David DeAngelo, an American dating coach, has a famous saying online, Attraction isn’t a choice. Those words, in fact, became the title of the 2nd ebook he published after the hugely successful Double Your Dating. Both of these books were the starting point for what has turned into my life purpose: improving my own dating life, and in turn helping others improve their dating and relationships.
Let’s start by giving attraction a definition: the force that brings people together. Repulsion is what pushes people away. Thinking about magnets, you realise how opposites attract and similarities push apart. However, in human relationships, you’ll notice that in the short term, opposites may indeed spark attraction, but it’s people who have more similarities who are the ones who stay together over the longer term. Someone once told me friendships last longer than most marriages. That is a certain ring of truth to that,t even without any supporting evidence in the 21st century.
What makes one person more attractive than another person? This is a mystery because philosophers and poets have written about it for thousands of years. And recently, many scientists have contributed to the parade. Dr Paul Dobransky defines Attractiveness or Power as positive emotional energy and mature boundary function. In physics, power or energy is the amount of work that can be done in a particular length of time. The more potent you are is a core metaphor for masculine power. It’s this potency men advertise to women that creates attraction without using any words or deeds. A woman notices a man and says to her friend, “I don’t know what it’s about him…” referring to her initial experience of the masculine energy.
Self-esteem or self-worth is directly linked to attraction. The more self-worth, the higher your self-esteem, and the more attractive you are to people. Again, from Dr Paul Dobransky, self-esteem is made up of confidence and well-being. Confidence is what you get from transforming your anxiety into courage. And as you look deeper into this, you’ll realise removing uncertainty has the same effect. Well-being is more of a motherly energy. You have enough money, enough friends. Your needs are met – enough peace, enough vacation. Mature adults need to learn to father themselves through courage and mother themselves through what’s called assertiveness. If you don’t have well-being, you take the anger you feel and you use it in the form of assertiveness. Assertiveness is defined as going out and getting what you need. Again, the more assertive, the more attractive.
Don Juan Demarco
In this movie, Johnny Depp plays a young man believing himself to be the greatest lover in the world. It starts out with him being depressed because he lost the one great love of his life and is ready to commit suicide. But first must have one last romantic encounter with a woman in need.
Just this opening scene is worth your money in gold because Don Juan gives a perfect example of how to be charming, romantic and seduce a woman. He interrupts a red-headed woman waiting alone at a table, sits down and begins talking to her in a deep commanding voice. As she objects, I insist,?I will not linger.? He proceeds to tell her how sensitive certain women are to the touch of a man. Moving up from the bottom of their legs, he proceeds to move from her fingertips to her knuckles, which he, in turn, associates with her knees. Eventually, the fleshy part of a finger is like the thighs, and finally…he ends up kissing her between the fingers, implying a kiss elsewhere on the female body.
Here’s a clip from the movie with the scene I’ve just described:
Don Juan Demarco, as a movie, is a fantastic demonstration of how romance can lead to natural attraction. The problem is, it’s a movie, not real life; in the real world, sparking attraction can be reinforced or strengthened by romance, not the other way around. What I mean here is that without attraction, there is a long road to misery that lies ahead. So, focus on creating attraction first before you spill your feelings to the person you are attracted.