Attraction

I was around 13 when I experienced first hand that my taste in men could vary from the presumed norm. I already had a sense of there being a “good looking one” in any cast, be it John Travolta’s Vinnie Barbarino or Shaun Cassidy on The Hardy Boys Mysteries. But, when I saw ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ I couldn’t help notice that it wasn’t Luke, the golden haired hero of the piece, that I was attracted to, but rather the rugged and not necessarily heroic Han Solo. I remember feeling a bit odd that I found him so much more attractive than Luke, who was clearly presented as the good looking one of the cast. (watching the movies now, Luke is so whiny I not only don’t find him attractive, but completely annoying).

Thus my early introduction to the idea that everyone has their own taste when it comes to who they are attracted to, which has helped me from making assumptions about who anyone finds attractive. Including myself.

Recently, I’ve started to wonder if we edit ourselves in terms of who we are attracted to. I first felt this to be a possibility when I was thinking about the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy men. I’d been thinking that, if they were straight, I’d probably date Thom, whom I find attractive in a neurotic sort of way. Then I started really listening to some of the things Kyan was saying and realized that I’d dismissed him as too pretty. I’d believed that we wouldn’t have anything in common because of the way he looked, and that he wouldn’t be attracted to me because of how he looked. I had something similar happen in an online dating context, and I realized how judgmental I was being about the person, and it really bothered me to see that in myself.

We are just so bombarded with what it “supposed” to be attractive (although I’m still at a loss for how someone can find a collarbone that looks like it is about to rip through someone’s skin attractive), we often lose site that real people have their own taste in what is attractive.
When I was in grad school, I had a crush on a classmate. I remembering looking at him one day and thinking that he was so thin I felt I might accidentally break him if we ever hooked up. Total nonsense, but that’s when I had the epiphany that guys must have that feeling too; some people just don’t look that sturdy.

For me, how someone looks is just an element of attraction. People talk of having a type, but if I do, it doesn’t revolve around build or coloring but around inner spirit, intelligence, and humor. But most importantly, it is about chemistry. It is about clicking with someone in a way that has no rational basis. Sometimes the click is just physical, sometimes it is romantic. Either way, it is a bit of a rush.