“I Got Just What You Need, Baby”
I remember once, as a very little girl, asking my mother what made a Mommy and a Daddy want to get married. She recited the following nursery rhyme to me.
Jack Spratt could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean.
So, between them both, you see,
They licked the platter clean.
For years, I felt that grownups always fell in love with someone who was different. On the surface I wasn’t wrong. The studies show that, basically, men and women seek someone similar. As we have examined, lovers seek someone with similar interests, similar values, and similar ways of looking at the world and at relationships. This is the deep stuff.

However, superimposed on the similarity is a surface layer of difference. Lovers also look for complementary qualities to bring them, as a couple, to completion. Some people seek qualities to make up for their lacks. A man who can’t boil an egg appreciates a good cook. A woman who doesn’t know a fan belt from a fuel pump appreciates a lover who knows what’s going on under the hood of her car. A man who can’t balance a checkbook is impressed that his sweetheart knows how to read the stock market ticker. Your Quarry will appreciate your complementary differences.
Maybe.
You have to be a detective and figure out precisely what complementary qualities your Quarry likes and which leave him or her cold (or, worse, which make your Quarry jealous or hostile). How do you do this? You can casually ask about your Quarry’s previous relationships. “What did you like about Jim?” “What held you and Sue together?” “What was Dan’s best quality?” ”What was Betty’s strength?”

You’ll hear an unbelievable variety of answers. “Jim was so handy; he could fix anything. Sue always read the paper and let me know what was going on in the world. Dan was really gregarious, and we had so many friends when we were together. Betty was a super bargain hunter, so we always got the best deal in anything we bought.”

Keep your ears open and your love computer receiving data. Pretty soon a picture starts to emerge.
If you have a skill that your Quarry needs (and is lousy at), you’ve hit pay dirt. If you have a trait your Quarry wishes he or she had, bingo! That’s the complementary quality that your Quarry needs in a long-term relationship.

I GOT JUST WHAT YOU NEED
From time to time, casually ask what qualities your Quarry admired in his or her previous lovers.
At a later date, when your Quarry has forgotten you had asked, start hinting at what a hotshot you are in those areas.

Lovers, beware. Don’t reveal complementary qualities too soon. The studies show that partners seek these assets later in the relationship, after they’re secure in their basic similarity. After you have established your similarity with the previous five techniques, this one puts the final pegs in the right holes to make you and your Quarry a perfect fit.

Let us now move on to an unbeatable recipe to conquer the heart of your choice. In the next section, we will cook up some delicious specialties to feed the ego monster and then make it become addicted to the diet you offer.

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Some contemporary relationship counselors encourage couples to discuss their relationship openly and often. They suggest exploring their love through quizzes, exercises, and affirmations. This can be enlightening and beneficial. But only if both partners enjoy discussing relationship issues, and only if both partners have the same basic assumptions of what a relationship should be. If the two start out with different basic assumptions, the exercises can backfire.

I have a friend, Linda, who feels a relationship is the most holy and deep commitment two human beings can make. Her parents, still happily married, are interdependent. They live only for each other and for their children. If Linda’s father steps out of the house to go to the grocery store, he makes sure the entire family knows where he is going and when he will be back.

Several years ago, Linda met her fiancé, George, at a ski resort. George was different from many of the men she had met. He was self-assured and independent. He had even put himself through law school and was now a junior partner in an excellent firm. George was rightfully very proud that he had made it on his own. He had never asked anyone for anything— or answered to anyone.

Linda fell in love with George very quickly. They seemed ideal for each other. They enjoyed the same activities. They were both excellent skiers. They felt basically the same way about the important things in life. They both wanted children.

They had the same beliefs about God. They agreed on how they should spend money, on where to go for vacations, and on many other issues. They wisely discussed these and other concerns before getting engaged. However, they neglected one issue, which turned out to be their undoing. George, who came from a broken family, defined an ideal relationship very differently from Linda.

Two months before their wedding, I received a tearful call from my friend. They had broken up. I was baffled. “What happened, Linda?” I asked.

“Well,” she sobbed, “George works very hard at his job and only wants to be with me on weekends.” She had convinced George they should see each other more often, and he had complied. Then, on their midweek dates, he would go into long periods of silence.
“And another thing,” she moaned. “George never phoned me when he was on the road.” She had convinced him to call her on his frequent business trips, but he had always made it seem like an effort.

Fearing their relationship was in trouble, Linda told George how she felt. He protested, “No, no, everything is fine.” He loved her and was looking forward to their wedding. Still fearing George was drifting away, she suggested they go to a relationship counselor. “A what?” George shouted. ”No way!”

Linda was shocked. He had never before raised his voice with her. She decided on do-it-yourself help. She bought some mail-order audiocassettes on making relationships work. She listened to the tapes, which promised to help relationships by encouraging people to get in touch with their inner child. She told George how wonderful the tapes were, and she suggested he listen to them with her.

“What?” he growled. “I’m going to take time from my work, come over to your place, light a candle, sit cross-legged on the floor, and listen to some inner brat tell me what I’m doing wrong in a relationship that I think—no, that I thought— was just fine? No, thank you! Linda, you’ve really gone off the deep end.”

The following week, George suggested they put off the wedding. I found this very sad because Linda and George had so much else in common. They could have been very happy together if only they’d felt the same way about what a relationship should be. If George had the same basic assumptions about marriage as Linda had, listening to the tapes and doing “love exercises” together could indeed have brought them closer. Conversely, if Linda had similar feelings about a relationship as George had, she could have pulled away a bit and given George more space.

Generally men are less comfortable exploring relationship issues than women are, so, Huntresses, you should proceed more cautiously. Your Quarry may be gun-shy about openly discussing your relationship. If you are dealing with a man like George, asking him outright what he feels a relationship should be could put him off.

Here is a safer technique to extract the information you need. Make it nonthreatening for him to open up and tell you what he expects from a relationship by removing it from the realm of the personal.

WHAT SHOULD I SAY LOVE IS?
Huntresses, you must find out what tacit assumptions your Quarry has about relationships.
To make your question nonthreatening, tell him one of your young friends or relatives (perhaps a niece or nephew) has asked you what an ideal love relationship should be. Since you don’t know how to answer, you are asking his advice: “What do you think I should say the ideal relationship is, hmm?”
Then listen. Listen hard.
Huntresses, thank him for his counsel. Then chisel what he says into your psyche.
One word concerning timing: Don’t ask about the status of your relationship too early. Wait until the two of you have reached some degree of intimacy, lest your Quarry suspect why you are asking. After your Quarry has developed affectionate feelings for you, he or she will probably appreciate the intent of your question.

That doesn’t mean you should wait before thinking about this crucial type of similarity. It’s never too soon to raise your antennae to pick up what he or she wants from a relationship. Listen between the lines whenever your Quarry is talking about previous lovers, parents, friends, or any relationships.

Finally comes a very big challenge. As the relationship progresses, you must do everything you can to make your Quarry feel you love him or her—not in the way you want to love, but in precisely the way your Quarry wants to be loved.

You will find more guidance on this important subtlety, including some of the right words to use, in the final two sections of How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You.

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