How do you decide if someone is right for you?

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While I can be friendly with most people instantly, I'd have to know you at least a few days or weeks before I'd feel comfortable making plans to meet up at places other than where we happen to cross paths already, even as friends - to be the kind of friend I'd let into my house, I'd probably have to know you for at least a few weeks / months - to live together, easily months if not over a year.

Usually what makes me feel as though "yes, this person is a good match" or however you'd care to phrase it, is that we have a few core traits in common, just enough that we tend to move more in concert than in opposition. The issue with simply "meeting people" or being in the same place, and relying on just "being there" as a criteria to move on, is that lines that intersect can still be perpendicular, and just cos two people end up in the same spot doesn't mean they're both on the same path. Friends often come and go as they progress through their lives. People often drift apart as their lives continue in different directions.

So, to me, it's important to know if the person you plan to be with, even remotely shares some semblance of a common trajectory in life. The longer you get to know a person, the more you can learn what a person's core qualities are, where they plan to go in life, and where they actually are going in life. Someone with a very different trajectory than mine, is probably not right for me. Fine as a friend, maybe even a close friend, but not as a life partner.

A couple of common interests on top of that don't hurt. But I tend to share at least one or two common interests with anyone I become regular friends with, anyway. So that's not usually an active concern.

There are also a few things about me, my life, my hobbies, personality, etc, that any potential partner would have to decide if it matched their path in life. I suppose one might over-simplify it as "she doesn't run away", but it's definitely more nuanced and tactful than just that. I recognize the optics of how some things might seem to others, and differences in comfort levels. So I make sure people get to know who I am as well, not just by telling them, but by being that person, so they can see for themselves.

Oh brother, Bee's question was "Is this person right for me". For a male the algorithm is simple, nice pleasant personality, she isn't running away, she could be the one.

Wow. You're easy to please.

I'm male, and for me it's not simple at all. A large percentage of people either bore or annoy me. Beyond that, for me to seriously begin to consider someone as a partner, she has to be highly intelligent, creative, open-minded, physically attractive (to me), rigorously honest, not too "normie", have at least some shared areas of interest with me, and be able to deal with my numerous eccentricities. And after all that, we still have to prove to be compatible as a long-term couple.

As it turns out, I got lucky. Very lucky. But it took a very long time to get here.

When I met my current partner we spent 5 minutes under a pool table hiding from the guy she came with. That conversation ticked enough boxes that we were in bed within 1/2 hour and
in the middle of the night she came with me to a 711 wearing nothing but my dressing gown.
I'm not sure why that impressed me, but I suspect it was her boldness/fearlessness.
The next day she introduced her flatmates and went to the kitchen so she could hear me say my name....hehehe.
There were no deal-breakers overnight or that day, and we're still together 35 years later.

In your enthusiasm you might have missed that I mentioned speaking in "operational language". Operationalising health on some type of continuum (I understand this to be your intention) means any thing that reduces health can be interpreted as unhealthy (reducing both health and wellbeing). the agent acting on our health is by default toxic.

Something being toxic isn't of course fatal. If we are talking about words then maybe its stressful which if used to often leads to stress and an early heart attack. (Sorry the analogy is for illustrative purposes only).

That's a good healthy attitude. I think it can be difficult to show our real selves instead of trying to be who the other person expects us to be or thinks that we are. I'm still navigating that with my relatively new relationship, which is about 9 months old at this point but I still feel like I'm walking on eggshells. He isn't doing anything to make me feel that way and he is very kind and accepting of me, but I feel that way nevertheless.

So, you understand what I meant, you're just choosing to take it differently. Gotcha. In other news, all food is now toxic, since it's less heathy than kale...

Even Kale kills you
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... tamination

According to your own article, it's not the kale, but the man-made chemicals leeching into it. Just like fish aren't toxic, but the mercury from pollution is. But I've noticed that differentiating things gives you difficulty, so I understand where the confusion lies.

Meanwhile, I've dipped a baseball bat in peanut butter. If I clobber someone with it, they died of a peanut allergy...?

What other insightful wisdom do you have to share?

Anything else related to the topic?