[SCHiM]

Your post contains a contradiction, at least it appears to me to be so.

If something is countable or quantifiable, like 'True, lasting happiness'. Isn't the partner that is capable of providing the 'True, lasting happiness' the perfect match for you? There might be multiple potential partners that will provide lasting happiness, and the one that does this in the most expedient fashion (or perhaps the result of doing happinessp1 * happinessp2) is the 'perfect' partner. My understanding of what you wrote is that you mean to say that there is no Disney prince/princess waiting for anyone out there. I can agree with that, but certainly there is a match somewhere that is maximally mutually compatible (perfect??)?

[lhnz]

I think what he's saying is that true, lasting happiness comes from "unselfish sacrifice and compromise" to one another, instead of from from finding a "match somewhere that is maximally mutually compatible".

That is how I see it too, and in fact it seems to be how the writer sees it:

  > The person who is best suited to us
  > is not the person who shares our every
  > taste (he or she doesn’t exist), but
  > the person who can negotiate differences
  > in taste intelligently — the person
  > who is good at disagreement. Rather 
  > than some notional idea of perfect 
  > complementarity, it is the capacity
  > to tolerate differences with 
  > generosity that is the true marker
  > of the “not overly wrong” person.

[zaque1213]

Thanks for raising my apparent contradiction. What I meant to say, perhaps not very well, is that _no_ partner is capable of proving true, lasting happiness, which I now realize is an unexact term. However close one can come to that happiness, though, is a consequence of ones own resolve to seek the highest good of the other. In my marriage, the more loved, safe, happy, secure, etc, my wife is, the happier I am free to be. And my wife strives for the same. We are satisfied in the others satisfaction, and therefore don't depend on the other for satisfaction.

[mannykannot]

If you want to make a formal argument, I think you will need a formal definition of 'true, lasting happiness' and of expediency in its provision.

[zaque1213]

Agreed, I've admitted in another comment that this was an inexact term. I'm not a happiness expert, so I'm open to suggestions!