Questims and Declatims in Love: Is Mutual Understanding Possible?

At the foundation of the worldview of a pronounced questim lies the principle of their own personal uniqueness. In affirming this principle for themselves, including in close relationships, especially in love, it is very important for a questim to prove to themselves and to feel that their partner is precisely that one and only, unique, “very best” person, the only person in the entire world who is ideally suited to them.

The criteria for this uniqueness may differ, depending on other traits. Some seek the person with the highest status, the strongest person, someone who surpasses others in the hierarchy by virtue of certain qualities. For others, what comes first is a unique inner world, a commonality of life values that elevates them above the masses. For others, it is a similar life experience, often painful and rare, which only someone like themselves will be able to understand and accept. For some, probably, more sensory traits are also important, that is, a certain fetishism associated with the partner’s appearance and manners.

Unlike a questim, a declatim considers themselves part of the people, an ordinary member who does not particularly stand out from the masses in any way. And they do not suffer at all because of this, because of their real or imagined ordinariness; on the contrary, the sense of similarity to others gives them a feeling of involvement in the life of their society, and through this - a meaning in life.

Unlike a questim, a declatim is not concerned with the uniqueness of the partner’s personality either; they “can be with anyone”. Or almost anyone - if that other person meets the most minimal criteria of humanity and resemblance to the average person of the corresponding sex and, possibly, age in that society.

Thus, an extraverted declatim may easily have many female and male friends in their youth, and then join their fate with one of them - and not necessarily because that person is particularly well suited to them, but because “it just happened that way”. An introverted declatim, meanwhile, will quite possibly accept any partner whom fate has brought them, or even whom other people have matched them with, and will not complain or suffer because of this; on the contrary, they will accept it as a matter of course and try to live by the principle “endurance will turn into love”.

So, what does this mean? In principle, in theory, questimity and declatimity are complementary traits that contribute to dual attraction.

In practice, however, a questim will find it incomprehensible that their declatim partner is indifferent to the question of seeking evidence of the uniqueness of their personalities, of the unrepeatable correspondence between certain personal qualities of theirs that justifies and confirms the very possibility of feelings existing.

If a declatim can easily and simply say that, well, I did not really choose, I simply married the first relatively suitable partner who literally “came to hand”, and had things turned out differently, I would now be living with someone else, and the other person in the couple would also be living with a fourth person, and there would be nothing terrible about that, as long as everyone was happy together - then, in such a situation, will a questim feel loved to any extent at all?

Nevertheless, there are also logical arguments that do seem to support the duality hypothesis for this pair of Reinin traits. Namely, a pronounced questim may be so fastidious and demanding in matters of partner selection that, in practice, no one at all will meet the many conditions they impose. Moreover, in pursuit of their uniqueness, a questim may stray so far beyond the bounds of the norm accepted in society that they simply become a freak and an outcast from whom almost everyone will recoil.

Everyone, with the exception of only two categories of people:

1. The same kinds of freaks and outcasts - that is, not merely equally original individuals (for two original individuals who are original in different respects are just as alien to each other as they are to people in the street), but precisely those who are original in exactly the same qualities;
2. The completely omnivorous.

Since the more original the individual, the smaller the circle of people concerned with similar issues, and the stricter the selection criteria of the other original individual as well, finding a partner from group 1 becomes difficult. And then only someone from group 2 will save them from loneliness. And that group, clearly, consists of the most radical declatims - people whose criteria for what is acceptable are as broad as possible.

That may be so, but will the questim ultimately be glad and happy with such a partnership? Who knows. Perhaps, after suffering because their ideals constantly shatter against an imperfect reality, against the inadequate (from their point of view) demands and values of other original individuals, they will one day be glad simply to be with someone, anyone. As long as that someone is a living person who does not reject them with all their particular characteristics.

And, of course, even in such a case, the questim will afterwards certainly find or invent for themselves some way in which their declatim partner is the very best. Because, whatever anyone may say, all people are different after all, and there is something unique and unrepeatable in everyone, even if they themselves do not know it.

PS What, then, does practice tell us on this subject?

Questimity-declatimity, let us recall, is almost the only Reinin trait that, in the statistics from Talanov’s questionnaires, demonstrates properties that do not quite coincide with the theory. Specifically, unlike the clear dual attraction between extraverts and introverts, logical and ethical types, sensing and intuitive types, positivists and negativists, no analogous attraction between questims and declatims has been found overall. This trait turns out either to be completely neutral with respect to questions of duality, or perhaps individualistic questims even more often choose partners who likewise value unique individuality, while declatims choose “ordinary people” like themselves.

Thus, the question of whether individualism and collectivism within a couple are dual, conflicting, or indifferent to each other remains open and unclear for now.