I think it happens to everyone, but the phenomena is more about selective memory than reality.
I can tell within a few minutes if the potential is there to sleep with someone or not. It’s just an instant knowledge if that potential is there and it’s nearly always accurate. It’s not just an assessment of desirability. Sometimes these guys are way out of my league, and sometimes they are guys who I don’t find all that attractive but still, for some reason, ping that meter.
So if I’m attracted to someone, that potential is there, and I want to pursue it, I generally do and everything works out great. I remember that story as “That hot guy I hooked up with.”
But if the potential is not there and I’m attracted to them, it creates this awkward feedback loop, where nothing I do works, and I know it, but i keep doing it, and everything is just awkward and bad. I remember that as “I was soooooo attracted to him and got soooooo awkward.”
In reality, my actions on both ends were probably pretty similar, and the potential for chemistry was what made the difference.
Of course. It’s rare for me to see a person and be THAT starstruck by their appearance, but it definitely happens. For example, just seeing my boss’s old boss walk by can still reduce me to a gibbering slackjawed fangirl (on the inside) in less than a second. He is BREATHTAKINGLY handsome, movie star face and smile and height and charisma. It doesn’t help that he’s a legitimately GREAT guy, which factors into my attraction… I wish he was still our department head because he’s a really good manager. He moved departments a while ago, and still comes around to wander the call center floor every once in a while. I’ve never been less struck by his appearance than I was the first time I saw him.
Anyway, he’s a babe-magnet. Pretty much every girl or woman who comes across him reacts similarly (it’s an insurance company, we almost never work with attractive people as a rule).
Truth to that. I find that I begin okay with attractive women, but my self-doubt intervenes much sooner (fwiw, it shuts me off even from old friends given enough time).
When I was young I was deathly afraid of talking to girls, especially any that I found attractive. Just the idea of one of them laughing at me was too scary to make the attempt. I managed to make it through high school without talking to very many girls, except for one or two who were very friendly. I grew out of it but it took a long time. These days I can talk to even beautiful women without stammering or blushing, but I’m always braced for the “get away from me, you old man.”
Yes. If I am alone with a woman I find attractive, my brain turns to jelly and slowly flows out my left ear. This in spite of the fact that I would never ever consider hurting Kevbabe or my own integrity by hitting on or otherwise behaving less than appropriately with the hottie.
I will typically find some way to introduce a “chaperone” into the situation. Having a third party present seems effective at preventing my brain from melting, and allowing me to focus on the less attractive traits of the hottie. Usually after a few minutes interaction I have become sufficiently repulsed to function as a thinking human being again.
Really? Really, is it everyone? Obviously this isn’t unheard of, and we all know some people get flustered around people they find hot, but I always assumed this was more concentrated among the male and young. Are there, say, 40 year old women who can’t keep their shit together around attractive men? Well yes, there are, but I always thought of this as something that decreases with age and femaleness.
No, not really. For two reasons: there’s a very large percentage of “attractive” women who are idiots who talk too loudly about stupid crap. And I don’t make a habit of telegraphing any emotions whatsoever to people with whom I’m not friendly – not on purpose, but I do my own thing and have a kind of absent-minded professor thing going on most of the time. If anything, I’ll just turn on the charm when there’s a reason to get along with someone (a job interview, meeting a friend of a friend, or just feeling sociable and chatty to random people). It’s perhaps a little easier to be charming to attractive women who are also worth talking to – attractive people can be worth getting acquainted with for social reasons, so you’ve got a good, if somewhat suspicious, reason to make the effort to be sociable.
But there’s no point in making small talk, in general – it’s like lecturing in front of a class. The more you have to say and the more you want to learn from your interlocutor, there’s really no time or mental space to worry about crap like nerves or getting distracted.
Ha! Thanks for that, Hello. That made me actually laugh out loud and not just LOL. I laughed even harder when I saw in the examples they list a couple of Zooey Deschanel’s characters although I think they could just forget the word characters and just put her name in period.
One time, back in the day, when I was really in to snakes, I stopped by a pet store to buy some rats to feed my boa. There was a gal working there that I hadn’t seen before and we got to discussing reptiles and stuff and were hitting it off like crazy. All of a sudden I realized that she was hotter than hell and that almost any guy in the world would be asking her out. I was almost certain that she would have been receptive.
Yeah, I totally choked. It was weird, I didn’t really notice her looks until we were way into the conversation and then when I did…boom, game over.
They’re not very different. For one thing, some women who I thought were ridiculously hot, and way out of my league, have been attracted to me. My best example though, is that it has happened with the same girl. She was the sort I find very attractive, but she was way younger than me, so I considered her off limits. I’d bump into her every once in a while, and we’d have fun. On one of these occasions, she asked me out. Once I’d gotten over my incredulity, brain promptly turned to jelly. Over the next couple of weeks, she promptly lost interest. And while it’s possible that I’m always that dull once you get to know me, thing is, I can usually be interesting for at least a couple of weeks. With this chick, I couldn’t. I just liked her too much. Bah.
If you think one is easier than the other, why do you also think I should be evenly successful with both?
Sure, maybe. Or maybe people on the dope can help me get better!
For me, the definition of people I find very attractive is not the same as people I find very good looking. They’re usually also good looking, no doubt, (I’m a little bit shallow) but it has to be more than that.
Ha. I liked a Manic pixie dream girl a lot (a lot) when I was a teenager. I grew up, she didn’t. Now, of course, she likes me. (Anyone else seeing the pattern? I sure am. Hence the thread)
I don’t understand this. In general, I don’t bother talking with people who are much younger than me, unless they seem cool and I’m just shooting the shit out of boredom.
Sounds like a very clinical way to approach people, this “off limits” thing. Who says? And, just as importantly, who cares except the “who” locked away inside your brain?
“Let them talk, if they want to. You know talk don’t bother me. I want the whole wide world to know, that I really love you so.” Or however that little song goes.
“Off limits” indicates to me that you think you got something there, but you (a) like talking with her and decide she’s not worth talking with for an arbitrary reason or (b) got some other hang up, which is understannable if you’re prone to leching on young girls like that plastic artist and are trying to mend your ways. Either way is fine, but still, something is a little messed up in approaching social relationships under these premisses. Not trying to criticize, just wondering what exactly you think is going on that you block off just hanging with people for whatever reasons. Nobody wants to be an old letch, but IME good conversation is good conversation – just enjoy the company of strangers and everything else falls into place, whatever that may entail.
An irenic view, but as Herbie played you got to Hang up Your Hangups.
ETA and for the record, I’ve only found three or four people attractive in my entire life. Once I’ve decided they were potential mates, I pursue them like an Amazon. But everyone thinks I’m attractive, so it’s a bit of an unfair game. I’m kidding, but you see how having a good attitude is good, except when it concerns fat bald people. Like imagine if you were a chick and Jack Black, Orson Welles (at any age), Jack White, or that Hoffman character actor tried to mack on you – makes me sick, it does. They could be doing the moves on some daughter I probably have out there. Same thing with fatty chicks with bad skin.
Maybe it’ll help if I elaborate what way younger means. When first I met her, it was at her 18th birthday. I was 25. She looked really good, but I didn’t bother getting to know her or anything. Figured she was too young(And too pretty. Thought she was out of my league really). We got along alright when we bumped into each other(only occasionally). A couple of years later, on one of these occasions, when she made it known that she was attracted to me, hoo boy, there went whatever qualities that may have gotten me to that position, and I ended up making it so that a couple of weeks later, she wasn’t
OK, fair enough. Although 25v18 doesn’t really seem like that big of an age difference.
Why would you think someone “out of your league” – especially some dumb kid with (I’m assuming) a nice rack and probably not much else in the way of life experience and education? Not snarking – it seems like a kind of self-defeating way to go through life. Fuck all that – and I say this with the best of intentions.
You’re good enough, and gosh darn it, people like you, as you’ve proved through your anecdote. If they don’t, that’s their problem.
Well, no, she didn’t have a ‘nice rack’. She was pretty. I go for pretty. I really don’t get the fascination for big breasts that some people, in particular Americans(at least american pop culture portrays it as such), seem to have. If anything, I find large breasts a little off putting. And as it later turned out, she wasn’t dumb either. I thought she was out of my league, because, well being realistic is important.
Heh, thanks for the booster. The issue is, when I like them, they stop liking me. Then it becomes my problem
