Do you ever feel a strong irrational attraction or repulsion for others?

[Amelia G]

Do you ever feel a strong irrational attraction or repulsion for others? Do you sometimes react to someone super-positively or super-negatively on a lizard brain level, where it is not really based on anything obvious and it is not sexual in nature? Any thoughts on where those feelings come from, if you have them?

[Deadly Envy]

All of the time! Majority of the time I have this feeling of not really liking vast majority of people. Not that I hate them or anything, in fact I'd give my last dollar to them if they need it. But they're just not people I really want to be around or socializing with.
I think part of this have to do with me being deaf. People often want to try show they're nice and friendly person but if I walk up to them and try to talk to them when they're lone, they act all weird and try to push me away.
Other part is, I am a strong believer in that your crowd show who you are. Since I DON'T want to be one of the average Mr/Mrs Jones, I avoid them like plague.

As for those who I have strong attraction to (don't have to be love or crush or anything), I often pick it up first few minutes of meeting them. They usually have something that I admire about them or like about them. Hell one man I know own bunches of horses and is a big name horse breeder and stuff, I have nothing but respect for him and take every advices from him seriously. But I hate horses with passion and would rather to eat them than ride them.

For people I have bad feeling toward, I avoid them at all cost. My grandpa is married to a woman who everyone consider to be incredible nice and wonderful and have done nothing bad. I stay far away from her and never have a good thing to say about her. I am sure one day she'll do something horrible.

I think following your guts feeling is extremely important even if we cannot understand or explain it. I believe that you subconsicously pick something up by looking at other person and watch their movement, language, action, etc... And make judge based off them.

[Bikerpunk]

I get huge unrequited crushes on people (noone here before you imply I am stalking Scar, ya pervs).

[theUnclean]

I've only had an immediate bond with a couple people my entire life. None of which I could ever explain why, we just clicked and became close. One I knew for all of five minutes and then we spent the next year together everynight hanging out and goofing off around town.
Otherwise, I am far more reserved in person then online and rarely get close/attached to people.

[Rockwulf]

Absolutely.

Both online and in the real world, although online someone has to say somthing first but in the real world someone can just walk by me and for whatever reason I'll want to fuck them or fuck them up.

[Wickedanima]

Yup! All the time. It was much worse when I was younger... I didn't know to not bother people when I felt something. I thought that attractions/repulsions where always mutual... or didn't get the concept that not everyone had such close contact with their instincts...

I also have levels of attachment... If someone is "Interesting" it means that its a vague sparkle of something. I cautiously investigate... Or just examine (to the point of being creepy). There have been the one or two people in my life that I just, saw... attached... and it was a sort of ... hysterical kind of attachment that seemed supernatural. I've still not properly rationalized those.

Although that repulsion thing happens MUCH more frequently. I've had to be very careful with people, because I don't always know when or how I'm going to find someone suddenly repulsive. A superficial friendliness can turn into someone else moving in to get closer, which can throw a rather sudden switch of repulsion inside me. ( >< ) Such a pain in the ass to get creeped out by people.

[Clockwork Jello]

I get the extreme hatred on a lizard-brain level towards people all the time. Never have a real distinguishable reason for it but I just get it alot.

[Aza]

And how!

I have... well, had... a friend named Sarah while I was growing up in NC. She had it set into her head early on in life that she was going to be my girlfriend, by hell or horribly-inappropriate public displays of affection. Maybe it was the fact that her forwardness frightened me, but I began to avoid her like the plague. Of course, this all up until we were teen-agers. Later on, she wound up becoming an abnormally-stunning young woman, but her attraction to me didn't seem to abate; her ways of showing it just became much more shrewd. Still, she was hot, and I was single and lonely (which means my penis was trying to make my decisions for me), so I decided to give her her greatest fantasy and try making out with her... just to see.

Horrendous results; I quickly decided we were "just friends" for a reason.

Later on, I wound up rooming with her in VA, and was given an opportunity to more-closely examine what it was about Sarah that repulsed me... because it really was repulsion! It was like she secreted an anti-pheromone. It was partially based on smell, partially on something about the way she looked (even though she's conventionally beautiful), something in her laugh that annoyed me... I could never put my finger on just one thing.

On the flipside...

Speaking of my year in VA, I worked for a short while at the local Waldenbooks (back before Borders completely took them over). A girl came into the store one day; no different from any other day. There was no shortage of good-looking women in Richmond, and I'd long before seen more than my fair share of fine female forms, clothed and unclothed. But this girl!!! There was something ELSE between us... because she couldn't take her eyes off mine either. We were locked there over the register counter, thinking loudly at one another "This counter is the ONLY thing keeping you from getting thrown to the ground and *****!" It was surreal! Then her boyfriend stepped in and drew her away, and the two of them left, and I never saw her again.

Fortunately, it wasn't my last time experiencing that powerful of a raw magnetic attraction with another person. In fact, it's since been put to shame...

[Mindgames]

I can easily do the instant dislike thing, but very rarely instantly like anyone.

On balance, people instantly dislike me. I'm happy with that - less to live up to.

[VoltaireBlue]

yes, and I am very rarely wrong about it.

[Dean4]

yeah its preaty wierd i got realy close to this one girl i met and even i wus surprised how close we got so fast

[OliX]

Scientific explanation is that someone might remind us subconsciously of our mother/father or a baby (big cheeks, big eyes) and wake mother/father instincts in us. Scent plays big role too. Even when our smell senses are suppressed trough ages they still play a role. You can "smell" someone, feel if they're healthy or stressed or ready for procreation and not even knowing it. It works on a deeper level.

And now, on spiritual level. If we are to believe in holy books of many religions we all have a genie that is connected to our soul and has life of his own. If for some reason my genie likes your genie (they know each other from past life or something) we might like each other.

And third reason "might be" that we share genes from many races created by "god". First race was smart as god were because they didn't limit their intelligence. And so they left after a while. Second was Eve race (only femaleswho couldn't procreate) and next was Adamic race which was created with limitations in inteligence (why do we use only 10% of our brain capacity?) so that they will obey and do the hard work for gods. Some of the first race came back to Eden and opened their eyes and tok them away (story of snake and forbiden fruit anyone). Last race created was one combined with lizards for they coldbloded nature (legends about dragons anyone). Now humans today share many genes from our mixed ancestors and reason for liking or disliking each other without any previous knowledge about person might be a blood(gene) conection.

You chose what to believe. All this might be bullshit, but it might as well be a truth in a distorted way.

[Clockwork Jello]

Scent plays big role too. Even when our smell senses are suppressed trough ages they still play a role. You can "smell" someone, feel if they're healthy or stressed or ready for procreation and not even knowing it. It works on a deeper level.

That sounds like a pretty reasonable theory. I remember watching a segment on discovery channel about umm.. Pheromones ( i think I used the right word) and how they can alter the mood of people around you. They put them into many colognes and perfumes to attract attention from the opposite sex.

[Raza]

Not without obvious causes, generally. By default I treat most people with a kind of thinly sugar-coated disinterest, and the only factors I remember ever really pushing me one way or another are obvious things like looking or smelling really nice or horrible.

Compared to most people, my perception of others is far more intellectual than sensual in nature. In a sober state I seem to be comfortably oblivious to many of the subtler signs people have going on between them, and being unresponsive to real signals stops me looking for- and resultingly imagining fake ones too.

[sanguisuga]

I find that I do occasionally dislike someone on sight. And it's a very subconscious, lizard brain kind of thing. First sight - hm, I don't like you. The person doesn't even have to open their mouths, it's like I can sense that they are not nice people, and don't deserve my attention. I don't actively hate them, but I do avoid them. And I'm usually proved right. Very rarely is there an instant attraction.

[soma_stardust]

all the time. i call it intuitive. like something in my brain picks up on another person's energy and either attracts or repulses me.
i trust my instincts, i'm usually right.

[Raza]

idiot  [id-ee-uht]

–noun
1. One who dislikes another person and isn't able to explain why.


Heh. I probably wouldn't call it stupidity out loud, but it is amusing to note how everyone with 'intuition' seems convinced that their decisions to avoid or maintain prejudice against people 'turned out right most of the time'. Chicken, egg, etcetera...

[Ajax Knucklebones]

Give me 5 minutes alone with a person for a 1 on 1 talkfest and by the end of it, I usually can tell if I'm gonna have problems with the person. Most times I do. Goes with my anti-social stance.

As far as super-quick attraction. That died in me more than 15 years ago. There are times though that I can still, over time, feel a super big attraction for someone, but even that hardly EVER happens.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

idiot  [id-ee-uht]

–noun
1. One who dislikes another person and isn't able to explain why.


Heh. I probably wouldn't call it stupidity out loud, but it is amusing to note how everyone with 'intuition' seems convinced that their decisions to avoid or maintain prejudice against people 'turned out right most of the time'. Chicken, egg, etcetera...

***it is amusing to note how everyone with 'intuition' seems convinced that their decisions to avoid or maintain prejudice against people 'turned out right most of the time'.***

It is what it is. I wouldn't really call it "intuitive" as much as I would call it enough of life experiences lived, that you become a certain "expert" on what you like about a person or what rubs you the wrong way and usually that can be picked up on pretty quickly after meeting someone.

People have a way of "showing the cards on the table" pretty quickly.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

stop asking them to put their finger in your ass?

Only one finger?

[LeilaHazlett]

all the time. i call it intuitive. like something in my brain picks up on another person's energy and either attracts or repulses me.
i trust my instincts, i'm usually right.

Me too. Sometimes when I meet someone I just really don't like them, whenever that happens I usually find out something awful about that person later on. I know you shouldn't judge people before you know them but honestly I can only think of two cases when I have judged someone's character incorrectly, and both times I thought the person in question was a decent person and then they fucked me over. I haven't ever thought negatively of someone and then had that turn out wrong.

[mystoo]

Hell ya! There's a few people, mostly work people I just wanna hit them as hard as I can whenever I see them. They don't even have to say anything, I just haaaaate them!

[Raza]

***it is amusing to note how everyone with 'intuition' seems convinced that their decisions to avoid or maintain prejudice against people 'turned out right most of the time'.***

It is what it is. I wouldn't really call it "intuitive" as much as I would call it enough of life experiences lived, that you become a certain "expert" on what you like about a person or what rubs you the wrong way and usually that can be picked up on pretty quickly after meeting someone.

People have a way of "showing the cards on the table" pretty quickly.

The distinction between applied understanding and intuition/irrationality doesn't lie in how a sense has been acquired, but in whether you understand what you're doing when you're applying it. Referring to experience still has to be one or the other.

I suppose the distinction between intuition and irrationality might lie in how the sense has been acquired though, if we liberally attribute automated re-application of past inductive conclusions to 'intuition'. But that's still a questionable thing to do, and I doubt you could get everyone with less of a basis for their feelings than that to stop using the term, the better for you to pretend it meant something.