Originally Posted by
Olimpia
When it comes to friendships, people mostly focus on certain shared interests or hobbies. That can even make Conflictors become friends with each other, for they at least have the basis of complementing each other clubs-wise (NF with ST, NT with SF), which often creates interesting discussions. In my group of friends, there is an LSI guy and IEE woman who have been friends for 7 years (!) and they get along fine. But also, because they maintain a respectful distance. They agree to disagree. (It probably helps they are both 9 fix as well.) So I've found you can be friends with anyone for as long as there is a sufficient emotional distance and a laissez-faire attitude. This becomes trickier once the friendship grows closer, but even then I find that the interpersonal distance matter is much more casual in friendship than in romance and family.
That's why I keep saying, Socionics compatibility really starts to matter in the "nuclear family" and in romance/dating, because our influence on the other person is the greatest and most intimate in those instances.
Though as you said, you see people dating outside of their Quadra a lot more often than expected. Why?
The simple reason is: Most people are primarily guided by their attraction to someone, and then specific values and relationship goals which can be unrelated to sociotype to some extent; values like religion, marriage, children, etc.
Attraction is involuntary and not just reserved for people inside of your Quadra. If you've had some kind of childhood trauma or just significant discord with one of your caretakers or similar, you'll most likely be the most attracted to someone who reminds you of that person in certain ways unconsciously. And that person is often not your Dual or from your own Quadra (though there can be exceptions, depending on the kind of trauma you've experienced and/or how aware you are when it comes to who you choose as a partner; for example, someone who knows about Socionics is more likely going to pick someone who is more socionically compatible).
Based on my observations of married couples irl and online etc., I've found that Semi-Duality, Mirage, Lookalike, Benefit, and even Supervision marriages are fairly common, and they can be surprisingly long-lasting (e.g my Lookalike parents have been married for 20+ years). All those marriages added together, it seems like they may outweigh same Quadra marriages. Same Quadra marriages are mostly comprised of Identicals, followed by some Activity couples. Mirror marriages seem reserved for Fi ego couples. I haven't known any other kind of Mirror marriage before actually, when I think about it. Duality seems about just as common as Mirror marriage.
The ideal is that you are with someone you are highly attracted to and who is highly compatible with you. But depending on your past (trauma), life circumstances, and so on, you may not be able to find someone like that. Many if not most people opt for high attraction > high compatibility, if they have to choose one. They may say or claim otherwise, but when you look at their relationships, you'll see they are in denial. And I'm not blaming them, for pair bonding is usually quite instinctual and not rational.
Also, modern Western culture idealizes the high attraction union, so it is culturally expected to date someone you are highly attracted to but who is not necessarily that compatible on an intimate and/or personality level; for marriage, many if not most Western people tend to rather focus on superficial "compatibility" markers, like status, wealth, education, and similar. This can influence who we choose as a mate, especially for marriage. In other cultures where arranged marriages or similar are more common, like in India, compatibility is more important than attraction. Though arranged marriages certainly do not guarantee same Quadra coupling by default, they also tend to mostly focus on superficial "compatibility", so that social expectation/custom can be flawed, too.
When it comes to a happy and enduring relationship, I've found that if one aspect is a bit lacking, the other one has to be quite good or high. For instance, if you are with someone who is from another Quadra, at least the attraction needs to be good for it to work fairly well; the higher, the better, especially for problematic relations like Benefit and Supervision. (The exception to this principle would be opposite Quadra – I haven't known any happy and/or longterm opposite Quadra relationship/marriage before. It's a doomed enterprise, even if the attraction is high. Simply because the incompatibility is too great.)
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-D
