Passive Aggressivity (in a high-pitched cracking voice)

I learned a long time ago what it was like to be passive and what it was like to be aggressive. I think the D.A.R.E. program taught me it. I recall Detective DeLuca describing a passive person as Charlie Brown, from the popular Peanuts comic strip, and an aggressive person as the obviously more aggressive Lucy Van Pelt.
Now it may seem funny, and of course it never happened within the comic strip, but one could always see Lucy and Charlie Brown together as a couple somehow, right? Despite the fact that Charlie Brown always had his eyes on "the little red-haired girl" and that Peppermint Patty had a crush on Charlie, Lucy always did seem a bit interested in Charlie Brown. And interestingly enough, Charlie Brown never really showed interest in her, at least not to anyone. He always kind of put up with her antics and harassing never complaining, never griping, never asking her to change.
I feel that Charlie Brown was often too timid and shy, or passive, if you will, to actually voice his complaints about the women around whom he was surrounded by. He never strayed from having enough courage to be an individual, to be unique, and to stand up for what he believed in. This was always a trait that anyone could admire in Charlie Brown, but for some reason he did not stand up for himself around women. He just put up with them and took whatever attention he received from them, be it positive or negative.
Lucy was obviously the biggest female influence on him outside of his sister, who only looked up to him. But his best friend Linus' sister, Lucy, was more like his equal. Even though she continually referred to him as "blockhead" and pulled tricks on him such as consistently pulling the football away from him right before he kicked it, Charlie Brown never complained. Sure he got flustered and angry at times, just like anybody would, but he never got so fed up that he defriended Lucy.
You get the feeling that maybe they had something more than just a mere friendship. Perhaps sparks flew whenever they interacted that made them just that more compatible for each other. Even though in the series, we never see the children grow up, I have a feeling that if the two were looked upon later in their lives, they would make a very happy couple.

These characteristics between Lucy and Charlie are paralleled in today's relationships. When you really think about it, relationships today are very similar to what was held between Charlie and Lucy. I theorize that in order for a relationship to really work, the two persons that are attracted to one another must also be opposing in certain respects to have success.
In the most general sense, two shy people could never work together. In the first place, if both people are too shy, then there is no real likelihood that they would ever actually meet in the first place. People that are both shy and passive will never be able to get anything accomplished. If neither person is able to make a decision, then where does that bring the two of them. Could you imagine the two of them sitting at home doing their taxes? They wouldn't know what to do, and they would either sit there and closet themselves from the rest of the world, eventually leading to the IRS investigating their premises, or they would inevitably have to bring in a third party to deal with the loose ends that they themselves could not. Both scenarios leave the couple in a place that is not really success, on the one hand, or a couple, on the other. Two shy people will never work for each other, unless one takes the reigns and starts some creative decision making.

If both members of the couple are aggressive, one merely sees the other side of the spectrum. In this case, both people want to get their way, and if too overly aggressive, they will not relent and give in to merely their "lover". Suppose these too people were together, they would be making decisions independently of each other and wind up screwing the other person over. They would sit down to do their taxes and argue about whether to send them in to a tax man (or woman) or to do it via internet. They would fight about nothing and they would end up hating each other because of it. Aggressive people do not make good couples.

So I address my point of the Lucy/Charlie Brown example. In a manner of speaking, because one person dominates the other person, they are a viable couple. Now this isn't to say that one of them is bearing a whip down on the other, but the point to be made is that there has to be compromise in a working relationship in order for it to be successful. The dominant person could change hands. It wouldn't have to be the same person for every decision. Perhaps Charlie Brown is particularly gifted at doing taxes, so that's where he dominates, and Lucy still has the football field.
The point is to have communication in the things that affect the two persons as a couple. Sometimes struggle may arise, but compromise will see to it that both parties sustain happiness. It's hard to consider people as equals, and put them together. If everybody was equal, it would be like trying to put together a picture using tiles. They would all slide around and be independent of each other. Truly functional people are more like puzzle pieces. All the pieces have the attributes to put together a great picture. Sometimes you have to limit the number of functional people to 1000 or 500, but the thing is that each puzzle piece has its place in the puzzle. Each puzzle piece has just the right gaps or just the right part to fill the gaps of the piece or person next to it. And those people can be really happy and really successful when they find that place to connect to each other.