the.com/odd couple
Two people who shouldn't work, cohabiting proof that opposites don't attract, they just annoy each other into love.
means A pair of people (friends, roommates, partners) whose personalities or habits are so mismatched that their compatibility seems almost illogical.
from Popularized by Neil Simon's 1965 play 'The Odd Couple' (and its 1968 film and 1970s TV adaptations), about fussy neat-freak Felix Ungar forced to room with slovenly Oscar Madison. The phrase existed loosely before that as a way to describe any mismatched pair, but Simon's comedy locked the two words together in the popular imagination, turning 'odd couple' into permanent shorthand for clashing cohabitants.
- origin
- Neil Simon play and film, 1968
- archetype
- slob paired with neat freak, forever
- tv legacy
- spawned a sitcom and endless buddy-cop clones
- real logic
- friction works if the goal is shared