In which ways is Duality better than Activity?

[redbaron]

Duals have to give up control of certain areas where in the past they worked hard to control or really let wild, lose and out of control, in the absence of their duality; when that happens duality is a better match then activity. Activity relations listen and allow the other person to do what they want. Dual relations have a bit of problems letting their dual lead in appropriate situations. I've noticed new dual pairing compete, fight, argue, and look like they can easily end in their first few stages..

yeah this is especially apparent when the persons involved aren't dualized. i.e. didn't grow up with a dual family member or best friend. I think it probably takes time to let go of those areas that you're so used to controlling.

[jragonfly]

A duality is always better than AN activity. A duality doesn't have to be better than THE activity.

Now you know.

Makes perfect sense. Thanks!

I wouldn't reject someone on the basis of some unproven personality hypothesis. However, I might reject someone on the basis of relationship dissatisfaction that may have been predicted by the hypothesis.

The limited number of surveys on types of married couples indicate that duality, while representing more than 1/16 of the intertype relationships of couples, only accounts for 30%-50% of marriages. Surely there's something positive and fulfilling that can be found in non-duality relations.

Yea I wouldn't bank everything on this theory either. The thing is I've noticed the hypothesis has already predicted quite a few of my own relationships, so I do consider it at least somewhat valid. You're right, there must be positive things about non-dual relations or else people wouldn't start them! But on the other hand, isn't the divorce rate around 45-50%? I can't help wondering if some of that can be explained with intertype relations.

i am hoping you are right.

activity is a good one....but the difference in rationality is what starts to erode the relation on too close a distance. but overall, one of the best relations!

I have noticed this is true in my personal experiences.

My experience with these has been relatively bad; the difference in temperament makes the interaction lack in smoothness. There isn't a strong incentive to keep the conversation going. I like ISFps a lot but the difference in compatibility with me between them and ESFjs is not just some marginalized detail.

Thanks I'll keep that in mind.

[Creepy-male]

You're right, there must be positive things about non-dual relations or else people wouldn't start them!

Attraction, my friend. It's part of every human's biological programming.

You know, much like death.

[jragonfly]

If you don't have a dual, why wouldn't you purse an activity partner?

I find myself criticising my dual more than my activity partner....and I find some traits of the EIE that I'd prefer to not have in a partner. Activity partners also have your 3rd function as their 8th so you don't get that frustration as you do in duality. I also like my activity partners because we are both introverts. I have been with a dual before and one of my friends is my dual too and yeah it's comfortable, you can be with them all the time and not get bored and miss them while they're gone etc etc. But maybe it's because they are EIEs, but I just can't tolerate their drama all the time that seems to come from absolutely no where and their need to be loved by everyone which means you are less of a priority and that becomes an issue in relationships....for me anyways.

I guess activity feels more like you are separate entities who enjoy one another unlike duals who are more co-dependant.

Yes, exactly which is why I'm saying that duality is not everything and is why I'm encouraging to not just aim for duality when they have other chances at potentially good relationships.

Following this theory of course it would make sense that duals are better for one another on paper. I'm saying reality can be different, I have got on famously with one female EIE and SO SO incredibly badly with one EIE.

Well I appreciate your positive thinking!

In my case, I have had lots of experience with activity, I seem to attract them or be drawn to them somehow. My mother is my activity, maybe that has something to do with it seeing as I grew up "activated" instead of "dualized". But since I lacked experience with duals most of my life I never missed it...until recently when I met a dual and it was fabulous. Now I've started to have doubts about everything else but.

I see you're point though, there are other factors that come into play in real life. I met someone once who may have been my dual, but due to differences in age, culture, and intelligence there was no way it ever would have worked out.

[jragonfly]

Ok, let's say I have two cakes. One is super-tasty delicious and looks even better than it tastes. The other is a pretty ok cake. Cake #1 takes a while to procure the ingredients and bake, and it can wind up not tasting super-fantastic crazy awesome because the cooking process is complex. The other is basically straightforward. So let's actually say cake #2 is like self-bake bread. Nourishing but nothing spectacularly delicious.

You're advocating to go with the bread over the cake, because the cake can go wrong and takes a while, even despite the fact that it is entirely superior in every conceivable way.

EDIT

And so I say you're a lunatic. Then again, I should theoretically have an easy time of finding my dual, since I have a) a dating site that's pretty much advertised as being for geeky Alphas b) experience with a dual c) many platonic dual friendships giving me a wide sample of what my duals look like and d) I'll be doing a degree in holy shit NT territory. Just gotta avoid the Gamma landmines, which might be a bit complicated.

Ok. But if the cake "can wind up not tasting super-fantastic crazy awesome because the cooking process is complex," then it wouldn't necessarily be "entirely superior in every conceivable way"?

Point taken though. I don't like the idea of settling for silver when I could have gotten gold. At least that's how I look at it. But I know some people that would settle, and be ok with it.

Attraction, my friend. It's part of every human's biological programming.

You know, much like death.

You mean physical? I don't know if that would account for everything, there are some people that are definitely attractive but I wouldn't want to be in the same room with them!

[Creepy-male]

You mean physical? I don't know if that would account for everything, there are some people that are definitely attractive but I wouldn't want to be in the same room with them!

Well, when you're infatuated with someone, you don't see them for who they are; they become this mystical magical fantastical creature who's absolutely wonderful in every conceivable possible way who will make you happy forever etc etc etc.

If you want the Socionics angle, some people are deceptively Dual-like, enough to trick a brain distracted by the chemical Hiroshima that is infatuation. Even then, some Duals are not for you, but it all seems so wonderful that you just let fairly critical things fly.

This is something men have to deal with especially, unfortunately. My only advice would be to get out there, screw up a bit (because you and I are blessed with more reflectiveness than a house o' mirrors, so we don't have to screw up a lot), and learn.

I think the best thing to do is just go for it, in the case of attraction, and try and stop and listen to any voice niggling in the back of your head that something is up before making any binding commitments. If you're sitting around in a situation where nobody's caught your eye, then yes, don't settle for silver when you could have gold. It's more elusive, but exponentially more precious and valuable.

Anyway, to close, I'll comment that I would imagine all of the dual bashing comes from periods of dissatisfaction or frustration that naturally occur within relationships; either that or as a result of personal mistyping or mistyping of the supposed duals (for example, we had one XIE who had himself as an IEE--no wonder he thought SLIs were so atrocious!)

[FDG]

My purely empirical / observational note is that activity relations work well when they're between aristocract introverts (thus, positivist introverts - ISTj / INFp and ISTp / INFj). Democratic introverts (thus, negativist introverts) will wear each other out, ISF types don't seem to be tailored for INT types - often these relationships might even last a lifetime, however the lack of spark / understanding is obvious. Democratic extraverts (positivist extraverts) become too wild when paired, furthermore they generally think of themselves as being the coolest shit around, thus they might naturally repel each other / sense that the other isn't complementary. Aristocratic extraverts (negativist extraverts) tend to become explosive when paired, relationships might last if they enjoy quarreling / have sadomasochistic tendencies, yet they're likely to lead to abuse on the long term.

[silverchris9]

With my activity friends, I find that we frequently run out of things to talk about or conversation to make if we don't have a common interest or a shared focus to discuss. With my LSI friend, I remember when we were kids and I would sleep over at his house, we would always reach a point where he was tired of providing Se for me, and I was tired of providing Fe for him, and we would both retreat into our non-matching introverted pursuits, neither one annoying the other, but nether one really contributing to the other's enjoyment, either, which just made me think, "why am I not at my own house in my own bed?"

Obviously, if you had absolutely no capacity for communication with a dual, like you spoke completely different languages or something, this would eventually happen even with a dual. But I think duality is much more effective than activity---especially with introvert pairs---at providing an inherent source of interaction, as in, the duality itself keeps you interested even when you run out of things to really talk about. There's something about the flow of duality that makes it so that you can't ever really run out of ways to interact in the way that you do with activity pairs.

I think the problem with extroverted activity relations (or perhaps just extroverted aristocratic activity as FDG says) is that there's too much motion and not enough substance and the problem with introverted activity relations is that there's a lot of substance, but both partners get tired of communicating that substance to one another. The extroverts want someone to calm them down and the introverts want someone to charge them up. But of course, with activity relations, it takes much longer for this to happen than with most other non-duality relations, and of course, there's lots of important non-socionics factors like length of interaction, closeness of relationship, type of interaction, etc. If you're activity partners and you're working as writer and director on a major hollywood movie, yeah, you're probably going to have plenty to talk about, and you may still be more interested in talking with your activity about the movie than talking with your dual about her cat, lol.

[Trevor]

My purely empirical / observational note is that activity relations work well when they're between aristocract introverts (thus, positivist introverts - ISTj / INFp and ISTp / INFj). Democratic introverts (thus, negativist introverts) will wear each other out, ISF types don't seem to be tailored for INT types - often these relationships might even last a lifetime, however the lack of spark / understanding is obvious. Democratic extraverts (positivist extraverts) become too wild when paired, furthermore they generally think of themselves as being the coolest shit around, thus they might naturally repel each other / sense that the other isn't complementary. Aristocratic extraverts (negativist extraverts) tend to become explosive when paired, relationships might last if they enjoy quarreling / have sadomasochistic tendencies, yet they're likely to lead to abuse on the long term.

This is very interesting.

[jragonfly]

Nah, I don't think so, Activity partners see weakness in others that they can improve on, always giving each other advice and at the same time hurting each others weak point. In healthy duality relationship, these criticism is made very lightly, in a way more accepting than if activity ever give advice on each others weak point.

Socionics.com doesn't have good rep here, but I am posting this anyway because it can't be more true.

This is exactly what I have experienced in all activity relations. After thinking about it I know this type very well, it's the dual type I am unsure of. So now I'm left wondering, about any negatives commonly found in duality...

[Creepy-]

A duality is always better than AN activity. A duality doesn't have to be better than THE activity.

Overall, though, I agree w Numbers and Brian. Over time duality is not only more smooth; it's also more comfortable and pleasant -- in activity relations, the difference in temperament gets to be a problem if/when you get too close.