This is a relatively old thread, but I'm not trying to start a discussion, I'm just adding a note to the information about Imagos, and this seems to be the best place for that.

I'm finding out just how important the Imago is for attraction to occur. I've dated women whom I thought were good matches to me, but they didn't see things that way. One ESI told me that she didn't find me attractive, but she liked my SLI son immediately upon meeting him. I later learned that her father is SLI, so she is obviously operating more on Imago than on functional compatibility. (This pissed me off, incidentally.)

I've said here before that my preference in ESI's is a woman who is tall and thin. Since my ex-wife and all my significant GF's met these criteria, I assume that this is my Imago. I even rejected an ESI who liked me because she is neither tall nor thin. I'm pretty sure she was terminally pissed off at my failure to see how functionally good we were together. Which, I admit, we were.

I recently met an ESI who is both tall and thin and I immediately started vetting her for wife material. (She is less enthusiastic about me. I wonder why? Lol.) This immediate, strong reaction to her hasn't happened with any of the other ESI's I've dated. The most I can say is that I really liked the other ones and got along with them tremendously well. But did I see them immediately as permanent, stick-around-forever possibilities? Not exactly. It was more of a wait-and-see-if-something-develops thing.

Most Imagos probably take their form from our parents. For example, my father is SLI and I married an SLI. My mother is LSE, and my LII sister married an LSE.

I've been wondering for some time where my own preferences came from. There is my SLI parent connection, of course, and my attraction to IEI's is almost certainly due to the love I received from my IEI aunt, but where does the "tall and thin" come from?

I realized this morning that my best friend from HS, an ESI with whom I weathered the usual HS stuff, was both tall and thin. He was kind of dorky, but that didn't matter in the slightest, since I am, too. Lol.

The question now is, knowing this, can I overcome it?

"Imago" is an irrational preference made by the lizard-brain and it interferes with optimal choices. If my HS buddy had looked different, I'd be off on some other path right now and would still be missing the essentials.