opposites attract?

During my Neverland experience (working at Picasso's Coffeehouse), I served an infinite number of "attractive" women: some smart, some cute, some personable, and some contemplative. My best method for providing consistent (and un-intimidated) customer service was to be aloof and unpredictable -- perfect for the five minute exchange with females of every style.

These two years taught me that beauty is highly subjective. For all the self-deprecating humor of the coffee crowd, this slice of society always struck me as disproportionately comfortable in its own skin. Thus, if one was to gravitate towards a particular "type," it was there to be found in an unashamed display of confidence.

This only further complicated my personal plight, as there did not seem to be a rhyme or reason to my own subjective interest. When there had been, it was completely by accident: my four year, high school fixation with phlegmatic blondes was no more productive than my collegiate propensity for dark-featured women. Even these coincidences were of a superficial nature, and not a telling sign of my "type."

After receiving my degree, I thought I'd put it to good use, and attempted to reason myself into a "logical" approach to dating -- psychological mumbo-jumbo in hand. As a textbook ENFP, my best match scientifically is said to be an INFJ, that is to say that a man is generally attracted to women that share their dominant core traits (that is intuition/sensing or feeling/thinking), while approaching these values through opposite attitudes (extravert/introvert or perceiving/judging). Make sense? Yeah, it really doesn't matter. As it is, ENFPs make up roughly 8% of the population, whereas INFJs make up 1%. Throw in INFJs notoriously perfectionistic standard for relationships, and I can write my theory on a rigorously tested broken heart. And I've never been placed in the control group :)

[I could give you a reference of books with all of this research, but do any of us really care? Besides, this is a blog -- if you want to be all academic about it, you shouldn't be following someone who reads wikipedia for fun.]

I did learn a couple lessons through this pursuit: 1) I enjoy pain, because I think that perfectionistic women are wonderful. 2) A woman can have a billion things in common with me, but if I'm lacking her support, it's all a wash. Maybe it's childish of me, but I don't want my wife to merely put up with my passions, I want her to be with me.

All of this has brought me to one conclusion for the argument: whether a woman is smart, cute, personable, or contemplative is of less significance than if she is moving in the same direction. She could be further along; I could be further along. If we are pursuing the same God in the same way, his grace and our covenant will serve the rest. We must cling to both with the diligence and determination of two that never intend to rest in our own strength.