On duality, marriage, and how much it really matters

[Beautiful sky]

So, are you advising that people marry other types or compatibilities?

[Slacker]

So, are you advising that people marry other types or compatibilities?

Where did you get that?

I'm advising that people just date without worrying about Socionics. The theory is useful but it is also flawed, and it's too easy to mistype people, and IMO it's unhealthy to get too invested in it.

[Beautiful sky]

Slacker, you said that duality is easy. That's a pretty strong statement, don't you think? Being a conscientious friend, I would help someone find a dual because of that very statement.

Why would I want, in my good conscience, to help someone find an uneasy relations, if I were a well meaning person?

[Slacker]

Slacker, you said that duality is easy. That's a pretty strong statement, don't you think? Being a conscientious friend, I would help someone find a dual because of that very statement.

Irrelevant to what I said.

[Beautiful sky]

It's quite relevant, I'm afraid and one which you won't own up to unfortunately.

[Slacker]

It's quite relevant, I'm afraid and one which you won't own up to unfortunately.

Not at all relevant. I said it's EASIER, but that doesn't necessarily mean BETTER, and people mistype each other all the time anyway so I wouldn't get too invested because it's risky. Whether it's easier is not relevant to anything else.

[Beautiful sky]

Not at all relevant. I said it's EASIER, but that doesn't necessarily mean BETTER, and people mistype each other all the time anyway so I wouldn't get too invested because it's risky. Whether it's easier is not relevant to anything else.

It's not better? If it wasn't better than why did you choose it?

*My new theory, perceptual/irrational types don't put meaning behind what they perceive.

[Slacker]

I didn't know anything about socionics when I met my husband. I didn't choose duality, I chose him.

[Beautiful sky]

Not everyone has the kind of energy that you do. To go out and date random people until they feel that special fit. It's easier and a lot more effective to choose from duals. Eliminating your choices based on reasons outside of Socionics is key too.

[Slacker]

Now that I think about it, this is a good example of why not to get too invested in this theory when you're dating. The first few times I went out with my now husband, things were a bit werid and I thought he didn't like me. I could have easily, had I known about Socionics, decided based on that he was LSI or something and that it was a waste of time to pursue it.

[Beautiful sky]

Demonstrating Ti isn't uncommon for an SLI. If you had gone by Socionics, than that would only mean that you didn't know how to type or to recognize a person's pronounced function, as all functions are present in every single individual. And you, being a perceptual type, would make sense that you captured or emphasized the person's subconscious functions more so than conscious because you perceive (look at) mere happenings.

[Slacker]

I wasn't noticing Ti or looking for anything because I didn't know about socionics. We just didn't gel the first few dates, and people here seem to think duals are immediately best friends. If they assume they aren't duals because things aren't going how they expected, they could overlook something good. Stop over-analyzing everything.

[Ver]

I agree with you Slacker. First I was so immersed into socionics... I had to stop for 2 years (I banned myself from reading antyhing about that cause I knew it started being unhealthy). I also agree with you that it's just a theory with many many flaws some of which we are not aware of. The reality, however, confirms that socionics works. When it comes to feelings, I was for a few years with my INTj boyfriend even though I knew we were missmatched and reality confirmed that. I'm now with my SLI or LSE boyfriend and when I chose him I thought he was some other type but I just fell in love with him. You should fall in love with people, not with their types. You should trust your gut feeling, not the theory. The theory is here to confirm your feelings, not the other way round.

[Absurd]

Stop over-analyzing everything.

They don't call them analysts for nothing...

[golden]

I think Socionics could be helpful to think about in dating if you're someone whose compatibility antennae are not working all that well, for whatever reasons. Ideally, it'd be not a way to eliminate people from your life, but to help ensure that you are paying attention--that you are not overlooking the possibility of getting closer to someone who might be good for you.

[Ver]

For me socionics is very useful. I understand now why I get on with some people better and why with some I get on worse. It helps me not to get frustrated so much when I deal with some incompatible types. It also allows me to approach people ina way they should be approached .
Still, I don't believe in types, just in people. I can find people of each type whom I like or don't like. I think each function can be "good" or "bad". And I like good Se and good Ti as much as I don't like bad Fi and bad Ne.

[Reuben]

I understand now why I get on with some people better and why with some I get on worse.

There are only 3 reasons and they have nothing to do with socionics.

1) I
2) Me
3) Myself.

Or at least, that's how I see it.

[Blaze]

Not saying this is necessarily true of any of the couples you know, Slacker, but imo it is not always easy to know how happy a "happy" couple is. A book called Uncoupling (sociological case studies) describes in detail a pattern I've observed to be true. A couple bound for divorce will at first not admit to themselves how dire things are. At some point, one or the other of them begins to articulate the reality to him/herself. Next, the person confides in someone else, but that person is usually outside the circle of people who regard him/her as a member of a couple ... can be a seemingly random person, or a lover. And so on.

Over the years, I've seen a lot of supposedly stable, loving marriages appear to dissolve overnight. But they seemed so happy, people say.

well said and exactly so. if the couple is not really all that happy, they will lie to themselves, mostly out of denial. the longer the marriage the higher the denial level. regardless of type, one becomes interdependent with a spouse to the point that it is difficult to imagine what life would be like without them. this invokes fear, which drives the denial.

with one spouse opening up to someone outside the marriage, the boundary of the marriage is violated. the spouse who opens up gradually is able to reduce their denial via the support of another person, making the disengagement from the marriage easier and less fear invoking. the tendency is for this partner in the marriage to blame all problems experienced on the spouse.

the break up of a marriage is wholly different than other relationship break ups. the bible is right: and so two shall become one.

[Blaze]

Where did you get that?

I'm advising that people just date without worrying about Socionics. The theory is useful but it is also flawed, and it's too easy to mistype people, and IMO it's unhealthy to get too invested in it.

yes! what happens naturally is your kind of weed out opposing quadra folks naturally since it's like oil and water. socionics mostly confirms things that have already happened.....it describes what ends up happening naturally anyway. since you could be happy with a non dual, why not try that and use socionics to work out any differences that you might have?

[Ver]

I'd say, based on my personal experience - healthy people are attracted to their duals and they feel great in each other's company. However, some people are less healthy and tend to choose people who are very incompatible with them (most often also unhealthy types). People may blame themselves and believe they can change everything. I hope to see happy conflictor couple one day, that would prove love is beyond everything . However, from what I've seen so far, duality, mirrors (I haven't seen much of activity) and identity are the best relationships, although non-unbreakable.

[Beautiful sky]

I think Socionics could be helpful to think about in dating if you're someone whose compatibility antennae are not working all that well, for whatever reasons. Ideally, it'd be not a way to eliminate people from your life, but to help ensure that you are paying attention--that you are not overlooking the possibility of getting closer to someone who might be good for you.

You mean, essentially, not passing the person up for superficial reasons.

[golden]

You mean, essentially, not passing the person up for superficial reasons.

No, that is not what I mean.

[willekeurig]

I don't get this whole obsessing over duals thing. People are not their types, as everyone should know, but not very many seem to completely understand it. Ok, I'm not that experienced with Socionics yet, but to me it is a nice game to kill time with, and that's the way I want to keep it. The fact that someone is your dual/conflictor/whatever doesn't tell shit about that individual and your potentional relationship with him/her. It seems like some people somehow escape their insecurities by letting their type define themselves and their relationships. My best friend is supposed to be conflicting with me, and the very person who made me change my host family during high school exchange was my dual. So yeah.

[Ver]

Agarina, are you sure you typed yourself correctly? My cousin is my conflictor and we get on well although I can see how she gets on better with her husband, who's her dual. It's like we like each other, we like talking and spending time together and we respect each other, but I'm not sure if that relationship would exist if we weren't family. Obsessing with duals is stupid of course but what I'm trying to do is making some kind of research, observing and checking how the things work in practice. I make my own conclusions. Socionics helped me to understand people and their motivations better.
But I totally agree with you that people are not their types. I know many people of each type and they can be different as people.

[Suz]

I don't get this whole obsessing over duals thing. People are not their types, as everyone should know, but not very many seem to completely understand it. Ok, I'm not that experienced with Socionics yet, but to me it is a nice game to kill time with, and that's the way I want to keep it. The fact that someone is your dual/conflictor/whatever doesn't tell shit about that individual and your potentional relationship with him/her. It seems like some people somehow escape their insecurities by letting their type define themselves and their relationships. My best friend is supposed to be conflicting with me, and the very person who made me change my host family during high school exchange was my dual. So yeah.

Maybe one or both of you is mistyped...and that's why socionics doesn't seem to be working for you.

I agree that socionics is not everything, and there are many NTR issues that can affect a relationship, but I do think socionics is onto something. I disagree with your statement that socionics doesn't say sh*t about relationship potential. If you have your types right, it actually can be quite predictive of how close you can get (psychologically) with someone. I learned that the hard way.

Of course, for example, if you meet a dual, you may not be able to get too close for a variety of NTR reasons, but the potential is there. If you are forced to work together in a setting where the NTR factors are irrelevant, the duality does come out and even if you aren't friends the work is easy, smooth, without friction; like a well-oiled machine.

On the flip side, if you meet a conflictor or supervisor/ee and hit it off well, there is definitely the potential for things to go very wrong over the long term and depending on the psychological distance of the relationship. For example, I was really good friends with a socionic supervisor at work for about a year (like, we would chat for hours about life, family, superficial things) before the friendship totally blew up in my face, which incidentally happened shortly after we started working much closer on a project together. And she was typed LII (by people on the forum) while we were still friends, much to my surprise and disbelief. Sure enough though, it played out as predicted as much as I didn't want it to.

[Slacker]

If you are getting along with a conflictor here and there and not getting along with a dual here and there, that's to be expected. There are NTR issues. But if there is a pattern of generally not getting along with your dual and/or generally getting along easily with your conflictor, then IMO someone is mistyped.

[Suz]

Oh the other thing i want to mention about the conflictor relationship... You can actually be friends with a conflictor and admire them. The term "Conflictor" is a misnomer as you dont necessarily have outright conflict with conflictors, heck they seem superficially almost like duals; instead i've found socionic "conflict" to be more a relationship of mutual misunderstanding, which hurts a lot when you're close enough and can be extremely frustrating.

Case in point, I dont think i've ever had a fight with my conflictors on this forum. In fact, I barely interact with the LSIs here. And I tend to gloss over LSI posts, as the content tends to be somewhat irrelevant in my view. Boring might be another word to describe it, without insight (at least without insight interesting to me). As for LSI celebrities, I often find them very beautiful, attractive people.

[Slacker]

Yeah but it depends on "psychological distance." I'm thinking IRL and relatively close relationships.

[willekeurig]

Maybe one or both of you is mistyped...and that's why socionics doesn't seem to be working for you.

I agree that socionics is not everything, and there are many NTR issues that can affect a relationship, but I do think socionics is onto something. I disagree with your statement that socionics doesn't say sh*t about relationship potential. If you have your types right, it actually can be quite predictive of how close you can get (psychologically) with someone. I learned that the hard way.

Oh, I'm not saying socionics isn't working for me at all - with most of my relationships it actually works quite well. If it didn't, I probably wouldn't bother to write here. What I meant is that it is stupid to decide upon whether or not to get to know someone and/or how to interact with them because of their type/the intertype relation you're supposed to have with them. I've seen that happening and I think it's just fucked up. Slacker put it well;

[QUOTE ]If you are getting along with a conflictor here and there and not getting along with a dual here and there, that's to be expected. There are NTR issues. But if there is a pattern of generally not getting along with your dual and/or generally getting along easily with your conflictor, then IMO someone is mistyped. [/QUOTE]

[Suz]

Oh, I'm not saying socionics isn't working for me at all - with most of my relationships it actually works quite well. If it didn't, I probably wouldn't bother to write here. What I meant is that it is stupid to decide upon whether or not to get to know someone and/or how to interact with them because of their type/the intertype relation you're supposed to have with them. I've seen that happening and I think it's just fucked up. Slacker put it well;

If you are getting along with a conflictor here and there and not getting along with a dual here and there, that's to be expected. There are NTR issues. But if there is a pattern of generally not getting along with your dual and/or generally getting along easily with your conflictor, then IMO someone is mistyped.

well that's funny that you're pointing that out to me, because Slacker essentially said the same exact thing i said.

[willekeurig]

well that's funny that you're pointing that out to me, because Slacker essentially said the same exact thing i said.

I must have missed something then. I don't think a "bad" intertype relation necessarily turns out bad at individual level. If that's not what you meant either then I guess we all agree.

[Suz]

I must have missed something then. I don't think a "bad" intertype relation necessarily turns out bad at individual level. If that's not what you meant either then I guess we all agree.

What i said was that a "bad" intertype might not manifest fully depending on psychological distance of the relationship. In which case it would seem that you're getting along well with a "bad intertype", but if you try to get closer things might start going sour. If you have a lot of NTR things in common that are bringing you closer together with a person of a "bad intertype" that makes it more likely that you might end up friends with that person and get along well, as you said. However, if you start increasing psychological proximity, it may not be so pleasant. Again, it's the POTENTIAL of the relationship that is being ESTIMATED by socionics. Nothing is set in stone.

My point ultimately was that saying "socionics doesn't predict sh*t" as you did, is an exaggeration as well; ime it actually does. That's not to say one should isolate oneself to interacting only with quadra-members and avoiding people from the opposing quadra altogether. I believe that it's actually healthy to interact with people of all types.

[Reuben]

After being with a dual you

1) become more like them
2) become comfortable expressing your strenghts
3) attract more duals

the signs of duality are:

1) comfort
2) energy
3) laughter

[Beautiful sky]

There's no really good way to "attract" a dual; the only way to have a dual is to be ready for one, to be ready for a relationship, even if that's a friendship of duality because if all you're doing is trying to be alone, than you're not really ready to have anyone in your life, even if that person is a really important person.

[DirectorAbbie]

There's no really good way to "attract" a dual;

Sure there is.
Don't act like someone else's dual.

[Beautiful sky]

Come now, what are you gonna do to the poor fellow, string him up by his calfs with a rope...heehee!!!

[Slacker]

I think the way to attract a dual is to be natural, be yourself, and not overanalyze your behavior. Forget about Socionics and be natural and people who are naturally attracted to you will be.

[consentingadult]

What. They're among the only types that directly respond yes or no if you directly ask them out. How can that be hard to get.

Because "no!" might also mean: "try harder!"

[redbaron]

Slacker, I think my perspective may be of BENEFIT to you. Har har har.

Certainly spending more time working on the relationship would strengthen it! Kind of like the sports motto: "Hard work beats talent, if the talent fails to work hard." --> Hard work beats natural compatibility, if the natural compatibility fails to work hard.

Maintaining any kind of relationship takes some amount of time, and effort. Generally, duality just takes less time than others. But certainly, if you put more time in, the relationship would get stronger, no matter what kind of natural compatibility exists. And non-duals putting in more time, would find the relationship stronger and more fulfilling, then duals who don't.

In the duality description, it says, maintaining a dual relationship is less time-consuming, so that each person may spend more time on their own interesting activities. Do you want to spend more time on your own activities, or more time into the relationship? Do you want a stronger relationship? What do you want? Are you just speculating why non-dual relationships are stronger? If the last question is what you're looking for, it's simply because they've put more time into it.

I need to respectfully disagree here. More time put into a relationship does NOT necessarily equal a stronger relationship. Oh that it did! See, relationships do require work but that work ought to be productive, as you say. I know several marriages right now where that's simply not the case. One is a conflict marriage, the other is supervisory. After awhile it becomes apparent that the only way to live peacefully with this person is to keep a certain distance. Don't even TRY to get closer. You kind of learn how to do this and can certainly MAKE things work that way if you're willing to have that kind of marriage. But it's not a simple formula of more time=better marriage.

Just sayin.

[redbaron]

Haha, I thought my bf was SLI, initially. FAIL.

I've mistaken SLE for SLI and vice versa.