Values compatibility

Attraction and circumstance bring people together, but values compatibility determines whether a relationship will last. This holds for friends, lovers, coworkers, and to some extent families. So what are values? What makes them good, and what makes them compatible?

Definition

Values are our differentiating, deep-rooted preferences.

Everybody seeks water when they’re thirsty, so a preference for hydration isn’t particularly differentiating. But silence vs stimulation, novelty vs routine, optimization vs ease, rootedness vs mobility… these reveal something, because they lead to different decisions and ultimately different lives. The sharpest way to express a value is often as a tradeoff: “I care more about acknowledging what is true than about keeping other people at ease.”

Deep-rooted here means durable and salient: preferences that persist across years and surface almost daily. For example, I’m most productive in complete silence: no music, no background noise. I wish I were more flexible, but this has been true for decades.

Values appear in three forms. They can be implicit, as in revealed through behavior rather than words. They can be explicit, as in stated outright in conversation, a dating profile, or how someone explains a decision. And they can be aspirational, as in endorsed in the mind but not yet tested by repetition and cost.

Change and choice

Values shift over time. Children outgrow their toys, and teenagers outgrow their rebellion. As adults, we might value income over comfort until we reach a certain level of wealth and then reverse the priority.

We have some influence over this process. Because values are part genetic and part environmental, we can shift them by shaping our environment – by choosing where we focus our attention and who we spend time with. Given this capacity, it is worth asking: what values should we aspire to hold?

Evaluating values

A good value does two things. It supports our own well-being, on reflection, even when the support isn’t immediately obvious. And it is broadly compatible with the values of the people we care about, or at least not so incompatible that maintaining it requires constant friction.

The first criterion is personal, so we can iterate relatively quickly through our own introspection. The second is where most of us find difficulty, and it is worth examining in detail.

Compatibility

Compatible values are not necessarily shared values. Two people who both insist on leading will clash, while a person who values leadership paired with someone who values support can work well together.

The most generative compatibilities tend to be complementary in this way: different enough to produce something neither person would create alone, yet aligned enough that the difference doesn’t become a source of chronic friction. Someone who values planning can pair well with someone who values spontaneity, so long as the planner enjoys having structure disrupted occasionally and the spontaneous person appreciates having a scaffold to deviate from.

When values fit well, the cost of coordination drops. Energy that would otherwise go toward negotiating friction gets redirected toward common projects, growth, or play. And compatibility is dynamic: values shape one another through proximity. Aspirational values in particular are often enacted by spending time with someone who already embodies them.

Valuing connection

Relationships themselves are something we value. When values clash within a relationship that matters, the question is not who is right vs who is wrong. It is whether you can change the terms of the relationship to accommodate both values, whether one or both of you will gradually revise your values, or whether to end the relationship.

An employee who values autonomy working under a manager who values oversight may settle into a rhythm of weekly check-ins: more structure than the employee wants, less visibility than the manager prefers, but workable for both. That negotiated outcome is itself a kind of compatibility… built rather than found.

When truly incompatible values emerge in the context of a relationship worth preserving, a skillful negotiation is called for. Otherwise, the relationship will fade. The effort you put in is a function of your value for the relationship vs other things, conscious or not.

What obscures compatibility

Compatibility can be hard to assess, for two reasons.

The first is opacity. We cannot always see our values clearly. Aspirational values are especially deceptive: they feel real from the inside, but they haven’t been tested. You don’t know if you value waking up early until you’ve done it for months without anyone making you. Compatibility is therefore partly a bet. The best you can do is watch behavior over time and update accordingly.

The second is necessity. Incompatibility among core values can be masked for years by alignment on more pressing ones. Empty-nest divorces illustrate this well: parenting demands so many shared resources and decisions that it can override other value misalignments entirely. Two people who disagree about how to spend surplus time or money may never feel that friction while raising children, because parenting dominates the decision space. Remove the shared project, and the misalignments surface.

This pattern extends beyond parenting. Historically, much of our values compatibility has been enforced by external constraints. We were close with our neighbors because our social opportunities were geographically bounded. We tolerated difficult coworkers because switching jobs was costly. Alignment dictated by constraint can paper over deeper differences, and often that has been fine. The relationships work, even if they work for reasons that have little to do with genuine fit.

We are all empty nesters now

But the constraints that bound us together are loosening. Remote work, apps for everything, algorithmic entertainment, AI generally… each of these removes a small reason to coordinate with other humans. The trend has been visible for decades, but it is accelerating. New forms of social glue have emerged, yet these tend to be narrower and more voluntary than what they replace.

As the constraints fade, they are replaced by choice. And choice, over time, follows values.

In this sense, we are all becoming empty nesters. The shared project of necessity is being removed by cultural and technological advancement. But that abundance also creates new ways to find and interact with people who genuinely fit. The clearer we are about what we value, the deeper those bonds, borne as they are of pure choice.