Blog 5 : Ideal Partner

In todays blog, I will be discussing attributes of my ideal partner. For myself I would say that would be a person that have qualities that consist of the same morals and values as me, someone that is a good communicator, and someone with high emotional intelligence. With good communication, an understanding of their emotions but empathic to mine, and sharing the same ideals would make for a relationship full of longevity and happiness. The text discusses whether people are attracted to personality types that are either similar or different to us and a study was conducted in 2011 by Kaufman that found couples did not marry people that are like them. They also found that couples that are happily married were not significantly different or significantly similar to each other. I find that to be true for me, when it comes to my partner. While I think it’s important to agree or have some similar interests I would not want someone that is just like me, because I believe it would be boring for both of us. I want someone that can positively challenge me and help me grow as a person but also a partner for them.

The text also details about the practice of Exogamy, which describes “the practice of tradition of choosing a mate from outside one’s own group”. While I think it can be great to have a partner that shares a similar culture, which is described as Endogamy, again for myself I would like to learn and embrace my partner’s culture and family traditions and vice versa as way of expanding ourselves and coming together and then creating our own traditions for our partnership.

With having emotional intelligence, it allows us to understand and manage our emotions so that we can effectively communicate and emphasize with others which so important to our relationships. It also helps with conflict resolution, which will occur in any relationship but being able to navigate in a productive and healthy way is necessary. Similar morals and values are essential as well, to help maintain a bridge of where you both stand on issues that affect society and your community. This in turn will strengthen the bond you have with each other to grow as couple. While there are a great many of things that can make an ideal partner I believe that the listed as we have learned are truly to key.