Here’s Why Incompatibility Matters in a Relationship, According to the Experts

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I’ll always remember a story that my mom told me about when her and my dad were dating. They were spending time with my mom’s best friend and her family. At one point, her best friend’s dad pulled her aside. He asked my mom if she liked my dad. “Of course I like him, I love him!” she replied.

“You don’t just need to love him, you need to like him,” he told her.

Liking someone doesn’t sound nearly as romantic as loving someone. But it turns out that liking someone plays a huge part in the success of a relationshipand according to the experts, how you and your partner deal with incompatibilities matters.

“Being ‘in like’ with someone means two things: Being alike in ways that matter and genuinely liking who the person is. Often these go hand in hand. That is because the more similar two people are, the more they are able to understand each other,” Dr. Meg Jay explains. She’s a clinical psycholigst who specializes in adult development. “We sometimes hear that opposites attract, and maybe they do for a hookup. But more often, similarity is the essence of compatibility.”

What does incompatibility mean for your online Catholic dating experience, and how can you find someone who you can both love and like? Read on to discover Dr. Jay’s advice and her top recommendation for finding out who you’re compatible with.

Finding someone you like online

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If you’re looking to find someone to like and love, an online dating site is a great place to start. But it’s important to choose an online dating platform that recognizes the importance of compatibility (and incompatibility!). What does an online dating platform that knows the importance of liking someone look like?

“While some internet dating sites are nothing more than electronic bulletin boards for personals and photos, others  assess your personality and pair you with similar others,” Dr. Jay writes. “Those sites say they are more concerned with who you are than with what you want. That’s good.”

Look for an online dating site that gives you plenty of opportunities to talk about who you are and how you understand the world. But once you’ve found your online dating platform of choice, make sure that you also spend more time talking about who you are than what you want in your profile.

Before you hit publish on your online dating profile, make sure you use our online dating profile checklist, which helps you focus on sharing who you are with other online dating site users.

Deal breakers versus match makers

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When you’re exploring online dating options as a single Catholic, many sites (ours included!) ask you to share your values and intereststhat’s a good thing. Talking about your hobbies and interests are great conversation starters.

However, it turns out that a lot of those qualities are what researches call “deal breakers, not match makers.” These shared interests can bring you together as a couple, but don’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll be a good fit. Just because you enjoy the same type of book or listen to the same type of podcast doesn’t make for an automatic match.

“Some research suggests that couples who are matched through this personality service tend to be happier than couples who meet in other ways, and if these matching sites are pairing people up based on their personality profiles, then this makes some sense,” explains Dr. Jay.

Keep reading to discover the easiest personality test you’ve ever taken and how Catholic Singles is helping match you based on your personality type, not just your shared interests.

The Big Five Personality Test 

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There are a lot of personality tests out there, but one of the simplest is the Big Five. This personality assessments uses five factors to help you describe how you interact with the world and other people around you. The test looks at your levels of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. When you take the test, results reveal whether you fall on the high end, low end, or somewhere in the middle of those factors.

Take the quiz here in less than 10 minutes!

“The big five isn’t about what you like,” Dr. Jay explains. “It’s about who you are, and it’s about how you live. The big five tells us how you wake up in the morning, and how you go about doing most anything. It has to do with how you experience the world and, as a result, how others experience you. This is important because, when it comes to personality, wherever you go, there you are.”

Once you know where you line up on each of the five factors, you have a pretty accurate description of who you are and how you interact with different situations. High on the conscientiousness factor? You more than likely are disciplined, efficient, and organized. Low on extroversion? Chances are you recharge alone and are known for your independence.

Why knowing your personality matters in a relationship

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It’s important to remember that there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to discovering your God-given personality. There’s just your personality. Many things go into shaping that personality, including your family of origin.

It’s great if you enjoy spending time out on the lake together as a couple, but remember the difference between deal breakers and match makers. Let’s say you enjoy starting the weekend bright and early and getting out there and doing thingsyou score high on openness. But maybe your partner is prefers a slow start to the weekend, just like they had when they were growing upa low openness score. Even if you both enjoy being out on the lake, the path you take to get there is very different, and could end up causing a lot of friction and conflict in the long run.

“While it is not better or worse to be high or low or in the middle of the dimensions of the Big Five, it is often the case that we like or dislike people because of the way their extremes compare to our own,” Dr. Jay explains. Opposites might attract, but similarities are what help make the match in the long run.

This isn’t to say that you should make someone fill out the Big Five on your first date, or that couples who have opposite personalities never work out. Instead, the Big Five is a tool to help you on your online dating journey as a single Catholic, just like knowing someone’s temperament can help you understand the “why” behind what they do or say.

Personality, compatibility, and Catholic Singles

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Remember how Dr. Jay pointed out that online dating sites that focus on who someone is instead of what they like are the good ones? Enter Catholic Singles. We’re the original Catholic dating site focused on who you are as a person, not just your profile picture or how well you can write an autobiography.

One of the ways we help match you with the single Catholic men and women on our platform is through the Catholic Singles Compatibility Test. It’s a personality survey that we use to help locate compatible matches for youmaking your online dating experience smooth and simple.

The test is divided into two parts which can take as little as ten minutes! In the first section, you will answer questions that help to describe who you are and your unique combination of personality factors. In the second section, you can tell us the type of factors that you are looking for in a partner. From there, our matching engine identifies those that have complementary trait.

Give our exclusive compatibility test a try today and create an account with Catholic Singles! Our test was built by scientists and helps you make better matches during your online Catholic dating experience. Register today to find out more!