In Defense of Dating Outside Your “Type”

My best friend Alexa has always had a type. In her words, said type is: “Beautiful but dumb as a rock.”And she was remarkably committed to the bit. In college, she was in a top-tier sorority and exclusively dated and hooked up with big, gorgeous, popular frat guys who were usually kind of assholes, generally did whatever she wanted, and absolutely had to be at least six feet tall. I cannot stress enough that six feet was not a preference. It was a minimum requirement.Then, after a breakup, she met a guy at a bar.He was from the Midwest. He was smart. He did not kiss the ground she walked on. And, perhaps most damningly, he was 5'10".She liked him, but there was obviously a problem: He was short. Not actually short, mind you. Just two inches below the completely arbitrary height requirement Alexa had apparently established for anyone hoping to qualify for the role of Her Boyfriend.Anyway, they've been together for 10 years. They're married. They have three kids. He's a lawyer. At the time of writing this, they're shopping for a lake house.Now, I am not suggesting you throw every preference you've ever had out the window and start dating people you're actively not attracted to in the name of personal growth. Have a type! Types are fun. I'm just not convinced they tell us all that much about who will actually make us happy.Because having a type is fine. Letting your type make decisions for you is where things get *checks notes* stupid.Your Type Isn't a Compatibility TestThe problem with a “type” is that we tend to give it way more credit than it deserves. Height, age, appearance, career, hobbies, style—all of those things might determine whether someone catches your eye across a bar or earns an immediate right swipe. But none of them are necessarily the meat of a person.“A ‘type’ is usually a collection of qualities a person has learned to associate with desire,” says Joy Berkheimer, PhD, LMFT, relationship therapist and sexologist. Sometimes, she says, those qualities reflect genuine preferences. Other times, a type is “simply familiarity dressed in attractive clothing.”Which, unfortunately, tracks with my own romantic history. Before I met my husband, I had a pretty consistent type, too: short men who cheated on me. Short kings, but more like unfunny jesters.Looking back, I don't think I was consciously prowling bars thinking, Hmm, which of these mediocre men seems most likely to eventually devastate me? But I do think I kept gravitating toward versions of the same person because some part of me didn't believe I deserved much more. My husband, Jon, was the wildcard.And apparently, repeatedly choosing the same kind of person can make that pattern feel even more natural over time. Maisy Bristol, astrologer and founder of LoveLab, says past relationships can reinforce our attraction to a certain “type,” making us more likely to continue choosing people who fit the same familiar pattern.And that's the thing about repeatedly dating your “type”: A pattern isn't automatically a preference worth protecting.And this is where I think we give our types entirely too much power: A preference and a requirement for a happy relationship are not the same thing. Dr. Joy points to shared values, emotional availability, sexual compatibility, communication, lifestyle, and what kind of relationship you both want as examples of things that can determine genuine compatibility. Only dating people over six feet tall? That's a preference.Again, you're allowed to have those! Please do not leave here thinking we have ordered you to start fucking people you aren't attracted to for character development. But maybe it's worth asking which things on your list tell you something meaningful about the person you're considering—and which ones simply describe the people you've considered before.Chemistry Is Information, Not InstructionsBut what about chemistry? What about that immediate, inexplicable feeling when someone walks into a room and your brain goes, Yep, unfortunately I need that?Listen, I love that shit. Sometimes you know immediately that you're attracted to someone, and I'm certainly not here to argue with your genitals. But instant chemistry is not a compatibility screening tool.“Chemistry is information, but it is not always instruction,” Dr. Joy says. Sometimes that immediate spark really is attraction. But sometimes, familiarity itself can create a spark—and familiarity isn't necessarily evidence that you're compatible.This is also where I think we need to make one very important distinction: “Not my type” is not the same thing as “I'm not attracted to them.”If you do not want to kiss someone, please don't kiss them because a woman on the internet told you to broaden your horizons. We are not resurrecting the age-old tradition of telling women to just give the nice guy a chance. If you don't want ‘em, you don't want ‘em. Godspeed to everyone involved.But attraction doesn't always have to arrive like a fucking lightning strike, either. Dr. Joy says attraction can grow through things like emotional intimacy, admiration, playfulness, intelligence, tenderness, and simply feeling deeply seen by another person. That is very different, she stresses, from trying to talk yourself into wanting someone you simply don't. “You do not need cinematic fireworks on the first date, but there should generally be something you genuinely want to move toward,” she says.Maybe it's curiosity. Maybe you keep thinking about something they said. Maybe you had such a good time that you looked at your phone and somehow three hours had passed. Maybe you want to kiss them even though they're five-foot-ten.You don't have to know whether someone is your future spouse by the end of your first drink. You don't even have to know whether they're your “type.”Sometimes you can just give life a chance to unfold.Your Type Is Going to Get Wrinkles AnywayLet's say you find them. Your exact fucking type. Correct height. Correct hair. Correct body. Correct job. Correct hobbies. Checks every box you've been dutifully carrying around since you decided you had a type in the first place.I have some unfortunate news: They're still going to get old.So are you.Bodies change. Faces change. Hairlines change. People get sick. They have kids. They change careers. They pick up new interests and drop old ones. The person you meet at 25 isn't going to be the same person at 35 or 55 or 75, and if you're lucky enough to get that much time together, neither will you.Which is why I think some of the things we use to decide who is or isn't “our type” can start to look a little silly when you consider what choosing a partner actually means. The height that seemed nonnegotiable when you were swiping on Hinge probably matters a lot less when you're sitting next to someone in a hospital waiting room. So does whether they listen to the same music as you or play golf or have the exact body type you've always gone for.Do you actually like being around this person? Do they respect you? Do you respect them? Do they make you feel valued, special, and seen? Can you make each other laugh when everything fucking sucks? Can you build a life together that you both actually want to live?And none of this means lowering your standards. If anything, I think it's about getting much, much clearer on what your standards actually are. Dr. Joy says dating outside your type should be “an expansion of possibility, not an abandonment of discernment.” Your preferences are allowed to evolve as you do.Alexa didn't lower her standards when she married a 5'10" guy after years of insisting on six feet minimum. She realized two inches weren't actually one of them.So have a type. Enjoy your type. Fuck your type, if they're into it. Just don't become so committed to the idea of who you're supposed to want that you miss the person you actually do.