I don’t write about dating or romantic relationships here on the blog. That is a deliberate choice. I once had someone tell me they thought I must be anti-romantic relationship since I never talk about it here, which I thought was hilarious, and also a good illustration of how much people can read into this blog that simply isn’t true. (Yes, sometimes people read a lot into this blog. It is unfortunate. I’ve also decided it’s probably inevitable.)
Anyway, today is different! Today I’m going to talk about dating! And it’s because of my friend Rahul, who wrote this fascinating blog post about the novel Ready Player One, among other things, called “Why do all sci-fi novels assume that if a person likes the same stuff as you, then they’re your soulmate.” I suggest you go over and read the whole thing so you have context, but this is the paragraph of particular interest to me:
“What we forget, though, is that friendship and love aren’t about shared interests. They involve a sense of connection and understanding that goes deeper than that. They’re about…a…a…a sense of fascination with each other. And that loving the same geeky shit really does nothing to provoke or prolong that sense of fascination. All it does is give you something to talk about once in a while.”
Many of my friends and I spend a lot of time talking about dating and relationships. And over time, I’ve developed a few pet theories. One of them is about just what Rahul is talking about here, the idea of the importance of having interests in common. Because we hear about this so much! The online dating sites are set up to highlight common interests, and when people talk about their ideal dates, they often bring up interests they would like to share.
But I agree with Rahul. I think common interests aren’t actually all that important. I’m not saying it’s great if you have absolutely nothing in common. And I think shared interests can be pleasant, like a nice bonus. They can smooth out beginnings, in both romantic and friend relationships. Shared interests give you an excuse to hang out, basically, and they give you something to talk about when you’re not sure what to talk about because you don’t know each other very well yet.
But in my experience, not sharing a particular interest hasn’t usually been a big downside in a relationship. I haven’t dated a serious musician since right after college, and music has certainly been important to me since then. I think I’ve dated more people who didn’t care about board games than people who really liked them. Certainly I’ve never dated somebody who shared all my interests. And I never felt like I had some big void in my life as a result. Plus sometimes I’ve picked up new interests and learned new things because of someone I’ve dated (or someone I’ve been friends with, for that matter), and that’s pretty cool.
I’m not saying that sharing particular interests can’t be important. For example, it gives me pause to consider the idea of dating someone who doesn’t read. The written word has become so intrinsic to my life, and I think I probably talk about it all the time, or at least I’d want to, and it would maybe be a little weird to talk about it with someone who never actually reads. Or even worse, someone who doesn’t even have an appreciation for the art form that is the novel. That being said, I have many friends who don’t read, and that’s fine. I just don’t talk with them about that part of my life. But with a partner? Yeah, I think it might be weird.
And of course, it’s great to spend time around people with whom we can have interesting conversations. But I’m not convinced shared interests are the key to having interesting conversations. They help, certainly, but equally important can be some combination of knowing how to ask good questions, knowing how to listen, having a lively sense of curiosity, having compatible senses of humor, being a good storyteller, having things in our lives that we are passionate about, and using empathy.
Photo Credit: Shawn Lavery via Compfight cc
Overall, Rahul’s idea about fascination seems more important. Fascination causes us to enter the realm of something deeper, of something not simply based on a shared interest for an activity, but instead on a shared interest in each other. It is at this stage in a relationship that we can talk about the things that shape us, the truths that are more personal, the vision of who we truly are or want to be or are afraid to become. Fascination causes us to be interested in someone else’s history, in their opinions, in their emotions, in all the components that added together equal themselves. And of course, fascination can be related to chemistry, whether we’re talking about physical chemistry or conversational chemistry (for example, the friend you can talk to for hours without effort in a satisfying back-and-forth).
Where does this fascination come from? I’m not really sure. From some magical combination of chemistry and curiosity and expression and appreciation and paying attention and who knows what else.
Shared interests are fine and good. But fascination, I think, has the potential to make a relationship truly extraordinary.
The Practical Free Spirit 
I completely agree with this. I think you can learn a lot from someone who doesn’t share your interests. As you said, shared interests are not key to an interesting conversation. I think there are some “fascinating” people out there to discover and become “fascinated” with if we go out of our comfort zone a bit.
Great post!
Very true. Shared interests are like a way of being able to express and understand life almost like a metaphor, but a shared sense of wonder in each other and the world around us both emotionally and physically will always find expression, whether or not you actually share any interests, although people on the same frequency often find they have some interests in common almost by default.
I think it’s much more important that the partners in a relationship can respect the other’s interests than that they share them. If one person is investing time, energy, and money in a pursuit that the other person thinks is a waste of time, it tends to cause friction. I think people tend to look for shared interests as a way of guaranteeing that respect.
I think there’s more going on in these novels (and in real life) than what we’re seeing at first blush.
Of course shared interests aren’t the be-all-end-all of good relationships, but having shared *activities* is certainly an incredibly important (and empirically supported) element of a strong relationship. Both people liking music doesn’t mean they’re soulmates, but if you both enjoy listening to music together, that makes a difference. Shared interests that lead to shared activities mean more time doing things together – doing things both parties enjoy – which, I think, engenders a sense of fascination since, by extension, you’re enjoying the time spent with the other person.
In addition, shared interests are also often a short-hand or code for shared values. Obviously they’re not a one-to-one equivalent, but we tend to read them that way. If you like some or all of the things I do, you probably value similar things, too. Someone who doesn’t like to read clearly has an interest mismatch with you, to say nothing of a value mismatch! If the written word is important to you, and enjoying reading is perceived as an expression of that value, then we perceive the lack thereof as a lack of shared values, not simply shared interests.
I think that’s where online dating fail, they eliminate people who could be great potentials just because the interest differ. Similar values are important, but exact same interests? Nah…
I completely agree that shared interests are more of a way to facilitate connection than a basis for connection.
I’m much more interested in sharing ideas, values, and ways of looking at the world. Curiosity, passion- even for completely unrelated things.
I do think OKCupid does a better job of looking at more of these other ways of connecting with their questions, rather than just focusing on linking people based on interests.
“But I’m not convinced shared interests are the key to having interesting conversations. They help, certainly, but equally important can be some combination of knowing how to ask good questions, knowing how to listen, having a lively sense of curiosity, having compatible senses of humor, being a good storyteller, having things in our lives that we are passionate about, and using empathy.”
I think all those things are true and more important that shared interests, but at the same time shared interests are still important – just not as important. Nobody is going to find someone who shares all their same interests, especially not initially.
But if you don’t have many shared interests how are you going to spend your time together? Sit around and talk all the time? If I met someone who’s main hobbies were karaoke, concerts, and stage theater what would we do together for fun?
I think it’s more about compatible interests than identical ones. We may not like the same bands, but if we both enjoy rock we can enjoy music together much more than if one of us loved rap and the other loved country. One of my biggest hobbies is geocaching; I don’t meet many geocachers, but if you enjoy spending time in the outdoors you are probably willing to try geocaching and at least understand the appeal and even if you don’t get excited about it probably wont mind if we go hiking or kayaking and I occasionally stop to find a box hidden behind a tree. If we don’t have the same favorite authors we will still enjoy hearing about each other’s latest books read as long as we both enjoy reading.
So I think the idea of shared values rather than shared interests is probably right: do you value the outdoors, using your brain for fun, learning, the arts, social settings?
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Having some shared interests helps. But I get what you mean, the shared interest may change when a partner loses passion in a shared interest.
What is critical to successful happy long term love/partnership are shared values and some shared perspectives how to live life in general and together. I would say it’s nice to have perpetual fascination, curiosity in each other, but more importantly learning from each other for life, supporting each other’s individual learning for life.
All of this combined with mutual humility, gratefulness, respect, fidelity and unconditional love.
It’s a long, incredible journey of discovering the other oersonal and yourself.
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