Inexplicable Attraction To Strangers

[AgProv]

In the interests of weirdness, I've got to talk about an odd thing that happens to me. I can be travelling to work or elsewhere by bus and most of the time my reaction to the other people travelling with me is the usual kind of neutral benevolence. they're there, they get on, they get off. the exceptions might be if somebody's being objectionable in one way or other; a conversation is going on where somebody else says something funny or otherwise memorable; or if (being male, forgive me) a woman gets on whi is more attractive than usual. (Even then you just shrug and accept it). Just... disinvolvement.

But every so often somebody gets on who i instantly feel some sort of, for want of a better word, kinship with. Recognition happens. This is usually definite and unmistakeable and goes with a sense of utter puzzlement as to why a complete stranger should spark this sense of association in me. A complete stranger who I've never met before, do not know, have no expectation of getting to know, and who, as far as I can tell, does not appear to have the same sort of reaction to me. It isn't an especially strong feeling; but it's definite.

In most cases it's a female, so the obvious question is - am I mistaking sexual attraction? It might compound this in one or two instances, but I've travelled in the same space as some gloriously attractive women who have never provoked the "sense of kinship" thing - just good-looking ladies who happen to share the same space as me for ten or twenty minutes, no more no less. I tend to remember the Buddhist mantra of "things come out of the void and into our lives for no reason, then they leave our lives and go back into the void again, also for no reason" and not dwell on it. Usually I'd struggle afterwards to recall the details...

it's weird. the most recent instance of this was brought about by a shift pattern where I travelled to work on the same bus as a lady who, to be kind, would not win a beauty contest; late twenties or early thirties, impecabbly turned out, but not at all pretty in any sense. So it's not a sexual attraction but the feeling of "something about her is calling to something in me. i feel a link or an association with her. But i'm buggered as to what it is".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not, or I hope I'm not, going to end up as somebody else's worst nightmare of the nutter on the bus - the sane thing to do is to accept it's happening, but to not act on any impulse to do something about it. just be passive and observe. And it isn't driving me nuts in any way - it's just an interesting and possibly fortean phenomenon to observe and try to find explanations to.

Has anybody else had anything like this? How did you rationalise it?

 

[Zeke Newbold]

Hello Agprov. Yes, I have experienced this once -and only once!

Background: I am a heterosexual, slightly aspergic, single guy who has never really been `in love` and certaily not given to romantic sentimentalism. Much of what you have written above could have been written by myself.

With me it occured about 15 years back when I still lived in the UK. I kept seeing a woman who appeard in my own local supermarket and I felt an intense attraction to her almost on sight. In my case it was a physical attraction, but cioupled with sense that, if only we were to meet up, we would get on well.

I think she could have been described as conventionally attractive - quite athteltic, well proprtioned, with long, messy dark brown hair and a mysterious central European look about her (I would later learn that she was foreign, but couldn't place the accent). However, much as you said, I have seen many attractive women - I currently live in what must be one of the drop-dead-women capitals of the world - without anything like the same effect.

As for how I rationalised it: around about that time I had been reading one of John Cleese's and Robyn Skinner's books - either `Life and How To Survive It `or `Families and How to Survive Them` - and in one of those they discuss the psychology of instant attraction. Accroding to them, if a person has been through the same things as yourself in early childhood then these will show in their fixed expressions and demeanour and hence you will feel comfortble with them and drawn to them. (Indeed, I remember being fascinated by the fact that she had a vsry slight limp in one leg, and an odd pained expression on her face).

Except if that were the case then the feeling would have been mutual (see later). Also why have I not experienced anything like that intensity before or since? There must be many women out there with similar developmental histories out there to myself - but this encounter really stood out and I have remembered it, and felt puzzled by it ever since.

In my case I did in fact make a hamfisted attempt to express my feelings to her - but I came across as a crass fool. In fact, she told her boyfriend - a tall, military looking type - about me. So it all ended rather awkwardly and scarily.

So, yeah, only once.

I would love to get other's take on what this is all about. (But, perleaze, let's not turn this into another All Men Are Sex Pests thread -it's not about that at all).

 

[brownmane]

As for how I rationalised it: around about that time I had been reading one of John Cleese's and Robyn Skinner's books - either `Life and How To Survive It `or `Families and How to Survive Them` - and in one of those they discuss the psychology of instant attraction. Accroding to them, if a person has been through the same things as yourself in early childhood then these will show in their fixed expressions and demeanour and hence you will feel comfortble with them and drawn to them.

First, I am only making a personal observation and am making no remarks about anyone's personality or anything. My observation happened at a certain time and in specific circumstances and it was puzzling to me.

I worked for 1 1/2 years in a Children's Aid treatment residence and so worked with children who had experienced more than most of us would understand. I was always puzzled when a new child moved into residence that, either that child gravitated to another child with similar background trauma, or vice versa. It could be a child who'd experienced abuse would be "befriended" by another child who had experienced abuse (or was abusive).

The treatment residence had 4 houses with 8 children each, so a small populace, but this happened enough times that staff would remark upon it.

 

[GNC]

Don't these things usually get explained by pheromones? Either that or they trigger sympathetic memories in the unconscious: "Say, you remind me of somebody..."

 

[Iris]

Don't know if this is the same but when I was a child, travelling on a train or tram with my father he would start chatting to a complete stranger.
It always turned out that they were a distant relative, and I wondered if it was a genetic thing.

 

[escargot]

I worked for 1 1/2 years in a Children's Aid treatment residence and so worked with children who had experienced more than most of us would understand. I was always puzzled when a new child moved into residence that, either that child gravitated to another child with similar background trauma, or vice versa. It could be a child who'd experienced abuse would be "befriended" by another child who had experienced abuse (or was abusive).

When I worked in kids' homes I saw this too. Also, as you'll know, it was possible to tell very quickly from children's and teenagers' interactions with others and especially with adults what sort of problems they had.
As an example, a young female teenager who'd just arrived who spoke contemptuously to female staff but was suddenly all smiles when a male turned up had most likely been coached to be obliging towards men she'd just met.

Generally, people can tell things about each other through the vaguest of interactions. There've been experiments where a crowd of volunteers who don't know each other have been invited to a sort of big buffet/tea party where they can mingle, and are asked to group into little 'families' based on how they interact.

It seemed that the groups that emerged would resemble their members' own sibling set-ups. For example you'd see three people in a group who each came from a family of three siblings, and each 'member' would have the same relationship to the others as they had in their own family. So there'd be a big sister/brother. a middle sister/brother and a youngest sister/brother. Gender didn't seem to come into it much, it was 'family position' that mattered.

 

[escargot]

As a young woman, my old dear once got chatting to a man at a dance or summat and they both felt a huge immediate attraction to each other.

I can't remember how many times they saw each other after that but at some point they discovered they were related, some sort of cousins, so they called it a day.

Dunno whether they thought it was a bit incesty or if the reason she didn't know she had such a cousin was that the families had fallen out but it was a big no-no.

 

[gattino]

 

[PeteS]

I experienced this weirdly instant attraction thing a few years ago, for no real reason, and probably the only time in my life this has happened. Never met or spoken to the person before and my second reaction was "blimey a million miles out of my league". Been together 12 years now.

 

[gattino]

For example you'd see three people in a group who each came from a family of three siblings, and each 'member' would have the same relationship to the others as they had in their own family. So there'd be a big sister/brother. a middle sister/brother and a youngest sister/brother.

I don't know if this is the same or the complete opposite. The friend (well one of two) with whom i have the closest bond is significantly younger than me, yet the instant and seemingly permanent attachment we have is mutual. And ive often speculated there is no coincidence that im the youngest of 4 brothers and he is the eldest of 4. That each fills the familial role the other has never known...he an elder sibling, I a younger.

In terms of an instant sense of "attraction" as described in the other posts, it may be about recognition...either they have some essential quality of someone you have known or met before and possibly felt sometign for, but you can't place who it is they're reminding you of so assume your attraction is actually to them personally....or, going down the fortean route, perhaps you've known or seen them in a precognitive dream or, yes, a past life if such things exist. Or even more out there but not that unusual a belief, there's the idea of people meeting in dreams in the sense of "astral" travel so called...that in "dream world" your consciousness is actually encountering and interactions of some kind with certain other people also dreaming at that moment. That's the most far fetched, except to those people who genuinely claim to experience such things. Perhaps we all do and just don't remember.

The closest ive come to any of the above is when i met someone in a dream who - uniquely - looked me straight in the eyes, that is i had the first person sense of being seen and perceived, and his reaction (or mine) was one of unspoken excitment and bewilderment to see me there, as if we knew each other from some other time or place. When i woke it impressed on me enough to genuinely wonder if i knew this stranger in some other realm, or if they were out there dreaming too.

 

[Zeke Newbold]

All fascinating stuff. Ofcourse, in our everyday interactions we constantly meet peope who we are subliminally drawn to or just feel comfortable with or sense some aversion to (and not always in a sexual way either). The reasons for this may well have something to do with shared family histories and the conditioningof our backgrounds - as suggested above.

However, what Agprov and I are talking about is something more extraordinary than that - something more intense and a lot less commonplace, in fact something a bitmore like the Bunny Meat tale above. This surely need a bit more explaining - otherwise it'd be occuring many more times than it does. (Agprov suggests it has happened a few times; me only the once).

I can well undesrtand how people might want to drag reincarnation and `souls-meeting-in-dreams` and such like into such experiences. I myself am not yet ready to do so (besides I didn't really get any sense of this in my own case).

Doing a bit of ferociously objective self-analysis on my story I am willing to grant that straightforward lust played a big part in what happened with me (more so than Agprov's case, where this seems to be downplayed). Perhaps I was more than usually needy at that time - although, try as I might, I can't think why - and I met someone I fancied who also had some shared family conditioning and - BANG -double the trouble! Maybe it's as simple as that.

But what we need is more people to come forward with their own stories so we can compare them - there must be someone out there who has one!

 

[Frideswide]

it was possible to tell very quickly from children's and teenagers' interactions with others and especially with adults what sort of problems they had.

This is the sort of thing that Autistics have diagnosable problems with.

However, it is becoming clear that it is actually a two way blindness. We can't easily intuit these things about NTs. NTs can't easily intuit these things about Autistics. I know, wild generalisations

NTs can do it to NTs. And guess what? Autistics can do it to autistics.

It's why I'm in favour of autistic children getting to socialise with each other and autistic adults.

 

[Iris]

I've written before about a little boy who was at kinder with my youngest and who always wanted to be near me. I became friendly with his mother and we would often chat.
One day when the children had moved to Primary school on the pick up run after school she wasn't there but her husband was.
It was odd but I felt like I knew him but of course did nothing and walked with my daughter down the nearby lane.
For some reason I turned and he was standing there just staring so I wondered if he had felt the same.

 

[Zeke Newbold]

This is the sort of thing that Autistics have diagnosable problems with.

However, it is becoming clear that it is actually a two way blindness. We can't easily intuit these things about NTs. NTs can't easily intuit these things about Autistics. I know, wild generalisations

NTs can do it to NTs. And guess what? Autistics can do it to autistics.

It's why I'm in favour of autistic children getting to socialise with each other and autistic adults.

Yes, my guess is that autistics can subliminally recognise each other, on a`birds of a feather`basis. I regard myself as being very mildly on the Autistic Spectrum. I have not been medically diasgnosed but have done a few online tests which suggest as much.

And when I think over the closest friends I have had over the years, I see that many of them may well have been fellow borderline Aspergics - and those that were not had broadly similar conditions. For example one friend had,what I now consider to quite s strong c,ase of ADD and another was a diagnosed Tourettes syndrome sufferer.

In some cases this shared `difference` was really the only thing that we had in common and when our supposed common interests fell away - the same work, the same politics - it was easy for our friendship to end.

 

[Frideswide]

er.... I know this is probably going to be unpopular with you, but.... there is no such thing as "a little bit autistic". In the same way there is no such thing as "mild autism". And while I'm being totally beastly (RAWWWWR! ) The asperger diagnosis is on its way out, not least because of the above observations!

I have no idea if you are or are not of course.

Humans try to find something, anything to build a relationship on, if they are the sort of humans who want relationships. Being the odd ones is as good a thing as any.

 

[Zeke Newbold]

er.... I know this is probably going to be unpopular with you, but.... there is no such thing as "a little bit autistic". In the same way there is no such thing as "mild autism". And while I'm being totally beastly (RAWWWWR! ) The asperger diagnosis is on its way out, not least because of the above observations!

I have no idea if you are or are not of course.

Humans try to find something, anything to build a relationship on, if they are the sort of humans who want relationships. Being the odd ones is as good a thing as any.

I've read widely on this topic Frideswide. There is something which is called `The Autism Spectrum` - and that ramges from people who are unable to function in daily life and need carers to people who are `high functioning` and are able to manage with day-to-day life but have problems with interactive relationships with people and so on. To use an analogy: there is only one thing called `alchoholism` - but some alcoholics can hold down a job and so on - whereas others are unable to do so. The former are sometimes called `high functioning alchoholics`.

Yes, I do know that the term `Aspergers` is no longer used in diagnosis. However, many people continue to use it as shorthand for `high functioning autistic`. I like to use this shorthand so as not to tread on the toes of people whose condition is a serious disability requiring medical intervention.
My own self-diagnosis is PDD-NOS.

 

[XBergMann]

I experienced this weirdly instant attraction thing a few years ago, for no real reason, and probably the only time in my life this has happened. Never met or spoken to the person before and my second reaction was "blimey a million miles out of my league". Been together 12 years now.

Same with me only in my case we've been together for 11 years and have 2 daughters

 

[Frideswide]

I've read widely on this topic Frideswide.

Excellent! This will all be very familiar to you. I've listed my qualifications elsewhere in this place, no point in going over it again.

There is something which is called `The Autism Spectrum` - and that ramges from people who are unable to function in daily life and need carers to people who are `high functioning` and are able to manage with day-to-day life but have problems with interactive relationships with people and so on. To use an analogy: there is only one thing called `alchoholism` - but some alcoholics can hold down a job and so on - whereas others are unable to do so. The former are sometimes called `high functioning alchoholics`.

There's this thing... us Autistics call it NTsplaining

The Spectrum is actually more like a circle shaded from centre to edge and across the diameter. An individual's position on that circle varies from birth to death and even from day to day, hour to hour. There are reasons that functioning labels are decried and derided in the autistic community and by many clinicians - they are used to limit expectations of "low" and to deny support for "high". NAS-UK funded research about 10 years ago found that, on various measures, outcomes for "low" were better than for "high"; one reason given was this popular perception of high and low. An diagnosis of autism is more than a single statement. A competent diagnostician will produce pages of narrative to support that statement. Mine is currently 17 pages of A4, 10pt Calibri, 1.5cm margins. I really appreciate your wanting to be nice, but you are likely to be seen as having the opposite effect - you are diminishing the struggles of the "highs" and saying that the "lows" can't be considered in the same breath. The Autistic Community have led the push for "autism" precisely to be inclusive and to recognise the inaccuracy of the shorthand.

Autistics tend not to do "nice" or to sugarcoat and minimise things. We want things accurate above all.

If you are on FB, you might apply to the Autistic Allies group. Even if you don't want to join in you will see the discussion from autistics, including those who are not involved in a professional capacity, develop.

Comparing a pervasive lifelong developmental disorder with alcoholism is an interesting choice! I'm taking it as a linguistic analogy rather than a homology?

Yes, I do know that the term `Aspergers` is no longer used in diagnosis. However, many people continue to use it as shorthand for `high functioning autistic`. I like to use this shorthand so as not to tread on the toes of people whose condition is a serious disability requiring medical intervention.

Not true. It is most certainly used in diagnosis across the world. It depends on if the place follows the ICD or the DSM route - they converge, cross and diverge again over time of course.

My own self-diagnosis is PDD-NOS.

Very interesting! I know people with that of course, and have met it as it relates to autism. Wouldn't care to expound on it though - you are def the expert!

 

[Krepostnoi]

Same with me only in my case we've been together for 11 years and have 2 daughters

Now that I think about it, same here. Absolute, instant attraction. The mutually contradictory notions of "she's the one" and, yup, "million miles out of my league". As I write, we're exactly a fortnight shy of our nineteenth wedding anniversary. Also two daughters to the good.

 

[Frideswide]

Now that I think about it, same here. Absolute, instant attraction. The mutually contradictory notions of "she's the one" and, yup, "million miles out of my league".

yes! another one here - 30 years wed next month, 35 together.

 

[gattino]

Are you all sure that its not a case of the very fact you find someone attractive makes you simultanously BELIEVE they're "out of your league"....if you didn't believe that, your degree of attraction would be considerably less. "Phwoar! He/she is of a similar level of attractiveness or less to myself. I'm in love!" must be a rare thought process.

 

[Zeke Newbold]

I experienced this weirdly instant attraction thing a few years ago, for no real reason, and probably the only time in my life this has happened. Never met or spoken to the person before and my second reaction was "blimey a million miles out of my league". Been together 12 years now.

Same with me only in my case we've been together for 11 years and have 2 daughters

Now that I think about it, same here. Absolute, instant attraction. The mutually contradictory notions of "she's the one" and, yup, "million miles out of my league". As I write, we're exactly a fortnight shy of our nineteenth wedding anniversary. Also two daughters to the good.

yes! another one here - 30 years wed next month, 35 together.

Shut it - you smug bastards!

 

[Frideswide]

Are you all sure that its not a case of the very fact you find someone attractive makes you simultanously BELIEVE they're "out of your league"....if you didn't believe that your degree of attraction would be considerably less. "Phwoar! He/she is of a similar level of attractiveness or less to myself. I'm in love!" must be a rare thought process.

interesting, and totally correct from my point of view

 

[escargot]

Are we on about autism again?

 

[PeteS]

Shut it - you smug bastards!

Smug? Why should I be smug being with someone a lot younger than me, who looks younger than she is, and has a striking resemblance to a younger Audrey Hepburn (who is in her family tree). Oh wait....

 

[Yithian]

Are we on about autism again?

Many autistic people thrive on repetition

 

[Frideswide]

Are we on about autism again?

I have a secret ambition to get autism into every single forum and sub-forum. Then I'll start on the individual threads!

 

[PeteS]

Are you all sure that its not a case of the very fact you find someone attractive makes you simultanously BELIEVE they're "out of your league"....if you didn't believe that your degree of attraction would be considerably less. "Phwoar! He/she is of a similar level of attractiveness or less to myself. I'm in love!" must be a rare thought process.

Nah - I'm a very attractive pensioner.

 

[gattino]

As long as you have a very attractive pension.

 

[Yithian]

As long as you have a very attractive pension.

The things I would do to his bungalow in Eastborne given half a chance...