How does attraction feel like to you, mentally, physically and emotionally?

It was sometime in early 2022 that I found myself reading a few romance novels. I remember being mildly annoyed about how most of the books had instant chemistry/attraction as part of the plot. Then I suddenly found myself wondering, how do I feel if and when I feel attraction? I think I have probably never felt instant attraction. When I look at a good looking man/woman I just feel an appreciation for their beauty, like how I would feel looking at a beautiful painting or photograph. At most all I feel is a wish is to look at them a few times more than is appropriate. I don’t remember how it feels like to feel attraction towards someone I have feelings for. The last time I felt strong feelings for someone was many years ago and I can’t recall my feelings now. I am very curious to know how other people feel when they experience attraction towards someone. How does it feel physically, and what thoughts and/or feelings do you experience? Also, do you consider chemistry and attraction to be the same or different? How?

bouh,

Attraction is a mindset as much as it is a feeling. It is tied to desire. Desire is what you want out of an imaginary relationship, so to say.

I see 3 kinds of romantic desires: sex, social status, and emotional intimacy (or friendship). The first is obvious, and is usually about appearance, but it can also be about what the sex will be about (kink, experience, whatever). Social status is more about how the relationship is perceived or what it can bring (regular family, social standing, money, religion,…). Last one is about friendship basically, that is being with someone and knowing this person.

The desires breed attraction. They can change over time, and you can suppress or exacerbate them. Some situations can also wake them like food can wake hunger.

If you want to avoid some problem relationships or if you seek deeper relationships, you’ll feel less attraction from sight, simply because you’ll need deeper knowledge and connections from a person to see what you desire and see the attraction grow.

As for how it feels, it depends on the desire it feeds from. And it depends on the situation and the person. It depends on the moment itself.

There, my model for all this.

Sombyr,

Most of the time, it feels to me just like a logical conclusion. Like “hmm, yes, this person has traits I generally find attractive. I am thus attracted to them.”
There’s of course a physical attribute to it too, where I feel strongly drawn to the person, but it feels more like the result of the previous logical conclusion rather than the source of the attraction itself.

The one and only exception to this that I’ve experienced thus far was my attraction to my wife. It was an instant click. My first thought after meeting her was that I needed to get closer with her. It’s worth noting I didn’t actually know what she looked like yet (we met online) and barely knew anything about her personality besides she was funny and apparently had similar hobbies to me (though I didn’t know which hobbies, I’d just been told that.)
I didn’t connect it as attraction at first though, because I’d never experienced attraction like that before. I just wanted to be really good friends with her. I was really happy whenever she showed up. I enjoyed every conversation I had with her way more than it felt like I should.
Then slowly those feelings grew, never changing, only getting stronger. At a certain point, when I started to realize every second I was away from her, I was wishing she was there, and every time I was sad or upset about something, she was the one I wanted to go to for comfort, it finally clicked that I was attracted to her, at least in some way.
It wasn’t until we were already dating that it finally fully clicked that I’d been in love with her the whole time.
Physically I’d say my attraction to her felt… I guess like heart burn? That’s the closest physical sensation I can think of. Like that, but not painful. Like a fullness in my chest every time I thought about her.

Also as far as chemistry and attraction goes, definitely different things. There are people I’ve been attracted to that I meshed horrifically with. Just because I like certain traits in theory doesn’t mean I could actually stand those traits in practice.

Bebo,

These were very interesting descriptions.

stealth_cookies,

The one and only exception to this that I’ve experienced thus far was my attraction to my wife. It was an instant click. My first thought after meeting her was that I needed to get closer with her. It’s worth noting I didn’t actually know what she looked like yet (we met online) and barely knew anything about her personality besides she was funny and apparently had similar hobbies to me (though I didn’t know which hobbies, I’d just been told that.)

Its funny how something so simple can make us have those feelings. I’ve had it from just hearing a woman laughing and thinking “I’ve got to get to know this girl”.

dingus,

OP, do you date? I’m similar to you in that I can’t really feel attraction that way. I tried dating once forever ago and it just felt like I was lying to the other person because I couldn’t feel the same way. So I never tried since. But sometimes things get lonely.

So I’ve wondered if it would be beneficial or not for someone like us to date.

Bebo,

I tried for a short while then gave up. As of now don’t find it beneficial really.

trackindakraken,

Instant interest, yes. And, that can quickly lead to attraction, if you follow up on the interest and they reciprocate.

It’s really easy to fall in love if both sides are ready and willing. That’s why falling in love is chance and a numbers game. There is no special one person, it’s just keep meeting new people and hope it happens.

I think the mistake most people make is limiting their choices too narrowly without good reason.

Seleni,

For me, ‘attraction’ is simply being physically attracted to them; a fluttering in the chest, so to speak, enjoying the eye candy…

When it changes to ‘love’ though, I found my thoughts to be more on wanting to take care of them, seeing them smile, being happy when they are happy. It goes beyond the superficial and the physical. I suppose the best way I can describe it is it makes my soul sing.

I think the Ancient Greeks, with their words for different kinds of love, were more on point with these sorts of things.

Chemistry is something different again. Lust and Love are all well and good, but you need more than that to make a relationship work. You need mental maturity on the part of both parties, the willingness to move beyond and work through problems, and something of a similar life trajectory in order to make love last.

blujan,

I once felt this, I assumed I just found her pretty and so I liked her pretty much instantly but getting to know her was even better.

I think attraction is more or less instant and chemistry is a day to day thing.

I ended up having a normal relationship with someone else, and had I not known how different that is I also wouldn’t be sure that the descriptions in books can be real. Just feeling like you belong somewhere and not wanting to move from there, it’s a real feeling and it’s blissful.

intensely_human,

I don’t know. I haven’t been attracted to anyone in a long time :(

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

To me, romance feels like friendship without boundaries. It’s not something I feel quickly or when I first see someone. It’s something that has to develop over time, because it’s based on friendship.

Physical attraction, it’s desire… It’s usually in the moment, and can and does occur with people I don’t know. It’s noticing their features… feeling my eyes drawn to them

What’s interesting though is that I can experience romantic attraction to anyone (but it seems I’m more likely to experience it with women), but my physical attraction tends to be towards men and masc folk.

Bebo,

For me I have found that a good friendship is having a deep intellectual and emotional connection with someone. However there is no attraction involved, no jealousy, nothing. The one time I had feelings for someone (which I realised after 2.5 years working with them) I found that I just liked everything about them: their smile, voice, how they talked, etc. This was the first time I even felt a little jealousy. And I also yearned for a deeper emotional and intellectual connection. This person wasn’t even a close friend. So friendship and love has some overlap for me, but are different.

ada,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It’s descriptions like that that make me wonder if I’m aromantic in some fashion, because I don’t have anything like that.

Bebo,

For me that experience made me realise that I can get romantic feelings but very rarely (it’s happened only once).

Moonguide,

Idk, honestly. I might be ace, demi ace at least. Closest to attraction I’ve ever felt is interest due to vibes. Like, some people look like they could hold an interesting convo or might have cool hobbies. And not necessarily talking about how they dress or look, but because of how they carry themselves. Someone being traditionally beautiful does nothing for me.

Though I consider attraction to be different from chemistry. I’ve had chemistry with folk I’m not attracted to, and I’ve been “attracted” to people I have no chemistry with. The latter is the worst.

yuuunikki,

deleted_by_author

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    Seleni,

    Well, you shouldn’t close yourself off just because you’re afraid. But don’t force yourself into trying to love either, just because you think you ‘need’ to be in a relationship. That sort of thing rarely goes well.

    If you’re having trouble ‘getting back out there’, it’s probably easiest to develop hobbies, and meet people that way. Then you have a better chance of finding someone walking a similar path to you, which at the very least means you get a good friend out of the deal.

    Bebo,

    The last time I had feelings for someone… it was in 2012 and I realised it after having worked together for more than 2.5 years. However it was one sided and it hurt. That much I remember. However, I didn’t feel physical attraction. I remember wishing for a deeper emotional and intellectual connection. To be honest, since then I think I do feel a little scared of getting emotionally attached to anyone because it had hurt a lot.

    captainlezbian,

    A beautiful man is like a gorgeous painting to me. I don’t want to fuck that painting though, it’s just nice to look at. A beautiful woman on the other hand is like a massive meal after a fast. I’m filled with a consumptive desire influenced by the state of my body and my emotional experience. But ultimately it’s either my body taking the reins and telling me what I want, or me not being in the mood but knowing that’s what my body will want.

    And it’s a multi sensory experience. Vision is nice, but omg scent, and touch, and the sound of her voice…

    Chemistry is different. It’s the way you flow together. It acts as a multiplier. With good chemistry someone can go from somewhat attractive to very and bad chemistry can kill attraction. But it can’t make attraction from nothing.

    RBWells,

    Well, you are right that romance novels are not a realistic image of attraction.

    I am not really attracted to guys based on their looks. Either they look good enough that I can be attracted to them IF they are otherwise attractive to me (in wit and kindness and the way they move, everything else that makes someone hot) or they don’t look good enough and no matter how hot they are in other ways my brain has screened them out.

    Humans, male, female or other, can be so beautiful physically and I can see it and want to look at them because they are beautiful. But that is entirely separate from the sexual attraction. There’s nobody who looks good enough I could be attracted just by looks.

    shinigamiookamiryuu,

    Physically… nothing. Not in the strict sense. I caution myself when mentioning I am asexual, people have so many misinterpretations around it, but typically it means we look at someone and don’t feel attraction to “them”. People talk about things like “look at his abs”, “I fantasize about him after hours”, etc. and that’s not what comes to my mind. A good way of explaining it is, list every characteristic that can make you attracted to someone and then subtract all the things that will ever help you in the bedroom. That is asexuality.

    However, that doesn’t mean absolutely no physical feelings are possible/exist (the “a” in “asexual” exists in the same way as the “homo” in “homosexual”, not the “para” in “parasexual”) or that someone cannot develop profound mental/emotional feelings around someone. Many asexuals have turn-ons, often something that to an observer would seem completely mundane and which is a mentally ingrained theme mutually exclusive from any person it can be applied to. I feel like the whole atmosphere feels different under some situations as I look to someone. It feels like a total rush, though because of the asexuality, my mind doesn’t connect the hypothetical situation to the other person being in a relationship with me.

    As for mentally and emotionally, the few people who I might be able to count on are the only things that have any gravitational effect on me. I am drawn to them as they embody my thought processes and give my drift an anchor.

    Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
    Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

    For me it's two things: The Tingle and The Fizz.

    The Tingle is an intellectual and emotional. If I see an attractive person do something nice, or they're extremely competent about something, especially if it's something I don't know a lot about, there's a flutter in my heart and a tingly electrical feeling in my brain. If they keep doing these things and don't do unattractive things, maybe I'll work up the nerve to ask them out.

    The Fizz is more primal. James May explains it well.

    thorbot,

    When you see them, time slows down. Your palms get sweaty and it becomes difficult to form coherent thoughts. Your heart races with the swells of love and-

    Oh wait that’s meth

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