I will not post until chapter one is completely finished. Give me 24 hours.
In the meantime, here’s a little something from Chapter Six on ATTRACTION...
Chapter SIX
Attraction: How it works, what it means, and how to apply it to your profile
PART I - ATTRACTION
Ah yes. That touchy subject attraction.
In this day and age, we’ve all become a little defensive of our need to admonish the stereotype that men want women for their youth and beauty while women want men for their physical strength and finances (more so finances in this post-neanderthal era, right ladies?)
It’s the ‘doesn’t anyone love me for me?’ syndrome we all suffer from, deep down inside even if we never admit it to anyone else.
The good news is, yes someone does. There is someone out there for everyone. And just when you’re feeling down and you think the universe is making a cruel joke of your love life, something comes along to remind you that we are all capable of loving and being loved. At least that’s what happened to me.
Just today I was watching a television show where they interviewed Siamese twins who were joined at the head in a diagonal sort of way and each facing a different direction (if you can picture that). When one of them was asked if she’d ever been in love, not only did she say yes, she admitted to having had 4 full-blown relationships of which the last one was “very serious”. There was no doubt in my mind. The woman was confident. And on top of that, she was in her 40’s. (Talk about kicking a stereotype right in the ham n’ eggs).
I know what you’re thinking. But nobody married her did they? Maybe not yet, but I bet the ball’s in her court on that one. Just look at Siamese twins Eng and Chan. They married two sisters back in 1843 in spite of (literally) being joined at the hip. And between them, they fathered twenty-one children. So don’t tell me there is no one out there for you. (At least that’s what I told myself after watching this program).
But what initially attracts people to one another?
While there will always be exceptions to the rule right off the bat and dramatic changes in affection can occur once people get to know each other, (cut to someone’s soul and it’s a different ballgame), that is not the focus of this book. We’re just trying to get out of the gate.
Internet dating is that window of opportunity you have to capture someone’s attention in the hopes that they will be interested long enough to want to get to know you. And that’s a pretty small window. Your profile is the best, if not the only shot you have - at least online.
And from what I’ve read, the old adage is true:
Men are initially attracted to women for their looks (which translates as a ‘favorable assessment of their procreative potential’) and women are initially attracted to men for their pocketbook and guts. In other words, their ability (or potential ability) to support and protect a family).
And if you’re interested in finding a relationship, then your profile better be attuned to the unmitigated fact that in spite of our evolutionary gains, our first impressions are more closely related to the biological programming of our species than our modern minds would care to admit.
Sounds shallow doesn’t it? And whether it is or not is irrelevant because that’s just the way it is - at least at the beginning. Mate selection is based on evolutionary standards. In other words, our instincts tell us to choose whoever we think is most likely to propagate our species successfully. We are simply hard-wired that way.
Once you get past the gate and begin the process of really getting to know someone the criteria for what we find attractive changes in a multitude of ways. But our initial reaction to a person of the opposite gender is surprisingly primitive.
The focus of this chapter then, is to explain the phenomenon of attraction as seen by experts and to dispel the offensiveness of stereotypes we talk of as being so demeaning. It isn’t. Rather, we will use that information to get out of the gate by applying what we’ve learned to both profile design and the early stages of cyber courtship.
And as pedantic as it all sounds, it’s going to be a whole whack of fun.
Stay tuned for PART II - What the Experts Have to Say.
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