Attraction

Lately I have been wondering a lot about attraction and how it works. Reading Georgette Heyer makes it alarmingly clear that 150 years ago, different things were considered attractive to what they are not. What we would now call an independent, assertive and empowered woman, they called an impudent hussy. What we call a soft, emotionally-in touch metro man, they regarded as a spineless fool.

And of course, pointing out the fact that things have changed is scarcely an illuminating concept. But it is interesting to see how society constructs and decides who and what we find attractive. Especially when you come down to it, we are society. So ultimately, we control our own thought processes to define our own limits through collective consciousness (or something. I’ve gone on a far more philosophical angle that I meant to here).

(excuse the typo)

But our society is built on sex. 50 years ago, pin up posters of cartoon girls were considered raunchy. Now, you struggle to go on the internet without being bombarded with half naked people (I’m not complaining, I like a half naked man as much as the rest of us). And in fact, that’s exactly my point. With all these perfect images of perfect people naked all the time, how are any of us normal people supposed to be attracted to any other normal person?

There are 6 billion people in the world, and yet ultimately people pair up with one other individual for their whole lives and find them attractive the whole time. How crazy is that? I have been with the boy for over a year now, and I still want to be with him more than anyone else. I’m still more attracted to him than anyone else. To me, he is gorgeous, but he is no Ryan Reynolds. Just like I am no Candice Boucher. But we want each other.

I’m not giving answers here, I’m asking questions.