Compatibility and circumstance

How much does compatibility have to do with circumstance, specifically the presence or absence of stress? One usually thinks of personal or sexual compatibility in absolute terms. "I'm compatible with so and so." or "We're not compatible,". What if compatibility depends on the pressure either party is under. Of course there are cases when you get on best with another person if you are both calm, but I think there are more instances than one would expect of people getting along well only when they are both stressed, or only when one party is under lots of pressure and the other is not.

At the college I attended there was a specific romantic relationship which would occur between seniors and freshmen. Many freshmen are fairly relaxed, and have a good amount of free time, while seniors tend to be under a lot of pressure to complete their theses, and are generally stressed out. Freshmen contribute energy and enthusiasm to the otherwise burnt out seniors, and seniors impart their relative wisdom to the freshmen, along with making them feel needed, and helpful. These relationships rarely last beyond graduation, even when the senior will be staying in town when they are finished with college. The give and take of the stress and relief is no longer present, and in fact the rolls tend to reverse themselves, since graduated seniors tend to go out and get low stress jobs, where the former freshmen enter what is generally termed the sophomore slump. Few relationships survive this roll reversal. Compatibility deteriorates with changing stress levels, or perhaps changing life situations.

I have been in relationships that only held up under extreme stress, which fell apart immediately as soon as one or the other party was no longer under pressure. I find some people attractive when they are battling their dragons, and not at all appealing when they aren't pushed to the limit. Other people are delightful when they are not under any pressure and endlessly irritating when they are worried about the slightest thing. On the other side of the coin, I can only deal with some people when I am calm, and others when I am freaking out.

I suppose there is a person for every moment really. It is unfortunate that love or comparably deep emotions don't seem to be nearly as circumstance dependent as sexual compatibility. Whether or not I am in love with a person seems to be completely independent of our sexual compatibility. It seems too much to ask that a person should find one other person in their whole life who they both love and are compatible with most of the time. Perhaps I haven't found the one, maybe I am cynical, but permanent commitment seems like a problem to me, and always will until it somehow takes into account the changes in compatibility which are byproducts of continually changing circumstance.