A friend of  mine asked me yesterday, “what can I do to fix this problem? I expect that I will like 99.9% of what my significant other is/does. I think that’s unrealistic.”

I gave him the short version of this long answer that I will now explain in detail.

Let’s take three parts into consideration:

1) People are icebergs — just like an iceberg, 90% is hidden below the surface. So that means that if you are recently getting to know someone, you are lucky to get the 10% that the world can see.

2) People are onions — they have many layers. Each layer you peel leads to more layers. Some people can be in a relationship for an incredibly long period of time and never get to each other’s core. Those are the relationships that don’t shake you.

3) People are ever changing and always growing (unless you’re boring, in which case, date someone boring and be done with it.)

Now for the math part.

If you want to be able to like 99.9% of what your partner is/does, you must a) be present for 99.9% of what they do and b) know 99.9% of who they are. This is highly unlikely unless you live/work/do everything together (kill me now) or have them followed by a cameraman. Moving on to a more realistic situation…

If you’re lucky, after a few months, let’s say you get to know 30-40% of the fundamentals of who your partner is and the quirks and idiosyncracies that make them who they are. At the rate that you are getting to know them, let’s say they are increasing “themselves” at that same rate (by doing new things, by learning new ideas, by trying new delicious cuisines). In the formative years, one could argue that the rate of growth is greater than the rate of you getting to know them. Maybe the inverse is true in the later years. If you are someone who does not share much, maybe it takes longer for someone to learn about you but you are still growing.

So we’ll start with you knowing 30-40% of your partner. But your partner is growing his database of “interesting fundamental things” at a rate of 5% per year. If you’re lucky, you’ll learn at that rate too — but you probably won’t, because you’re self-absorbed…so you’ll learn less. You will learn maybe 3% of the new things, while attempting to grasp the old ones, the formative memories and experiences that have shaped someone into who they are. Let’s assume, if you’re lucky, that you’ll learn 10% of your partner’s past experiences (past meaning, pre-you) by the end of your lifetime together. 10% is nothing. After you meet, things get factoured into the “shared memories and experiences” bin.

What does this mean? That if you’re lucky enough to have a dynamic, interesting partner, you will always know < 50% of what there is to know. They will remain interesting, enigmatic, and if you’re even luckier, you will assume that the rest of the 50% is as good as the half you do know.

To love 99.9% of what they’re doing now and who they are now is not factouring in the myriad of actions they have taken to become who they have become, and the endless number of memories you have the choice to make together.

There is so much left to learn.