on match made in heaven

A friend once told me he'd heard that a "match made in heaven" consists of three main connections: the body, the soul and the spirit. Really? Another way to over-analyze relationships? I was instantly hooked.

Essentially, it goes:

*Body - Am I physically attracted to this person?
*Soul - Would I even be friends with this person if I wasn't dating him/her?
*Spirit - Am I on the same spiritual path as this person? Do they inspire me?

A couple that matches all three is a "perfect match". Matching two can work, but will be a lifetime of work making up for the missing piece. And, of course, matching one (or none) is just, well, stupid.

I started to think of all my past relationships in this framework, probably because a) I like frameworks and b) I like torturing myself on what was and what might have been. And came to the framework-induced realization that I've actually mostly dated people that I've matched in either zero or only one category. Ouch. And sometimes just in the body category. Double ouch.

I remember that S. and I used to joke that we'd want to have unattractive children that became pretty only after the temptations of high school and college had magically vanished. A protective mechanism to keep them off-the-radar, I suppose. But what we had failed to consider in our naivete was that the temptations we'd considered don't just disappear once these stages of life are over. In the "real world," people still have one-night stands, cheat on their significant others, lie to their friends and are attracted to people for all the wrong reasons.

And it is unexpectedly harder now. People are less innocent and more jaded, and too casual and too intense, all at the same time. It is difficult to quite put a finger on what someone may like about you, and you often wonder if they are the same real and authentic qualities that you like and treasure about yourself. Sometimes we settle for lack of a body or soul or spirit connection because we hope it will come, someday.

Maybe it is better to be unattractive even longer?