[RSBob]

When we are young, we are all fed a line of crap about the ideal mate from the marketing firms on Madison Ave. They have to look and smell good, wear the correct trendy clothes, like a sense of humor, long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and on and on. I bought into it, and all my friends bought into it - Why? Because we were young, impressionable, stupid and in the demographic cross hairs of master marketing geniuses.

What Madison Ave doesn't teach us is exactly what IS important. They are all about attraction, not compatibility (boring!) They don't talk about alignment in personalities, intelligence, values, faith, economics, hobbies, passions, philosophies in child rearing, political affiliation, motivation, cleanliness around the home and on and on. All terribly boring and don't sell a single solitary thing.

Before I married my 'starter wife' I had an idealized vision of my woman - cute, slim, blond, good sense of humor, and some one who cared about people - preferably some one in health care. She turned out to fit the bill and was a nurse to boot. We had great chemistry, great passion, great times, and shared a few interests.

A few years I discovered we were on completely different intellectual planes (going opposite directions), I worked to stay current on events, politics, etc so I could thoughtfully discuss the world with my friends. She should care less and preferred to ignore the news and read romance novels, and it just went south from there. 3 years later we divorced, and barely speaking.

Skip to the present. I have been very happily married for 5 years, together for 10, with a woman I met on line. We matched up our interests, philosophies, beliefs, passions, and peculiarities on a filtered data base which rank ordered our matches. It was cold, analytical, unromantic and as it turned out brilliant. It cut to what was really important and what makes compatibility work, not the fluff.

What attracts a person to an abuser? People appear to be attracted to the same type of people - usually some one like their parent of the opposite sex. If they came from an abusive or dominating family situation, it is familiar, even though not desirable. Then you get in to co-dependent personalities, domineering type who like subservient types, and vice versa. What is terrible is when good people get suckered into a relationship with a damaged person. Its a totally calculating play on the unsuspecting person. Some time people are just convincing actors, know how to act to attract people and then resort to their flawed personalities after the honeymoon period is over.