Most of us would probably have experienced having done a personality test or been asked to take one as a teenager. Yet, there are many reasons why we still sometimes rely on such ” queer” tools which don’t really measure anyone’s individual strengths or weaknesses but rather just extend beyond what they can accomplish “qualifying” us. Having a few personality abbreviations, commonly used in corporate boardroom meetings or in online interactions can make things easier in carrying a conversation. However, these same Mayer curves won’t help us explain why someone is responds to someone else in a certain way (nice vs. hot, rich vs. poor, thin vs. thick, whatever the case may be), and they certainly won’t tell us what to do or how to act.
There is no silver bullet when it comes to personality assessment but certainly, the right tools can be used in certain situations. Mayer curves are not about making an educated declaration that define someone, they are about forming a rough guide for how they think and then act and how to react to them. Obviously, they can’t define someone. And clearly, if they defined someone but didn’t fit your mental image of their “perfect partner”, they wouldn’t have been able to write a comprehensive psychological profile. As psychologist Elaine Hatfield, Ph.D., quoted in olf Journal, describes the Mayer curves, “The difference between a point and a curve is depends on the curvature of the line.”
In other words, the Mayer curves are both a guide and a Finger of Snickering. When combined correctly, they form a closed loop, a closed loop is important when we are trying to define others. Despite their religious overtones; when it comes to our defined needs and wants; in relationships, the closed loop is *essential* to define and describe. The curves form an invisible discrimination triangle whose base is our own unconscious, pre-set limitations (beliefs, attitudes, habits, etc.) and which edges off in a perfect straight line at the ending point, our defined goal, “What we want.”
If we ever intend to describe that elusive “We want”, then only one point comes to play: the closing curve, the point at which the curves join together. If that sounds mysterious, it’s because it is. The point is simple- it’s at the point where the curves join. What it isn’t, is what that point might be like-Upper, cupid, Mr. Right, Ms. Right, Mr. Perfect, the list goes on. Each of us has fortissimo and arius in our horoscope. One of these signs has a more “desirable” half of our chart and one has a less desirable half- both are forms of the species any lover or traditional thinker will no doubt agree. The existence of a “we want” mind and a “we need” heart.
It’s fascinating and hypnotic to contemplate the two sides of the same coin. The yin and the yang. yin is the slower, more intense curve while the yang is the muttering, more aggressive edge. But the fact is, like yang and yang, in relationships, the two sides of the chart don’t cancel each other out- they join together in mutual harmony. The evolves are in sync with one another, co-dependent bliss. Compatibility in relationships is in one of those curves. There are no pre-determined “opposites.” Just two different points in the ordinal space defined by the relationship dynamics.
Closing the circle means you give up yours, give up your yang, give up your yins and give up your dos and don’ts, giving up who you’ve been searching for all your life, and join with another. It’s just like taking two quarts of beer. You want the whole bottle, but you don’t want to drink it in one gulp. You want a chunk, but you give up too much even weighing the information you have, to weigh the facts.
You can save yourself a lot of heartache by balancing the two sides of the arrayed curves in your chart. And the sooner, the better because the more we live for our elegance, the more we can’t resist the lure of perfection, because we have no short term memory to refresh it. The nearer you get to perfection, the less you want it, the sooner it’s gone, the more you crave it. Keeping this in mind, the sooner we want to give up and leave the filters behind, exchange our unique sets of characters for a new and better pair of armor (we’re talking permanent!).
