3 Essentials For An Amazing Relationship

So I’ve been wondering for the last ten years on what that magical thing is that makes for a good relationship. Not the kind of stuff that you need to keep a relationship healthy and growing--don’t worry, that post is coming--but what you need at the outset.

I had a conversation with my Aunt Keri around the time of the Y2K silliness when she asked me what I thought the requirements were for a potential mate. I told her confidently that I wanted to meet someone that I was both attracted to and that I had a connection with. “I keep meeting women/girls that I think are hot but we don’t have much in common,” I said with profundity (thanks thesaurus.com), “Or I have a lot in common with a girl but she just ends up becoming a friend because there’s not much attraction, what gives!”

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Now in my uh, wise old age, my perspective on what a relationship requires has evolved, if only slightly. The two qualities I started with more than a decade ago has only been added to by one, so fasten your seat belts please.

1. Attraction.

Yeah you saw this one coming. Usually this is pretty immediate in a head turning, “Damn he’s hot” kinda way. And it also sneaks up on people, like a feline on a hairball. This is where you wake up one day and realize that you’ve actually had a thing for the barista down the street all this time, or turn to a friend one evening and point at a girl you both know across the table and whisper, “Dude, I think I’m kinda falling for Larissa.” Perhaps you say it without the dude part. Attraction by itself is great at first, but gets boring about as quick as looking at a picture of a beauty king or queen, and a date when only this quality is present has you looking for an escape hatch in about 2.1. Yep, I've been there, no bueno.

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2. Compatibility.

Aka stuff in common. You have to have some shared interests so that the things you do together are actually appealing to both parts of this couple equation, and so you can have conversations that get both of your juices flowing. If you realize one day that the person in the passenger seat of your car is rambling on about shiznit you could not be less interested in, or that you are driving toward an event that holds zero appeal for you, then there are problems. If that last “or” was an “and,” then there are lotsa problems, boredom being among them. If there is compatibility and it is the only quality of the three, it can definitely result in a friendship, though maybe not a great one. The most common example of this kind of relationship is work-friends.

3. Chemistry.