One of the by-products of being stuck at home during an ice storm is watching more television than usual. Terri and I were watching a Discovery channel-like show dealing with the science of human attraction. One researcher indicated a belief that all human beings have a “lovemap”, an inside compass of the type of person we find attractive, and that these maps are as unique to us as fingerprints. (Another segment was on whether monogamy is natural, but we’ll save that for another time) What you find attractive is buried in your psyche and activated when you meet someone who fits the map.

It is interesting, this whole idea of trying to find a scientific base for human behavior, and I’ll confess to skeptically shaking my head when I hear a researcher expounding on how human behavior thousands of years ago translate into modern behavior. But this lovemap thing did made me think. Do I have a map like that? I thought of all the women I’ve been attracted to/dated/married, and they are certainly a diverse group. But it is true that the women I’ve felt most intensely attracted to have many common characteristics.

If the researcher is to be believed, this is not something we can control. You can’t make yourself become attracted to someone you’re not and you can’t completely control who you are attracted to. Some believe it is based on our parents or even based on ourselves. It has always puzzled me why I’m sometimes not attracted to some women, who by any objective standard are quite beautiful, while being very much attracted to some that many guys would pass on. Its gotta be the map baby! Surely, on my map Alyssa Milano and Haile Berry have to be major cities and Angelina Jolie a major interstate. But if you found Paris Hilton or Britney Spears at all it would be one of those rural gravel roads.

I could list all the things I find attractive, but it is always more complicated than that. I do think it isn’t something you really have a lot of control over. It is kind of like what George C. Scott supposedly said while dancing with a woman he just met: “I’m sorry if I get an erection….and I’m sorry if I don’t.”
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