denegibson
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Nov 05, 2006
Posts: 29
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 Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 11:51 am Post subject: Attraction makes little sense to me ... |
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I don't understand how you can be attracted to someone, when logic says there's absolutely no reason you should be attracted to a particular person.
Though I don't mean that generically, why is confidence considered so much of an attraction?
I'm sure you're familiar with cases where girls decide to stay with guys who are abusive. Even if that isn't the case, they're still willing to sacrifice part of their lives by changing friends, jobs, even moving to a different country. You ask them what they see in a person and the response is something like "it's complicated". Complicated how? There's nothing you can say you particularly like about a person yet you're just attracted to them?
Well felt like posting a little rant somewhere ....
Thanks
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Frannie
Raven
Joined: Dec 17, 2006
Posts: 100
Location: USA
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks for sharing. Confidence does seem to attract many people. The case you mentioned is more about how a good number of women (NTs, mostly, I'd like to think), are attracted to the "bad boy" thinking they will be the one to finally tame him. Also, some people have masochistic tendencies and stay with the abuser because of this. Some people are also frightened out of their wits and cannot leave the abuser. It does seem a complicated issue indeed. The abuser is never truly confident, though, I think, and is, in fact, very insecure. So the truly confident person and the seemingly confident person are two totally different types of people, I think. |
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shadexiii
Tanuki
Joined: Dec 16, 2006
Posts: 4013
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:12 pm Post subject: Re: Attraction makes little sense to me ... |
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| denegibson wrote: | | I don't understand how you can be attracted to someone, when logic says there's absolutely no reason you should be attracted to a particular person. |
Believe me, I wish I did. Would have made things a bit easier in the past, probably saved me from some hassle / frustration.
| denegibson wrote: |
Though I don't mean that generically, why is confidence considered so much of an attraction?
I'm sure you're familiar with cases where girls decide to stay with guys who are abusive. Even if that isn't the case, they're still willing to sacrifice part of their lives by changing friends, jobs, even moving to a different country. You ask them what they see in a person and the response is something like "it's complicated". Complicated how? There's nothing you can say you particularly like about a person yet you're just attracted to them?
Well felt like posting a little rant somewhere ....
Thanks |
For what it's worth, guys can be susceptible to the same kind of thing. Can't really say why it happens. It doesn't make sense (and hasn't for me at least twice) but that's how it goes I guess. |
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SteelMaiden
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Joined: Aug 20, 2006
Age: 23
Posts: 2637
Location: Rosehill, Greater London
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:36 pm Post subject: |
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I don't understand it either. I think safety, security and brains are more important in the other sex. I don't trust men in a relationship. I don't see how I will ever be able to fall in love with a man:
1. My father is leaving my Mum with no real reason except he loves other womEn.
2. My grandfather sexually abused me when I was young (and people that are close to me don't believe me).
3. When I was in secure psych, there was a paedophile in the room opposite me. He stole half my stuff but he had to give it back.
4. I had men holding me down in psych when I was off my head.
I cannot trust men in a sexual relationship now. I'm glad that my psychiatrist is female.
(BTW, I'm female).
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Am obsessed about psychopharmacology.
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Cyanide
Leader of Shadaloo
Joined: Sep 25, 2006
Posts: 2229
Location: The Pacific Northwest
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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| one word: pheramones.....chemicals emitted as an attractant for the opposite sex. |
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SteelMaiden
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Joined: Aug 20, 2006
Age: 23
Posts: 2637
Location: Rosehill, Greater London
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Cyanide wrote: | | one word: pheramones.....chemicals emitted as an attractant for the opposite sex. |
Pheromones.
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I have Asperger's, schizophrenia, and OCD.
Am obsessed about psychopharmacology.
Currently a part-time pharmacology student at University College London. |
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denegibson
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Nov 05, 2006
Posts: 29
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | chemicals emitted as an attractant for the opposite sex |
yet it attracts people of the same sex too ...
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shadexiii
Tanuki
Joined: Dec 16, 2006
Posts: 4013
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Cyanide wrote: | | one word: pheramones.....chemicals emitted as an attractant for the opposite sex. |
That's a nice textbook answer, but it doesn't exactly explain anything, such as why certain people are attractive, while others are not. You could say that it is genetic, but then why is "attractive" still different from person to person? OH, because of the individual's genetics? Still doesn't explain much, just throws out buzz-words with, again, little explanation or apparent knowledge. |
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Melantha
Toucan
Joined: Dec 06, 2006
Posts: 260
Location: Idaho
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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Love and attraction are not logical, rational or based on anything that "makes sense". People cannot be taken apart and separated into neat little compartments. If you asked me what I love about my husband or what attracted me to him in the first place, i couldn't choose any particular aspect or feature; it's a whole package, the whole person, looks and personality and mind and manner, indivisible. He's more than the sum of his parts, as is every person.
That said, every person has their own criteria for what they want in a partner. No one should choose a partner based on someone else's criteria, so if what appeals to you is stability, safety and intelligence, then that is what you should look for. |
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sinsboldly
Free Range Aspie
Joined: Nov 22, 2006
Age: 62
Posts: 15238
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:33 pm Post subject: What I learned a long time ago, but it didn't really help |
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by Dorothy Tennov
The limerent reaction (referring to the state of being "in love") begins, usually at a point discernible at the time and later recalled. Sexual attraction as such need not be experienced, although (a) the person is someone you view as a possible sexual partner, and (b) the initial "admiration" may be, or seem to be, primarily physical attraction.
Once limerence begins, you find yourself thinking about the LO (the Limerent Other: the current love object) and receiving considerable pleasure in the process. There is an initial phase in which you feel buoyant, elated, and, ironically, for this appears to be the beginning of an essentially involuntary process, free. Free not only from the usual restraints of gravity, but emotionally unburdened. You may be attracted to more than one potential LO. You feel that your response is a result of LO’s fine qualities.
With evidence of reciprocation from LO, you enjoy a state of extreme pleasure, even euphoria. Your thoughts are mainly occupied with considering and reconsidering what you may find attractive in LO, replaying whatever events may have thus far transpired between you and LO, and appreciating qualities in yourself which you perceive as possibly having sparked interest in you on the part of LO. (It is at this point in West Side Story that Maria, the contemporary Juliet, sings I Feel Pretty.)
Your degree of involvement increases if obstacles are externally imposed or if you doubt LO’s feelings for you. Only if LO were to be revealed as highly undesirable might your limerence subside. Usually, with some degree of doubt its intensity rises further, and you reach the stage at which the reaction is virtually impossible to dislodge, either by your own act of will, or by further evidence of LO’s undesirable qualities. This is what Stendhal called crystallisation. The doubt and increased intensity of limerence undermine your former satisfaction with yourself. You acquire new clothes, change your hairstyle, and are receptive to any suggestion by which you might increase your own desirability in LO’s eyes. You are inordinately fearful of rejection.
With increases in doubt interspersed with reason to hope that reciprocation may indeed occur, everything becomes intensified, especially your preoccupation with percentages. At 100% you are mooning about, in either a joyful or a despairing state, preferring your fantasies to virtually any other activity unless it is (a) acting in ways that you believe will help you attain your limerent objective, such as beautifying yourself and, therefore increasing the probability that you will impress LO favourably during your interaction, or (b) actually being in the presence of LO. Your motivation to attain a “relationship” (mating, or pair bond) continues to intensify so long as a "proper" mix of hope and uncertainty exist.
At any point in the process, if you perceive reciprocation, your degree of involvement ceases to rise — until, of course, you become uncertain again. The timid partners may attempt to conceal from each other the full nature of the reaction that has seized them, preventing full reciprocation in each other’s eyes and allowing the intensity to increase.
To summarise, these things are needed:
A person who meets your criteria for an LO. (The basic requisites appear to vary, and not always represent what you might consciously define as your criteria. On the other hand, the similarity between limerents and LOs with respect to broad categories of gender, age, socioeconomic status, educational level, ethnicity, et cetera, suggests that criteria exist.)
A sign of hope that the person might reciprocate.
Uncertainty.
For those who wish a cure, the most certain course is prevention. Once you are in its grips your emotions are directed by the external situation, and the only effective action open to you is destruction of any opportunity for reciprocation to occur.
Limerence for a particular LO does cease under one of the following conditions: consummation - in which the bliss of reciprocation is gradually either blended into a lasting love or replaced by less positive feelings; starvation - in which even limerent sensitivity to signs of hope is useless against the onslaught of evidence that LO does not return the limerence; transformation - in which limerence is transferred to a new LO.
Merle sez:
Phenol ethylalines seem to be what the gland behind the sinus perceives that gets us in the Limerent state. Getting a whiff of someone's pheremones can do it, or smelling Roses or eating Chocolate ( the du jour for Valentine's Day, natch!) |
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sinsboldly
Free Range Aspie
Joined: Nov 22, 2006
Age: 62
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larsenjw92286
Your invitation to come on down!
Joined: Aug 31, 2004
Age: 26
Posts: 8857
Location: Seattle, Washington
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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It is but it's not. It just depends on the nature of the relationship as to whether it makes sense or not.
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gameshowdude1986@yahoo.com |
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denegibson
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Nov 05, 2006
Posts: 29
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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so for those with a short attention span, sinsboldly basically said "sexual attraction plays a part"?
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shadexiii
Tanuki
Joined: Dec 16, 2006
Posts: 4013
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:12 pm Post subject: |
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| denegibson wrote: | | so for those with a short attention span, sinsboldly basically said "sexual attraction plays a part"? |
Even then, what defines that? No two people are attracted to exactly the same "type," and even then, at times I wonder what the hell "type" even means. The people I've been attracted to haven't seemed to have some common thing about them. |
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matt271
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 28, 2007
Posts: 1036
Location: Australia
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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naturally u should be attracted to some1 who would be a good mate.
nice boobs = good milk for baby
good curves = space for baby in womb
nice skin = healthy
etc. |
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