Opposites Detract

I’ll just say it – Opposites attract about as well as disagreeing sides of two lookalike magnets. You can push really hard and make them touch, but sooner or later the force you apply will go away and they will happily separate.

When I told some of my fellow Victorian acquaintances about Jane and the many similarities we share, these people would literally gasp, put their hand to their mouth in shock, and utter, “You’re too ALIKE. Opposites attract!” And once they were through with this useless mantra, they shook their heads and resumed other activities, satisfied that they had re-aligned the planets.

Why on earth does this make sense? Why would it be best to have everything out of common with the man or woman with whom you choose to spend your life (and Eternity)? You are the person who you are, and you have traits that oftentimes you have chosen over less comfortable alternatives. The further you go into Opposite Land to find your spouse, the more a person has chosen/developed traits diametrically opposed to your own.

I think the mistake people make when they attach themselves to an opposite, is confusing “novelty” with “endearing.” When a person sidles up to an opposite and develops an attraction, the differences are novel because they are seeing mistily through the eyes of someone who sees the world in another color altogether. The problem is, in close contact all of those opposite traits will ultimately grate on your nerves. In my life, my ex was a late sleeper (she will still sleep past noon given half the chance). I’m an early riser. My ex liked to sit on the couch and watch endless hours of television and movies; I like to go for walks. I liked to go in the ocean; she thought anything colder than the Caribbean was too cold. I think the first 15 minutes of church were the most important; she thought it fine to show up an hour late, regularly. I think you should eat as healthy as possible and cook at home as often as possible; she would send me to fast food instead of letting me cook. I hate to argue with my spouse; my ex out-and-out asked me to fight back more. And to top it all off: I believe we are on this earth to be happy; she believes your duty is to remain in a marriage without happiness, love and intimacy.

I would venture to say that anyone contemplating divorce has a similar list because they married an opposite. My Jane is the same as me; we often exclaim, “We’re the same person!” With certain obvious physical differences, we are indeed. Jane and Bingley’s minds could interchange and we would be just as happy. I think it magical that in one woman I could find a love for the little things in nature, a love for spicy food, a hatred for all the same things that I hate, a love for children, a love for touchy-intimacy even when you’re just walking down the street, a love for constant little doses of each other, and wonderful things we discover every day that they other person loved that we never contemplated in our past lives. We constantly discover new things about which we hadn’t formulated opinions, but now we love them in part because the other person does (Jane knows more cheeses than I’ve tasted, for example).

So again I say: Opposites detract. Your souls should be like mirrors if you are to grow close to your loved one for eternity. Our lives are supposed to run in parallel – if you have two lines (or lives) that diverge ever so slightly now, if you don’t chain their line to your own, the lines will grow apart through eternal progression. Ten, twenty, fifty years from now, the gulf will be so wide, you can’t even see the person you married. That is not happiness; that’s being desperately, painfully alone.

My Jane loves me. She loves the same life that I love – indeed, she wears the same color glasses I don so that I can view life. My Jane is me, and I am Jane.

@))>---- Bingley ----<((@