Forget The Age Gap In Relationships — Let's Talk About The 'Vibes Gap'
Does your partner match your energy?
Tetiana Kobzeva and Nathan Ayoola via Unsplash / sparklestroke, hadiiiben and boholine via Canva A post on X (formerly known as Twitter) recently sparked a conversation about how couples tend to have opposing personalities that you wouldn't think would mesh well.
They called the two different personalities the 'vibes gap' in relationships.
According to the original poster, a relationship has a "vibes gap" when "one person in a couple lights up a room and the other is basically a sim."
“This is how I view wedding portraits," someone said in reply, adding that "the woman is usually dazzlingly beautiful, and the man is more or less interchangeable.” It's not all about gender or looks, though. You see the vibes gap in relationships where one person has a robust social life and loves going out while the other prefers staying home. Or perhaps it's the couple in which one person could spend five hours browsing every aisle of the grocery store while their other half is in and out in fifteen minutes flat.
The "vibes gap" really speaks to the theory that opposites attract, meaning we tend to find ourselves attracted to people who are different than us. As one person put it, two "light-up-a-rooms" are "annoying" but two "sims" won't work either, as it's "boring."
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According to comedian Mike Vecchione, this "vibes gap" is key to making a relationship work. "The marriages that last are a combination of two types of people," he said during a stand-up performance. "One person who is boring with another person who is crazy."
But do opposites really attract?
According to research, there may be a physiological reason we find ourselves attracted to our total opposites, with several studies finding that we may be wired to choose partners that are genetically different than us for better chances of healthy reproduction.
On a social level, soulmate coaches Orna and Matthew Walters have said that opposites attract because they provide a healthy balance in a relationship, especially when the differences in a relationship create strengths. For example, when an introvert is in a relationship with an extrovert, the introvert provides grounding energy that helps stabilize the relationship while the extrovert can stimulate connection.
We tend to take note of couples with a vibes gap because contrasts are easier to spot than similarities. When two things clash on a surface level, they are easily recognizable as an unlikely pair and cause people to question just how they happened to come together. But some of those differences in personality could be the exact reason two people connect. Perhaps those traits complement each other — what one person doesn’t have, the other does, and they work together like well-oiled machines.
What really matters in a lasting and healthy relationship are shared values and mutual respect. As relationship coach Jack Maddox explains in a TikTok video, "opposites attract but similarities are what bond us."
As a matter of fact, studies show that people are most attracted to people who are similar to them or who they ideally want to be, those who complement their own person, and people who make them feel secure in their attachment. Other studies confirm that similarity and complementarity are key components in mate selection and that people seek in others what they value in themselves.
If partners who are different from one another give a relationship a try, they have to be open and accepting and be able to use the strengths that their mate possesses to fill in their weak spots. If not, those little differences can become dealbreakers over time.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington. She covers lifestyle, relationship, and human-interest stories that readers can relate to and that bring social issues to the forefront for discussion.