Do people like oneself exist?

I have never met anyone with whom I agreed fully or shared everything. I can't imagine that one could, or that someone that smioar even exists. Maybe if you come from a small town and had all nonconformism beaten out of you? Even that sounds hard to imagine to me.

The paradox of living with someone as I have experienced it is that the larger the apparent difference initially, the more the existence of differences and the necessity of being prepared to expect the unexpected is. Ultimately any romantic relationship ends over incompatibilities that cant or wont be overcome, and in my experience the more similar we were, the more certain people were about gaps being too wide to bridge.

I'm married now with a foreign person, whom I met while in a third country, we've been together for over 7 years and while what you describe is always present and is sometimes tiring, the truth is that we also regularly discover how we have changed and 'infected' each other with habits and opinions. And that happens in any relationship: you grow towards each other, if you can and want to let it happen.

I therefore think it may in fact be easier when you are different: there is nowhere to hide and you need and are obviously prepared to deal with difference. When you are similarish, you might delude yourself into forgetting you are in fact not.

You’re describing a fear of intimacy. It’s actually fear of rejection, or of self-rejection, like so many things. If you choose someone to avoid a faithful reflection of yourself, you won’t be upset at any dissonance. It does work though.

You say things without showing or proving them. They merely seem hollows words invented to fit a narrative constructed to achieve precisely what you accuse others of: making yourself feel comfortable with your imperfect choices.

Sure. Regardless, it wasn’t a criticism. Your words seemed true and the situation common by my observation. There are some west Asian ‘third world’ cultures I have observed where marriage is not tied to any bond of intimacy or cohabitation, and now I see that as the direction of modern society as well. I’m not ready to make a value judgement on that. Maybe after a few lifetimes trying different pairing strategies.

At no point did I write about the absence of intimacy, cohabitation, or Asian 'third world' cultures.

You're not making much sense.

This is so close to being the right advice imo.

Personally I don't think it matters a ton if you have similar interests or careers or think about things in a similar way.

What matters most is that you want the same things out of life and out of a relationship. All of those similarities don't matter one bit if one person wants kids and the other doesn't. Or one person wants to own a lot of property and the other would like to spend every spare cent travelling.

Your partner does not have to be someone you share every hobby with or do everything together with, or agree on everything with.

They do have to be someone you can build a life with.

Those are examples of fundamental differences in thought patterns, interests, and preferences. And you are right, but a lot of that gets baked into more superficial similarities like education. But, for instance, the statement, “I want kids” can be a massively different statement from rational versus emotional reasoning.

I notice I’m sounding like Myers-Briggs, and I hadn’t thought about the validity of that.

My wife is quite different than I am, in many ways. She was an arts major who lived in a punk rock house that had shows with out of town bands in the basement. I was an Electrical Engineering major who listened to a lot of prog rock. None of our mutual friends expected us to hook up. We have been together over 20 years, and the fact that we are different means we are more often able to complement each others' skill sets (not least in the raising of our daughter). Just one data point, of course, but there you are.

You sound almost exactly alike. Music. School. Friends. These are all quite superficial, but it points to very similar patterns of thought and interest. You’ll see what I mean if you ever find yourself dating full strangers again.

Prog rock and punk rock are, yes, both music. She was formerly an art major, I was in electrical engineering, although she was forced to drop out before I met her due to financial issues. So, obviously not complete opposites, but not "almost exactly alike".

Wouldn't you naturally learn how to model how your mate thinks over time? Does it really doom you to a lifetime lacking understanding of how they think?

You would think so, but no, you are only observing and predicting behavior. But life is infinitely nuanced. And even if you could, what help is that when those thoughts have power over you, and you have none over them? It will never feel okay.

A corollary of this is that third-party observers are often quite easily able to notice this, though advice is often ignored.

True wisdom here. Heed it, younger people!