You make eye contact and suddenly you have forgotten how to breathe. Your palms get sweaty, your heart beat goes into overdrive and all the noise around you fades into the background as the only thing you see is that person walking towards you. You try to make sense of it all but it actually defies logic as you are pulled by a seemingly cosmic connection that no one can see but which is absolutely real and magnetic for you and the other person… That is the power of attraction.
While our hearts and our authors tells us one thing, science has its own opinion on our ‘endless love’ as they chop most of it all down to raging hormones
What two individuals feel cannot be weighed, scrutinized or judged by anyone else as that attraction is between them and them only. It does not invite critics because they are the outsiders who cannot understand the connection. It doesn’t matter if your best friend likes a guy who is a dwarf, an albino, broke, has a cleft chin, a face full of freckles or is covered in tattoos and piercings. The attraction is real and it resonates down to the very core.
For Cynthia* – who has been with Corey* for the past 3 years – the attraction was not only instantaneous but so strong that it was like a punch in the gut. “I was at my friend’s birthday party. He walked into the room with his friends and I forgot everything and everyone else who was there. He was like a vision to me -an Adonis, perfectly sculpted, wearing a white jacket and jeans that moulded his thighs made just for him. I found out his name and walked over.
When I introduced myself and he looked at me, I could tell that it wasn’t going to one of those awkward situations where a guy is just being polite. He was feeling me too! I could have spent the entire night just staring into his eyes but instead when everyone was on the dance floor gyrating and grinding, we sat in a corner on the balcony and just chatted about ourselves, our families, likes, childhood, etc. It was like he was a
friend I was reconnecting with. It was just special, natural and real. I never had that connection with anyone else before or since.”
Now an ‘attraction’ is the ability to evoke interest in someone that can lead to a romantic liaison. It can seem so irresistible that you feel almost bewitched by the person – you are unable to complete simple tasks like eating, sleeping and concentrating, just getting through daily functions can be difficult as they seem burdensome and irrelevant: nothing matters but the object of your attraction.
Do not think that it is mainly women who are affected or dare we say “afflicted” with emotions that seem extreme and may result in loss of appetite and insomnia when the power of attraction is in full effect. Men can be just as torn and consumed as the fairer sex by ‘attraction effects’. They too experience the thrill of the first contact; the euphoria and bliss of that first smile and the electricity that seems to generate mega volts that could light up huge sections of Kingston, every time contact is made.
Final year UTECH architectural student Brian* admits that when he met Shauna* at a water party almost a year ago, his reaction was so shocking to his system that he had to move away and sit in the car park for a while because he was feeling dizzy. “I saw her navel first with the piercing and then she turned and I saw the booty and finally I felt safe enough to glance at her face. It was angelic and I was just floored. No woman ever had me weak like that. I would be up for day wondering what the hell just happened to me and why I couldn’t get this girl’s image outta my mind!”
An ‘attration’ is the ability to evoke interest in someone that can lead to a romantic liaison
While this undeniable chemistry is usually buoyed by a psychical attraction, it is not necessarily only sexual in nature – at times the attraction transcends words. A couple can sit together and enjoy each other’s company without verbalising anything. Some are so drawn to each other that when they do speak they seem to share the same thoughts to the point of completing each other’s sentences. Now, we know that some call this powerful attraction ‘love at first sight’ – that may make it fractionally easier to explain but has always in fact been a complicated matter, especially when it interferes with your daily functions.
Indeed some ancient societies sought to restrain such love: the Greeks thought sexual attraction was a weapon that could possess both gods and humans and therefore considered it dangerous. Many writers over the centuries also weighed in on the power of love, citing it as kind of divine torture, hence the saying ‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’. William Shakespeare himself wrote powerfully about love and its pursuit and they formed the central theme of many of his plays including the great classic ‘Romeo and Juliet’. There may still be women who secretly wish for a man to be as besotted with them as Romeo was with Juliet – and willing to die if he had to live without their love.
While our hearts and our authors tells us one thing, science has its own opinion on our ‘endless love’ as they chop most of it all down to raging hormones, better known as pheromones. In other words, they say it is all about the chemical make-up of our bodies that is instinctively responding to like-chemicals in another individual. To the scientists, we are little more than lab rats who are attracted to the scent that the other gives off. What they are not able to explain though, is why that ‘scent’ only works on one individual and why that one individual has the affected person acting in a manner far removed from his or her usual behaviour.
Is the power of attraction real? Just ask any couple you see making eyes at each other across a room to the exclusion of everyone else and every conversation.