"We cannot help who we are attracted to. Earlier I have shortly and roughly expanded upon the importance of Physical Attractiveness. Every individual has their own physical preferences. Also, every individual has their own personality preferences – and no, they are not all related to their Dual! Those preferences can very well be opposite to one’s Dual! How is that possible?
How could we be attracted to a personality opposite to the one that is the most suitable to us? The culprit lies in your early upbringing. How you were being treated as a child by your caregivers and/or similar has an underestimated impact on what kind of personality (and looks!) you will be attracted to as an adult. Several personality and looks characteristics will be stored in your unconscious mind in the form of an image of your ideal partner, your “Imago“.
Following that, if you grew up with parents and/or other family members etc. who were (entirely) different from your Dual, it is highly likely you won’t feel as attracted to your Dual as to certain other personality types! Furthermore, many or perhaps even most married people will have married their “Imago” more or less – without knowing! If you don’t believe me, just look around you and take note of people’s marriage partners and their early caregivers (usually their parents or other family members). How closely do they resemble them? You may notice that someone has married someone who looks exactly like their grandmother when she was younger, or that someone’s husband suffers from a drug addiction just like their father did, or that someone’s wife is the exact same Sociotype as their mother. Little commonalities like that point towards the fact that the person has married their “Imago”.
What if someone’s “Imago” is a bad match for them – not just Typology-wise, but also in regards to mental health and so forth?
In that case, they will have to find someone who they are reasonably attracted to, though not as strongly as to someone who is closer to their “Imago”. Some people actually believe the “Imago” should be avoided altogether, because being with them will eventually unearth all your insecurities from when you were a child, even when they are a good person and/or good match for you. Personally I would not advise that, because I believe feeling uniquely attracted to someone is important, but I can understand why someone would make that decision, especially if they have had a history of being attracted to abusive people.
In short, your “Imago” won’t automatically be/look like your Dual (and likely not be that much like them at all), and that is normal. It is your choice whether you trade in attraction for Socionics compatibility or not, and to what amount. Everyone does that on some level, but beyond a certain one, you will very likely enter into unsatisfying territories. I would not advise to trade in attraction and “similarity” for the ideal of Duality altogether. While that may make your interaction rather smooth, you would miss that unique “spark” and/or possibly feel like you are not on the same page when it comes to life goals and such.
All in all, by now you can tell the reason behind why Duality is not as common as it should be is much more complex than one might think.
Aspects like Proximity, Exposure, Physical Attractiveness, Similarity and the “Imago” all play a role when it comes to who you will choose as your partner.
If you happen to find someone who fits all those factors to your satisfaction, and they are your Dual, you truly have “gotten lucky”. Most people won’t have this kind of luck. But, it very well might not be such an issue anyway. As long as your partner fulfills the aforementioned criteria, is a reasonably good match in Socionics (read this for more on that), and mentally healthy for the most part, you will be able to find happiness with someone who is not your Dual. In the sea of relationships, most of those that last a life-time are not Duality – and that’s okay."
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Originally Posted by Medusa
My mother is LSE, and my LII sister married an LSE.
interesting...
