Recipe For Who We Cannot Gel With

I have been thinking about the kind of persons we cannot gel with. I was discussing this with Guruji and some thoughts emerged.

The essentials of this line of thought is the following assumption:

The ability to get along, while it depends to a large extent on the individual X - some individuals are agreeable and some are not, depends also to a large extent on the chemistry between two people (X and Y) than only on the "physics" / nature of one person X. 

Let us assume there are 3 things (a, b, c) if exhibited frequently by anyone will get us raving mad. They get out the worst in us. The tendency of a person Y to have exhibit a and/or b  and/or c frequently (even unknowingly) is enough for us to tune off with that person Y. 

Now I have a question here. If the person Y has other nice qualities which we love, but they exhibit one or more of a, b, c will we still like that person or will we dislike him?

For example, we may hate someone who criticizes us, we may hate someone who is not loyal to us, we may hate someone whom we cannot communicate with. The person may have other nice things - he may be good looking, have a good sense of humor, not a miser etc. How do we relate to such a person? Do we see his nice qualities more or the ones that we hate more?

It depends on us, how tolerant we are. And how much are the things in Y that we love and how much of a b c are in that person which we hate. And I guess it's then "an algebraic sum" (more on the idea of "algebraic sum" later when I discuss dosage). I would at this point assume, without proof, that we can lose interest in the person Y if the quantum of a, b, c that we hate in a person are high enough in him.

Now, this leads to an interesting conclusion. We often tend to think of the presence of good qualities in another person more than on the "bad" things which we don't want him to have. Is it not more important to look at those things which we hate (and look for their absence) than on the presence  of nice things?

A thing that confuses is the set of generally held "nice" attributes which people expect everyone to have but which may mean little to us. For example, we all expect a man to be intelligent, confident, have a sense of humor, have authority, capable of loving, being considerate, "being always there for us and very loyal to us", "accepts us as we are" etc.

Now no man will have all of this in plenty. Which of the above characteristics is most important to us? Absence of which will not be an issue? Absence of which characteristic is a disaster for us? 

How do we ascertain this? By asking that question. Which a, b, c can get us raving mad? Presence of those in a man is a disaster. Other things, positive or negative, in that person may not be that important to us. Those may not have a big affect one way or the other.

So if we knew what those a, b, c for us are then we have to look primarily for persons lacking those (negative) characteristics. There is another question here: "Do we lack the a,b,c that a man cannot tolerate". If we do not lack the things a man hates in a person then how do we expect him to be attracted to us? While we always look at what the other person should / should not have, when do we look at who would love what we do / do not have? There is a specific type of person who would be attracted to us and is he also the person that we would be attracted to? If the answer to this question is yes then we have found the right person, at last.

I thought I had got all the thoughts I had now on this subject off my chest. Until Guruji reminded me of another aspect. If we don't get to see the impact of the negative a, b, c in another person then we may not dislike the other person enough. This brings in the aspect of dosage. 

Do we dislike all people all people who have the characteristics a, b, c equally? Absolutely no. Just as the impact of medicines varies with dosage, the impact of these characteristics on us varies with dosage. How many times have I told my friends "I am just like your husband (as horrible)", yet they still would like to speak with me. Why is this so? I don't live under the same roof as my friends, they don't feel the force of my personality because of the distance between us, meaning the dosage is low enough that they don't dislike me.

Extrapolate this thought. The spouse whom we cannot tolerate can still be our good friend (not a spouse but only a friend) since then the dosage of their negative characteristics may be mild enough for us to not get pissed off with them. And conversely, a person who is our good friend may not be good to be with 24/7 when we can get to see the full impact of their negative characteristics.

Additional reading: http://vbala99.blogspot.in/2012/02/what-is-connect.html