Under The Same Sky Dreaming The Same Dream
Freud argued that “When we make small decisions, it is always advantageous to analyze the pros and cons. However, in vital matters, such as the choice of a partner or a profession, the decision must come from the unconscious, from a hidden place within us. In the really important decisions in life, we must let the deep needs of our nature rule. ” For this reason, the affinity of a couple means having the same dream, but at the same time preserving individuality.
Throughout the day we make many decisions intuitively, we choose the clothes we are going to wear, we choose one way and not another to go to work, we eat a certain food and not another. If all those decisions were not made intuitively, our life would be in chaos because it would take us a long time to do anything. Not even in doing it, but in starting to do it.
But what happens when choosing a partner? It would be difficult to make long lists of the pros and cons of dating someone and even more difficult to tell our hearts who we like and who we don’t. Therefore, when choosing that person with whom we want to go out, our intuition acts, because it is about living a dream.
Choosing someone to dream about
Although there is a myth that opposites attract, many studies have shown that we tend to marry or date similar people in terms of education, social class, ethnic origin, and even physical traits. This phenomenon is called selective pairing. The effects of this type of pairing are not negligible precisely, since it contributes especially to the maintenance of social or cultural inequality, by going against the miscegenation of classes.
In 2009 , an investigation was published in Genome Biology carried out in Latin America, which concluded that people tend to pair according to their DNA similarities, especially according to the similarities in their genetic ancestry. That is, we do not choose a partner at random.
More recently, a study carried out by the University of Colorado in the United States has concluded that people tend to choose romantic partners who have DNA similar to theirs. For the study, the scientists examined the genetic sequence of 825 American couples and showed that there was a greater similarity between the couples’ DNA than between the individuals in each couple and the other individuals in the study.
The researchers also compared the magnitude of genetic similarity with the magnitude of similarity by educational background. In this sense, they observed that the preference for a genetically similar boyfriend or girlfriend was three times lower than the preference for reasons of studies.
Shared dream and own dream
Having an affinity with someone does not mean that we do not have dreams of our own, that is, there always has to be a part of our life in which we develop as people, in which we learn to be ourselves, without ceasing to share with our partner.
The film The Good Star Club (based on a novel by Amy Tang) tells the story of a group of Chinese women who have emigrated to the United States. The youngest are Americans, but they still have a deep-rooted duty to give themselves to others and to their partner.
One of them goes to college and one of the most popular guys falls in love with her when she is sincere and authentic. Soon after they get married, but she gives up all her illusions and ambitions and turns to him.
In one of the scenes in the film, she asks him where he wants to have dinner, whether at home or away. He answers her that where she wants, but she insists. The husband begs her to decide, to express her wishes. But she is no longer able to choose because she has buried her dreams so deeply that she has forgotten her ability to choose. In the next scene the divorce papers appear.
This simple scene teaches us that having a partner should never mean giving up our dreams, our ability to choose and be free in those choices. There will be common dreams, but there must also be dreams of each of the people and that will be what enriches each one and the couple.
