a very wealthy woman, for example But usually, I think that if those attractive qualities are attractive for healthy reasons, then they should be generally attractive. If a financially secure man finds impovershed women attractive and can't stand financial independence in a mate, then that is probably a bad sign (and vice versa--more pity for me). And of course, if there is a quality lacking in yourself that you absolutely need in a mate....