Incompatible Personalities Clash

When two personalities are incompatible, conflicts, disagreements and discomforts arise. Some people point out that sometimes fate manages to force us to share the stage with people we don’t get along with.

It happens at school, in high school, at work… Somehow we almost always end up meeting someone who seems to be the complete opposite of us. Is this bad luck?

Not at all. Human beings are so complex when it comes to personality that it is almost inevitable that every now and then differences, disagreements, and even antagonisms appear between two people. Knowing how to live together is the key in this type of situation.

Sometimes these character “clashes” don’t just arise between people who are outside of our most private sphere. It is also common for our character to clash with a family member or even their partner. We can become fully aware that the person with whom we share our life is incompatible with us.

When personalities clash, what are the causes?

Carl Jung used to say that the main cause of conflict in everyday life was the antagonism between the introverted personality and the outgoing personality. It could be a hypothesis. An excessively open or reserved person can annoy us, for example.

However, when personalities clash, it is because of other triggers beyond these two typologies. It’s interesting to know that science has been interested in this topic for decades for good reasons.

We know that many workplace conflicts are motivated by these character differences and antagonisms. Sometimes these disagreements can hinder the development of many careers, scientific advances in the laboratory, and even discoveries.

Studies, like the one published in the journal Nature by Dr Kendall Powell indicate something relevant. A bad work environment is like toxic smoke that extinguishes motivation, creativity and performance. But why is this happening? What is behind these character clashes?

Beyond the way of being, there is respect

We talked earlier about introverted and introverted personalities. This theory is not as important as we think. Beyond how we are, there is the way we relate to others, and that is the real difference.

Thus, one can be very extrovert, defender of certain ideas, political tendencies or others, but if one knows how to respect others, it is rare that impossible to untie knots form. It doesn’t matter whether we have a colleague or a parent whose lifestyle is very different from ours, if he is respectful, there will be no excessive friction.

Incompatible values

When two personalities see each other as incompatible and clash, there is more than just a friction of character. It is the difference in their respective values ​​that places one on one side and the other on the other. Defending antagonistic principles, being guided by different dimensions and not understanding the other characterize these relationships.

When personalities clash because one of them is conflicting

Many of us have experienced this in our own skin. Sometimes we have no problem working or sharing space with people who have a very different personality than ours.

However, that changes when we encounter conflicting personalities. In these cases, we are dealing with a pattern of behavior that seeks difference, igniting discord and disagreement.

What can we do if we are incompatible with someone?

Our reality would be wonderful and fulfilling if we could take more advantage of our personality differences. Each of us, in each of our particularities, is able to offer others new perspectives with which they can see the world from other prisms.

Being different is not a problem, the problem is not accepting the difference. One way or another, when the personalities are incompatible and clash, it is because there is an excess of idiosyncrasy. It consists in making the other see that our truth is the only truth and that his is without value.

This unbearable friction arises when we fall into extremes and problems of coexistence. It is therefore always opportune to reflect on certain aspects that we present below.

You and I are incompatible… What do we do now?

Work, family, friendships and even relationships. There are times when we feel like we have reached the limit. We tell ourselves that we can no longer cope with the other person’s way of being… What can we do?

• The first thing to do is to understand that personality differences don’t have to be conflicting. Feeling that we value things opposed to the other person doesn’t have to lead us to conflict. You just have to accept that this relationship will not give more of itself.

• Howard Gardner, a psychologist and researcher at Harvard University, coined an interesting term: interpersonal intelligence. Knowing how to behave in situations of personality conflict is a tool that we are obliged to develop.
  • To do this, it is advisable, for example, to always examine your own internal psychodynamics: why is this person so difficult for me? Why is she making me angry, taking my composure away and “bumping into” me?

Also, in situations where distance is not possible, such as in work situations, it is always good to try and look at the similarities rather than the differences. We may be incompatible on many points, but that does not mean that we cannot be successful in living together and even agreeing on small aspects.

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