Continuing the topics of romance, but moving a little bit away from personal experience and more into general observations...
In my part 2 on romance, I established that I feel an ideal relationship (in fiction and real life) is one where two people are similar enough to share the same goals, but different enough to have a broader set of skills than they would by themselves. In media, I feel like creators at least subconsciously feel the same way, and as a result of this, some dynamics end up being more common than others.
What two characters share with each other is often contextual to the story itself, or the type of story being told. But as far as how two characters are different from each other, well, you're more likely to see repeats there--certain traits make it easier or more interesting to have two characters play off of each other, in ways that don't just immediately break whatever it is they share with each other. And this bears similarities to real life for the same reasons, since what will make character interactions compelling also tend to be some of the same things that make real people interested in being with each other.
So let's go over some of those common "opposing traits", shall we?
To start off, I need to establish something I think is central to everything I'm going to talk about from this point forward: power dynamics.
Obviously, power dynamics play a critical part in any relationship for a variety of reasons. Going into details about that would fill an entire series of posts, if not an entire blog in and of itself. So rather than do that, I'm going to skip the vast majority of everything I could talk about in relation to power dynamics, and focus on how it's relevant to the current topic.
So, the reason it's important for two partners to be different is because, as I said, it gives them different abilities they can use to help each other achieve their goals. This, in and of itself, is an expression of power dynamics. Each character has power in an area where the other character is weak; they then use their personal powers to help each other out.
Maybe that seems like a stretch, but I feel that it is fundamental to what makes the relationships fun and interesting. There can be as much complexity here as can be introduced starting from any kind of power disparity. It gives the characters different abilities, but it also gives them different perspectives. They may disagree on how to respond to a particular situation because they have the specific abilities they have. Or they may just have general trouble understanding each other, having come from different life situations, or holding different values. It's the combination of their difference with the desire to work together that makes the process of finding a solution both interesting and valuable as comparison to real-life situations.
Okay, now let's talk about some of those common differences.
Masc/femme
I felt this was the most obvious one to start with, especially given that I'm also starting off with a focus on power dynamics.
As far as culture in general is concerned, this is the base constant of what is presented as the ideal dynamics of differences between two people in a romantic relationship. I am not going to go over how they're different, because A) I don't want to encourage people to get hung up on these standards more than necessary, and B) the standards for "masc" and "femme" differ across both time and culture regardless, and I want this essay to be as universal as I can make it.
That said, though the collection of traits it describes is somewhat arbitrary, what is constant is that it does represent two different sets of traits that are expected not to overlap. Mascs are presented as suited for navigating one social world, femmes are presented as suited for navigating a different social world. The premise behind it is that when a masc and a femme get together, they can cover a very broad range of different, varied abilities, making them automatically suited to tackling a huge variety of life's problems together.
Of course, the fundamental flaw of this particular binary, at least as it's been used historically, is that most people are not born actually suited for every skillset that a masc or femme person is expected to have, and in fact are a lot more likely to have different skills across those two genders. As a result, people who attempt to force themselves into either "masc" or "femme" and get together with the opposite gender are likely to find themselves in a situation where they're expected to have power in one area that they actually suck at, and as a result, they fail to meet the expected results of a masc/femme pairing as well.
This is not to say a masc/femme pairing is always inherently limiting or damaging! It's pushed as a universal standard when it shouldn't be, but nonetheless, there are people out there who match pretty well with a masc or femme identity, and they also feel attracted to those who match the opposite identity. And two people like that who get together with each other would most likely be a pretty strong couple, due to that balance between them!
But I think it's important to remember that the masc/femme balance is merely a representation of a particular kind of power balance. A particular variation of differing skillsets between two people. Every person is an individual, and so every person has a different set of skills, and so every relationship requires a different balance as well. I think the ideal lesson to take away from the masc/femme idea is that this can easily be a combination of lots of different kinds of skills, meaning it's important to avoid comparing and contrasting people according to one singular scale.
...But it's still useful to learn from looking at singular scales, so let's talk about a few more.
Sub/dom and top/bottom
This was the other obvious dynamic to start with, again, especially after stating I was going to focus on power dynamics. This is the dynamic that is deliberately based on a power dynamic. This is an explicit declaration of "one person has the control, the other person is the controlled."
And this is something that a wide variety of people use to define their own preferences in relationships. It makes sense: bringing another person into decision-making will create complications easily. The simplest way to handle it is to simply say upfront "this one person is going to handle all the decisions." It can be comforting to the decision-maker for allowing them to be free and unconstrained in what they do, and it can be comforting to the command-receiver to... well, not have to make any decisions.
But, as I have said multiple times now, there are different sets of skills, and so there are different kinds of power and control, and so there are different areas of power and control. Sub/dom can refer to a lot of things, but it usually has a sexual connotation; we're not talking about control over all aspects of life (usually), just stuff that happens in the bedroom or the club bathroom. But even in that specific situation, there are still different types of power and control. Who's giving the vocal commands? Who's performing the physical actions? Who's influencing the emotions experienced by either person? Usually both of them are, right?
Even in a relationship where the agreed-upon idea is supposed to be that one person has all the control, it's not as simple as that. Still, this dynamic is a good example of how extreme power dynamics can be comforting to both parties regardless of how that power is expressed, and that ties into all the rest of the dynamics I'm talking about here as well.
Other implied power disparities
Some of the most common genres of romance--ones common enough to have their own names--are often between two types of people who are expected to have a general power disparity between them in a somewhat uniform way, but focused on a specific trait. This stuff is present in cishet romance, but it became more apparent to me once I started looking more deeply into queer romance, since queer romance is more likely to try to focus on character dynamics other than masc/femme (though it's certainly not immune to that, either).
- Money. Economic class is the most obvious power difference between people in real life, and many people fantasize about someone from a higher class swooping in, saving them from their dead-end jobs, and showering them with affection and gifts. Using their power not to control their lovers, necessarily, but to provide them with things they don't already have. And gender really doesn't matter here; we have stories of princes marrying common girls, but we also have songs about working-class guys getting together with uptown girls.
- Age. I'd rather not focus on this one too much since it's probably the most problematic of the dynamics listed in this post, but it's nonetheless an obvious one as far as power dynamics are concerned, and so therefore it's a common one. Feel free to browse the "may/december romance" tag on the fiction listing of your choice, and then let's leave it at that rather than explore the alternatives.
- Socialization. It might not be something you think of right away, but ability to socialize is a kind of power, so extroversion/introversion is a common dynamic in many romantic relationships in one way or another. By itself, it leads to all sorts of "breaking someone out of their shell" type stories. I have a personal fondness for this one! Again, gender is pretty irrelevant here, since straight girls have both cute shy boys and suave gentlemen, and straight guys have both defrosting ice queens and manic pixie dream girls, depending on who has the shell and who's breaking it. These baselines can be copied and adjusted for other genders and sexualities as well.
- Magic. Maybe you find the real-world power disparities too problematic. Fuck it, make one of the partners a druid or a werewolf or a siren or something. Now you can more easily customize the power dynamics and associated fantasies to your personal preferences! Highly recommended.
Notice, too, that most of these have the additional aspect of one of the protagonists being able to bring the other into a world that's new and unfamiliar to them, and help them to navigate through it. And this usually goes both ways, since the implication is that both characters are from different worlds... though the more escapist a work is, the more likely it is to ignore the "normal world" the main protagonist left behind.
But the "exploring new worlds" aspect is, I feel, representative of what makes romance stories magical. Every new relationship is an introduction to a new world, the world of the new person you've just met. And every new relationship is a creation of a new world, the world shared by two different people deciding to create a shared life with each other.
Is there any relationship dynamic other that one based on power disparities?
Well... no, not in the ways I'm describing in this post. Any difference of ability is a difference of power, and that's where all the complexities come from.
If I were to try to come up with differences in personality other than ones commonly associated with power, I'd probably reference personality tests like Myers-Briggs and the Big Five next: I already covered extroversion, but there's also conscientiousness, openness to new experiences, and many others, depending on what research (or lack of research) you ascribe to. But even these, in reality, can just describe different kinds of power.
But that's kinda my end point. There are lots of different kinds of power, and every person comes equipped with different ones. No one person is going to hold power over any other person in literally every area of personhood. There will always be tradeoffs that can be focused on in order to show how the two partners can be equals, and that's important to understand in the development of a romance, too.
Also, understanding all these different power dynamics will hopefully illustrate something else: Two partners can always be the same in a certain area, and that can be one of the ways in which they're able to more easily connect to each other. Some mascs may be attracted to femmes for being different from them... But, you know, I'm a lesbian. I'm a femme who's attracted to other femmes like me. So while I'd like to be the same as my partner in that area, I do look to other things for differences--for example, as I mentioned, a difference in socialization. (I'm pretty talkative and my girlfriend is pretty quiet. We both have strengths and weaknesses that result from this.)
So if you're interested in exploring or creating romances, whether in fiction or real life, it's worth understanding and reflecting on all these different power dynamics and how they connect to your own abilities, values, and preferences. Are some particular disparities a turn-off for you? Or a turn-on? If you'd rather be equal to your partner in all the ways I've already mentioned, are there some other personality differences that are appealing to you that I haven't even talked about?
These are the kinds of questions I want romances to explore. I want to know every way that someone can love someone else. Maybe, in future posts, I'll be able to explore some of the more specific details of my own relationship that make it uniquely valuable to me and my love. I hope my explorations help you find the same for yourself.