WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?: FACES: Compatibility Potential

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

Today, Greg and Emily explore John Van Epp's third letter in the getting-to-know acronym, FACES: Compatibility Potential. What are those make-or-break issues that make you compatible or incompatible with someone? Stay tuned till the end for the answer to a special question Emily has for Greg. 

Batman doesn't do ships, as in me. You complete me. I'm George, George McFly. I'm your density. It is not about the nail. No matter who, any man has a chance to sweep any woman off her feet. You're listening to Where For Art Thou, Romeo? The show that discusses how to navigate romantic relationships

and how to achieve a meme between the extremes of hookup culture and over-discerned dating. Here's your host, Emily Shudy. Welcome to Wherefore Art thou Romeo, the show where we talk about how to follow your heart without losing your mind. My name is Emily Shottie and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist and also my dad, Greg Shuddy. We're all navigating relationships every day, but sometimes the most intimate are also the most challenging. Our goal is to help you get out of your own head when it comes to your or even your friend's relationship questions and concerns. It's so good to be back in the studio and good to be talking with you again, Greg. I wish I could say that it was nice to be in the studio too, but I'm actually at home.

So it's nice to be with you, though. I actually just came from home from fall break, which was really nice to reset after the busy semester, a business of homecoming and academics. And now I'm plunging back into midterm season. Woohoo. Lucky you. Lucky me. That's okay. You know, I made it through a midterm today and I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Anyway, I think you have a story for us. I do. This is our segment on Cupid or stupid. This is a bad date. Young couple relaxing on there. They went on a picnic. So this is the guy talking. He says, she wanted to have a picnic. I spent an hour getting this table nicely set up with food, desserts, candles, and a tablecloth and cushions for us to sit on comfortably. I've never done this. But, I was trying hard to impress. She arrived late. There was no connection hardly at all. She wasn't talkative. She said she loved Latin Caribbean food, so I got takeout from one of the best places.

She didn't touch it at all. I asked her a couple of times if she was okay, and she just smiled and said, no. I sat through this for almost an hour. Finally asked her what was wrong? She responds, nothing really. I just think this is all a bit overboard for a first date. It's kind of cringy, like you're desperate. I just bit my tongue and said, well, if you're not going to eat, I sure am.

There was a couple sitting on a swing near us, and I went, hey, you guys, you hungry? They were on a date, but they were broke, so I invited them over to enjoy the table full of food with me. She left a few minutes after they came over. I had the best time with these two strangers, eating and laughing and telling them what happened and both of them telling me I deserved better. I'm still good friends with them some 10 years later now. That's insane. Oh, yeah. That's so hard. It sounds like the, the girl came with an attitude. Yeah. And yeah, I feel so bad for that guy. He tried so hard. I know. I know, well, at least he got some good friends out of it. So I give him, I give him, kudos for being Romeo there

and she definitely was stupid. Yeah. It seems like... If nothing else. I mean, enjoy the dinner. Yeah. Even if you do think it's a little overboard, which I guess I could see a little bit of her point, but like, not really. And you can still enjoy it even if it's a little over the top.

It doesn't mean you have to sit there and be so judgmental about it. That's just rude. Yeah. I get the feeling that this girl did not want to be there for whatever reason, or she saw him and decided that, you know, she was going to try and ruin the date. But either way, I mean, it says a lot about her, especially if you end up marrying her someday.

So good luck to the gentleman who wins that lovely lady. Good riddance, I suppose. Anyway. Yes. This is one of the important things when you're getting to know someone. To see, are they actually going to have fun sometimes? or are they going to be just super judgmental. You're listening to Wherefore Arthel Romeo, where we just got through our keyboard or stupid segment. I'm your host, Emily Shuddy, and my co-host is licensed

marriage therapist Greg Shuddy here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Today, we are jumping back into John Van Nupt's getting to know you acronym faces. So we've been talking about the attitudes and actions of the conscience, which is the A in faces. And we were discussing the two roles of the conscience, especially the role of an apology in relationships and how that can be part of stepping into somebody else's shoes. But today, we are going to hop into compatibility potential, which is the third letter in this acronym. What can you tell us about compatibility potential?

Well, you know, it's one of those where we kind of get to know someone and try and decide, you know, what's our compatibility in different areas of our life? Because you don't want someone that you're totally disconnected with and you have no compatibility. That can create some difficulty. But compatibility is, you know, looking at those different areas of life and seeing how we connect in some of those ways. And some of those differences that we have in compatibility where we could. grow. We can find it more exciting. And then lastly, I would say, you know, in that whole realm is looking at what are the deal breakers? Because you want to make sure that anything that's what we call a deal breaker or, okay, if this is where we're incompatible, this is not going to work.

Because this is going to be one of those situations that's going to keep coming up and tripping us up in our relationship. So compatibility is how do we connect on these different areas of life. So what would you have to say to the mantra that opposites attract? Because this seems to be something that claims there's compatibility in opposites, but does that necessarily mean that you are compatible? Okay. Well, let me ask you this. There is something to that, but what do you think, why do you think that is that opposites tend to attract? I mean, sometimes it can be a means of balancing yourself because if you find someone who's different from you, say you're a really quiet person and you meet someone who is the life of the party, they can be someone that

pulls you outside of your shell a little bit and helps you meet other people and go do interesting things because, and that's not to say just because you're quiet, you don't do interesting things, but it could be maybe you are pulling. hold out of that a little bit more, or if you are really extroverted and you meet someone who is a little bit more laid back, I mean, for myself, I can be a little bit reactive of a person. And so sometimes if people are, like, I find your personality is a lot more laid back, dad. And so sometimes you are able to help me just consider something a little bit more carefully rather than immediately jumping on a solution or action. So I think that sometimes that like opposite in a sense can be a balancing feature.

Yeah, exactly. And that's what I was hoping that you would say. And most people get this. I talk about this in my class, my marriage class, because a lot of people recognize this as something in their life. Is that a lot of people are attracted to someone that has differences, usually not in all the areas, but usually in some of those areas that are non-deal breakers. And so part of that is to pull us out of ourselves. It's something exciting. You know, when I met your mom, she really connected with a lot of people and she would pull them into, you know, building friendships.

And even though, you know, I work with people and I have people skills, that wasn't something that was always easy for me because I'm one of those. I worry about what everybody thinks. So that was really exciting for me when when mom would you know make these friends easily and and we would have Those different connections. It's also there to help balance things out because you know I'm well just again using me and your mom I'm a spender your mom's a saver. Okay and so if it was me running everything we'd be poor and you know but on the flip side with mom one of the things is that she had to learn how to not be so anxious about money.

So it's part of that kind of, I go back to one of the things I think I said before is our relationships and our relationship challenges are there to make us better, better people. And that's what marriage is meant to do. But a lot of times these differences, especially when they're deal breakers and we don't think about that too deeply, with a relationship, it can make us bitter. So, yeah, that's exactly right. So it's not necessarily opposite personalities that could be a problem as opposed to people opposite in values or habits or interests even. I mean, sometimes having opposite interests can be very helpful, actually, because then your entire identity is not in the person and in which you do together. You are, like,

still a distinct person. Right. And the other part is, is it something that you're okay with that person still growing in their life, even if it's not your thing? As long as it's not taking away from the family that you've built or the time you spend as a couple on too much of a basis. Again, another example is me being in a band. And your mom thought that was neat when we first got, you know, when we were first going out on dates, she loved that I was a guitarist and a vocalist. And then, you know, I got in the band and was playing music and going around playing concerts. And it was one of those, okay, hold on. We need to keep a balance here. But I also really figured out that our music styles are totally different.

And so that's led to difficult conversations at times. but it's not one of those things that's created a rift. We've just learned how to compartmentalize those and allow each other that time for their own preference in some of those things. You're listening to Wherefore Artel Romeo, where we are discussing compatibility potential. I'm your host, Emily Shuddy,

and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist, Greg Shudy, here on Radio Free Hillsdale, 101.7 FM. Could you speak a little bit about what might be some things that are really just hard or potentially even impossible to get past when it comes to compatibility, things that we should really be looking at? Sure. What would be good is to just dig into some of the different areas because really some are going to be a big deal for people and some, you know, the same one might not be for another couple. An example would be faith or our religious background or religious zeal even.

And that's one of those things where for some people, that's a deal breaker. I need to marry someone of the same faith. And I get that because if you're very zealous, we'll use that word, zealous in your faith, you know, and you marry someone that's really lazy in their faith, that can create a lot of divide, especially if faith is something that is at the core of who you are and drives a lot of what you do. So that's one. But then you'll get some people where,

faith is not a big deal. Neither one of them, you know, they believe in a God, but, you know, it's it's not like they go to any church or, and so they're okay with differences there in faith because it's not something that's very important to them. Political life or political decisions or political parties can be another one of those areas that can really cause difficulty for some people. And then others who could care less about politics, you know, they just, vote one way or the other, again, might not be a problem. So, I mean, you can think of a lot of the different things that divide people, and some of those play out into the compatibility. So let's talk about work styles. What are some of the different work styles you can think of?

You could be a workaholic where you work all the time, and that's the most important thing to you. Or you could be really lazy and just want to stay home and play or hang out with friends or not necessarily have a sense of duty. Those are the two opposite extremes that I can think of. I don't know if there are other ones. Yeah. And so sometimes we think it's nice to be right in the middle. So I enjoy my work, but I can stop and put it aside and come home and have that balance.

And that's good. That's true. We could think that, okay, if two people have the same work style, then that would make them compatible. But I would venture to say maybe not. I've got a couple right now that I'm working with where they are both very driven in work to the point where, you know, he's got three different jobs and one of them is out of state and he's constantly going there. You know, she's got kind of a career that she's looking at. And so with that, she's driven also by her dad who was, you know, a higher up in his business.

And so she feels kind of that pressure from him and he feels pressure from, I don't know if it's his family life or other situations, but that's causing a difficulty in them moving towards a family life now. And so both of them are having difficulty kind of backing off like, well, you should stay home with the kids. Well, you should stay home with the kids. So that's something where they're similar, but that's creating a difficulty for them. I can imagine, too, your philosophy surrounding child rearing child, like how many kids you want as well, or do you want kids at all, that would probably also be pretty impactful to your compatibility. Yeah. So lifestyle or, you know, in that, is that whole family systems or family the way we do things. And this is something that there are some of these that can be worked through. Like, you know, one of the common lifestyle differences I'll see is how people discipline. children and you get some somewhere the you know the one believes that you should spank for everything and i'm throwing that you know being a little bit liberal with saying it that way but

they're more on the heavy-handed side where the other one is more you know well we need to talk it through and again those are things that you can kind of work through but yeah the other thing like how many kids do you want to have and if you have someone that goes in the marriage saying you know I don't want any kids where the other one's like, well, no, I was hoping we'd have seven. Now we've got a compatibility issue there that I would say, again, I don't necessarily think it's a deal breaker, but it's definitely something that you want to talk through before you get married and really dig into it. And if you find the other person is very staunch in their way and it's not something you can live with, that's something to really explore.

This is a reminder that you're listening to Wherefore Arthel Romeo, where we are discussing compatibility potential. I'm your host, Emily Shudy, and my co-host is licensed marriage therapist Greg Schoty here on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Here before we end, I want a little advice. Okay. I would like to know what your thoughts are when you are someone who maybe can see the bigger picture. You maybe don't know all the details, but you're kind of removed from a situation a little bit. but you're looking at someone's relationship choices and you really, really disagree with them on their choices, especially if you're someone that maybe they consider a friend. What are your thoughts on dealing with that type of situation? Is that something where you just need a step back and let them figure it out? What are your, what should I do in this kind of situation?

Well, the first thing is, are they asking for your advice or your thoughts? Because if they're not, then that's something where you, I would, I hate to say it, but I would recommend not, you know, saying your thoughts, unless you believe that it is something that is dangerous, that you think that it's something that's going to lead to them being in a situation that's going to compromise something that's very important to them. but in those situations, those are more extreme, and most likely it could cause a rift in that relationship. But outside of that, if they're just dating someone who's, you're thinking is a jerk or whatever, I think sometimes you've got to be careful unless they're asking. Or if they come and they complain to you a lot, that's where I would suggest just saying, you know, do you want my thoughts about this and see if they give you that permission? to state your thoughts freely because they might say, no, I just need to vent.

And they've told you exactly where you are in that. But yeah, sometimes when, if you give things enough time, some people will see things for what they are. Unfortunately, some people will wait too long until things are really bad and they've been hurt really severe with it. That's just a thought that I have because a lot of times what I've learned is people don't want your advice. until they want your advice, if that makes sense. And so you got to wait for the right time. And the other thing is it depends on the relationship, too. Because if you have no or very little relationship with someone,

it's probably not going to be received either. What if it's a situation where you genuinely are friends and you should be able to speak those things into their life, even if they don't necessarily ask for advice? I don't know, because I totally get what you're saying. Like a lot of times you don't want the advice. You just want to vent. But shouldn't you as a friend be able to speak into somebody's life if you think that there's something that's wrong or it's just like something seems to be something that's constantly revisited in your conversations?

You would hope that you would be, but that's not always the case. Meaning that, yeah, if you're good friends, you would hope that you're able to do that and you would hope that they would take it well. But I would still ask for permission. and just say, you know, I'm concerned, but I don't want to, I don't want to hurt your feelings and see if you can open the door to them saying, yeah, well, what do you think? And even with that, you better be very gentle. Look at the positives before you jump right to the negatives or don't hit so hard with it right up front. So that makes sense, kind of padded a little bit as you dig deeper into it.

Well, you heard it here. Think twice before you tried giving advice next time. And I just want to remind you that relationships are a process. They take time and effort. We just want to help you balance your head and your heart. This is your friendly reminder to not be discouraged because if you haven't found you, Romeo or Juliet, go do a jigsaw puzzle, or really any kind of puzzle. My personal favorite are Sudoku puzzles. If you have questions that you would like us to address, please email them to Eshody, E-S-C-H-U-T-E at Hillsdale.E-D-U, and we'll have questions that you would like us to address. please email them to E-S-S-E-S-E-H-S-E-H-T-T-E at Hillsdale.edu, and we will discuss them in future shows. Please check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your shows to catch anything you have missed or want to hear again. You can now follow us on Instagram at Romeo underscore Romeo 2003 or check out our website, whereforeart thou Romeo.

That's all for Wherefore-Arthel Romeo. I'm Emily Shuddy. And I'm Greg Shuddy. on Radio Free Hill Still 101.7 FM.