If you had asked me, in my early twenties, what makes people "cool", I would have put "what music they listen to" somewhere near the top. In fact, if you had asked me to name one thing that was wrong in the relationship with my then-girlfriend, I would have said "musical incompatibility."
Now, eight years (or however long) into my current marriage, I can't believe I used to be so petty. Actually, I'm pretty sure that the difference between bad and good music is largely semantic. Wendy was game when we first started out, eagerly subjecting herself to the bands I foisted on her (and, I like to think, she had a few things to teach me as well), but if she hadn't even been willing to act interested, I wonder how long I would've bothered.
I guess the issue wasn't that I wanted someone who liked all the same music as me, I just wanted someone who was open to trying out new sounds, even having new experiences. That IS something important to find in a relationship, at least for me.
That's my thing that I used to judge people too harshly for, that I now know doesn't matter. What's yours?
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I can't think of anything I used to judge people too harshly for when looking for a potential mate/girlfriend. However, that was kind of the problem. I would change who I was to make myself more appealing to girls I wanted to impress.
Once I allowed myself to be myself I attracted the best one by far, and we've been married almost 6 years now.
This makes me laugh because superficial things used to be more important to me. (Usually not consciously. These things never made it on my "list" but somehow they were still important.)
I wanted my partner to have a certain color of eyes, dress a certain way, look a certain way, like my music, be interested in my interests.
I am really glad that I got Austin to like Barenaked Ladies. It was really important to me at the time. He's actually more into them then I am at this point. My interests have evolved. I'm more into indie female singers now, but I was practically obsessed with BNL circa 2004.
Austin and I do have a lot in common, but not everything. I hate some of his music and he dislikes some of mine. We have a lot of overlapping areas.
I have realized that you don't have to like all the same things to like each other. You guys are one of my prime example. I think we have very few common interests in books, movies, music, etc. But I feel like this doesn't matter because we can respect that we like different things. And then we can have awesome conversations about these things instead of always agreeing with each other and never having anything to say.
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