Attraction. The very word attracts. Why should it not? Attraction is fantastically attractive. Especially when it is powerful and mutual. Attraction can provide a link to another human so irresistible that it feels like an enchantment, one that renders all other needs and duties oddly meaningless, tiresome and irrelevant.
Away from the object of desire, one is fretful and distracted, unable to eat, unable to sleep, unable to concentrate. All that matters is the next encounter, for with its consummation one will feel euphoric, blissful, thrumming with life and with tenderness. With that other person, one will feel that nothing is missing any more. Couples so drawn, talk of being two halves, complete only when they are together.
Who would refuse such luxury, such security and such communion? Who would not want to be so lucky? Anyway, isn’t that passionate compulsion practically useful? Doesn’t it encourage exclusive pair-bonding in humans, and foster the lovely notion that there’s a perfect soul mate somewhere in the world for everyone? Or is that feeling so preposterously wonderful that, really, there has to be a catch somewhere?
March 28, 2009
