Physical Attraction/Repulsion

[Creepy-Diana]

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[marooned]

I notice physical attractiveness, but I also find (and I think I've said this before) that it's inconstant. My perception of how attractive someone looks to me seems to waver like a reflection in water... sometimes someone who didn't seem all that attractive to me starts looking attractive to me... Even particular physical characteristics that I think I like seem malleable to some degree... I could think "I would never be attracted to X" but that could all change if I get to know someone better with X quality... all the sudden I might start liking that quality, or not caring. And the more there is a feeling of "love" the more that changes everything. Things about who they are really far inside ultimately are more important because they shift my standards (and my "standards" were never fixed to begin with).

Anyway I find that there is a lot of room to move in what I perceive as attractive. But it is not limitless. For instance I remember this sort of deformed person (one side of his nose was really big among other things) tried to hit on me a lot several years ago and I just didn't find him attractive at all... well actually I found looking at him repulsive. He was very intelligent, but I didn't really like his personality either in the sense that we just didn't/couldn't work. I felt bad about all of this because I can think of 82394857 flaws about myself that could lead to similar rejections. Of course with this person, even if he had been extremely physically attractive I still wouldn't have liked him really... not in that way... and I remember feeling bad about the whole thing.

I guess I thought in the end that it's a matter of what people want or don't want, and you have to be selfish in that regard... and can't "settle for less." But the hang-up is the areas in oneself that are "less" because we can't ever be perfect (enough). I still haven't found the way to deal with the systematic inner rejections of myself. And I know that in one way or another, my own internal acceptance/rejection network regarding myself plays into what I accept/reject outside of me (whether in the same way or in an opposing way where I accept in others things I reject in myself).

[JuJu]

And the more there is a feeling of "love" the more that changes everything. Things about who they are really far inside ultimately are more important because they shift my standards (and my "standards" were never fixed to begin with).

i agree... well-said.

for relationships, i'd be lying if i said there wasn't a physical attractiveness threshold; however, ppl definitely become better-looking and worse-looking the more you know them.

I'm not talking pleasantly plump, i'm talking obese. I just can't go there. We all have our preferences.

LOL, same