CreativeDominant
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Joined: 3/11/2006
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ORIGINAL: InTonguesslut
Pragmatic.
of or pertaining to a practical point of view or practical considerations.
Emotional.
pertaining to or involving emotion or the emotions.
subject to or easily affected by emotion.
appealing to the emotions.
actuated, effected, or determined by emotion rather than reason.
governed by emotion.
showing or revealing very strong emotions.
www.dictionary.com
I am definately more pragmatic than i am emotional. Sir is more pragmatic than he is emotional but not so much as me. Lally (always my sis) was far more emotional than she was pragmatic. At times these balances of pragmatism and emotion worked like a charm and at others it was like a train wreck.
It leads me to wonder :-
Can the balance of the two, emotion and pragmatism, however unequal make an equal balance on all parts for a relationship to work? In my opinion, no. As someone else noted, if you have someone who is 90-100% practical and only 0 - 10% emotional and put them with a person who is 0-10% practical and 90-100% emotional, you are going to be mixing oil and water. Despite the romanticism of "opposites attract", you rarely see "and opposites last". They generally don't...they wear on each other just as two people who are too close in temperament and nature can begin to grind on one another. Tis the differences that make things interesting but too much difference makes it irritating.
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Does the balance of how pragmatic an individual person is and how emotional have to be reasonably closely balanced with those of your partner for the relationship to work?
Or can a mixture of them both however unequal work just as well? These two questions are similar to the first...at least in nature...and the answer is similar. In my opinion, there has to be a balance that closely approximates each other. I don't give a flying fig if I have a partner who doesn't believe in capital punishment even though I do. But at the same time, she should believe in punishment of some sort, with little leniency for murderers, for those who've committed crimes. If she is one of those who is a "blame society, not the criminal" types, then she and I are too far apart. Now, that is just one issue and all by itself, it would not be a problem but what you generally find is that there is a basis for her believing that way and that basis tends to color all her beliefs just as my basis for believing in the death penalty colors all my beliefs. Given that, I am pretty sure that we'd find a lot to disagree on...pretty vehemently...and while I enjoy a good, spirited discussion and understand that my partner will not always agree with me, I am not going to deliberately pick someone who is the polar opposite of me. Now bring emotions vs. logic into the mix at levels that are not just slightly off-kilter but wildly so and you have a combustible mix just waiting to go "boom".
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And just out of curiosity which way do you lean, emotional or pragmatic? I lean more towards the pragmatic side with healthy emotions that I am not afraid of expressing but which I will not allow to lead me all by themselves. I could not do my job if I leaned solely towards the emotional side and I could not do my job if I was strictly pragmatic and unable to empathize with what the patient is feeling.
Part of the problem that I see with emotionalists is that they will use the stance of "you are just always cold-hearted", when they know that is not always true, to avoid facing up to having to give a rational reason for their behavior. They often want to lay much of their behavior on what they feel and find fault with pragmatists for not elevating every situation to the emotional level that the emotionalist feels is called for. Call it "emotional supremacy"
Part of the problem I see with pragmatists is that they have a tendency to dismiss someone with emotions, as misst herself noted, as being over-reactive when the person with emotions rightly responds with emotion to a situation that even a casual observer can see is rife with emotional possibilities. Their stance is that "you just get way too emotional about everything...can't you see that this makes sense?" Call it, as someone did, "logical arrogance".
Let's face it, to a pragmatist, if it is something they have thought through and come to a solution for or way to implement or a belief that it should be done this way, then in their mind it IS the right way. But if their partner's thoughts only AND not their feelings, despite their being an emotionalist, have not been taken into account then is it a way that answers both partner's needs...or just one? No matter what the pragmatist believes, those emotions and feelings are good for the dynamic/relationship...they keep it from feeling STERILE and machine-like.
On the other side of that coin, emotionalists feel that a situation done in their way is going to be always considerate of their feelings, will always take into account each and every one of their emotional misgivings and give them time for their soul-searching before they move forward. They feel this will be good for everyone in the long run because feelings are much more important than thought in the area of human relationships. But if that were true, then why would there not be more long-lasting relationships? If you love each other and care about each other, then should you not always be together? What gets in the way of that is thoughts...sometimes those thoughts are, no matter what the emotionalist believes, good for the dynamic/relationship. They move it forward and keep it from becoming STALE and like a bad Harlequin novel.
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* As an aside Lally has approved this post and is just as curious for answers as i am.  Go lally!!!
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RE: emotion and pragmatism balance - 
Profile
- im pretty sure misst doesnt, but ill check 
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