An Old Debate: Instant vs. Growing Attraction

I don't have a type. But one thing I can say from my dating experience is that physical attraction will only take you so far. So you definitely have to have a strong intellectual connection as well 

~Jesse Metcalfe~

I recently had a conversation with someone (you know the usual); one of those conversations that has been on your mind and made you have a good long think. What makes any of these two better than the other? Why do some people value instant attraction over growing affection?

I am cynical enough or maybe I am just scarred enough to slightly distrust instant attraction, largely because those people that you are instantly attracted to are those people who attract you on looks alone. So what if they are hot? I am not denying the pull of someone who is just pleasing to the eye, but how many times has one conversation with that person made them so very unattractive after that? Please, please, please do not kill me and do not get all up in arms, because I have also experienced, heard of and respect the opposite situation where that first conversation and all the other experiences that follow the initial attraction only make the attraction and affection deepen.  I have a number of good looking friends, male and female who I am sure would knock me out if I didn’t think that good looking people are worth the time.  Despite my own not so good experiences I still appreciate instant attraction and as with all opposites there is something to be said about each side of this argument.

There are many who argue that the opposite is not possible. In fact, some argue that people are always only drawn to others by their looks. I completely disagree!! Have you ever sat in a group of people having a conversation, listening to their views on a variety of sometimes innocuous, sometimes serious, sometimes downright hilarious topics and been drawn to one person? Not drawn to their looks, but drawn to them? Sometimes it is not even that the person speaks up often, but there is just something about them, how they view the world and how they speak about it that starts to make you see them differently? We are not only drawn to the physical, well I can’t say it for everyone, but many people are not only drawn to the physical. Sometimes affection and attraction and oftentimes love grow from something very simple: maybe a conversation, maybe a shared passion, maybe a shared experience; but does that make what those people feel any less real than those whose attraction was instant?

That is where the conversation I had started; an accusation that because feelings grew rather than there being an instant attraction they were somehow less, somehow not natural and therefore maybe not right. Is it necessary to think that any one of these situations is better than the other? That the way feelings develop makes one situation more worthy than the other? Or is it right to think that one of these situations is more likely to be successful in the long run when it comes to love and relationships?

I don’t think so… what about you?

#instantattraction #growing affection #anolddebate