From my semi-reclusive standpoint, when I look around at others in their groups and associations, whether as couples or as members of broader communities, I see certain threads of resemblance in these people that connects them. Though mostly unconscious of them, these threads are part of the binding quality that makes their alliances meaningful.

These complex webs of association are made up of a combination of elements including values, attitudes and outlook, maybe even looks and appearance and style preferences; it could be to do with shared history or common interest and all the permutations that are possible from these inputs.

Above that though I find it helpful to understand these things in terms of karma in the sense that lives lead as such tend to pan out in accordance with a determined force. Perhaps folks meeting up in the first place has a certain fated quality.

I suggest that the more easily one adheres to convention the more easy it is to fall quite naturally into a karmic cycle like I am describing. The relationship dynamics, both in one-to-one and in groups, follow from it as if to natural order.

This phenomenon is easier to see in others than they can see in themselves. It becomes unconsciously compounded. The more they hang out and their lives are intertwined the more these resemblances becomes ingrained and observable. In this sense people become their own stereotypes.

My attempt to avoid this for the sake of individuality has not been fortuitous in that it hasn't served me well. It has been that very attempt, the trying to avoid the standard karma of convention, that has lead to no good partnerships for me.

I don't have a solution. Insight, if this brings any, might help marginally. But the cure for the bigger ill is illusive because the chances of finding a compatible soul seem to me so random and subject to chance. Or put another way: they are part of a karmic force it is seemingly impossible to contrive and cultivate. It comes with its own energy and consequence. One can only live in line with what it issues.