Countdown meme: day 3

[liv]

Day three: Eight ways to win your heart. Hm, can I think of eight separate things? I'm pretty easily pleased; simply being willing to pay attention to me and showing signs of enjoying my company goes a long way!

1. Geekiness. I love people who are passionate about their interests, however obscure or uncool. And I love the general approach to life where more information is always good, and people who are curious about other people's passions as well their own. I think everyone I've ever been attracted to in my life is a geek of some sort of other. (I don't mean exclusively being into computers, more the general geek mentality.)
   
   
2. Direct communication. This fits quite nicely with the geek thing, I suppose. Anyway I vastly prefer bluntness over inscrutability. I am thoroughly, thoroughly on the ask side of the ask / guess divide. I do appreciate that some emotional topics are hard to talk about, but I am drawn to people who are willing to make the attempt.
   
   
3. Listening to me. I don't in the least need people to hang adoringly on my every word, but I really appreciate people who show interest in stuff I'm thinking about and doing, and ask probing questions and help me think and bounce ideas around.
   
   
4. Good conversation. OK, I'm chatty enough for two, or maybe even three, but I get on best with people who don't expect me to make all the effort to think of things to say. I quite appreciate friendly disagreement, pedantry and criticism, too.
   
   
5. Intelligence. I know in theory that intelligence is a morally neutral quality, but I have to admit I'm drawn to startlingly intelligent people. Intelligence is the one trait that most makes me want to spend time with a person, even if I really ought to put more value on consideration, ethical commitments etc.
   
   
6. Making my life easier in practical ways. In those love languages quizzes I always come up with kind acts. I don't object to gifts or flattering words, of course, but it's practical support that makes me feel most secure and most likely to reciprocate feelings. I find it extra touching when someone puts themselves out for my sake, as long as its not excessive.
   
   
7. Independence. I most appreciate people who are willing to stand up for themselves, who have friends and interests apart from me; I don't find it flattering to be the sole centre of somebody's attention all the time, or to be unquestioningly adored. I can be quite pushy and domineering, and I like it when people don't simply assume I'm right because I state things forcefully.
   
   
8. Feeding me tea. I drink a lot of tea, and I'm most comfortable if I don't have to keep asking for more. And if I'm feeling down and someone spontaneously offers me a cup of tea, I find that incredibly touching.

This could almost be read as an eight-point description of jack, which wasn't my intention when I started the list. But, well, he is really really well suited to me! My heart is pretty easy to win and pretty hard to lose, really. I'm not always right, but very often in my life I've developed very intense feelings for a person very quickly after meeting them, if they fit several of these desiderata. In the vast majority of cases giving my heart to people like that has led to wonderful, precious relationships.

Comments

[beckyzoole]

You know, substitute "coffee" for "tea", and that would be the way to win my heart as well.

Although, the person has to smell right too. My emotions are strongly tied to my sense of smell.

[lethargic_man]

Although, the person has to smell right too.

YM, of coffee? ;^b

[beckyzoole]

Oddly enough, I have a history of being attracted to people who do not drink coffee. That's OK, though: it means I get to drink the whole pot! :)

[liv]

Heh, it's funny that we have such similar tastes. I tend to form associations with smell after I've met a person. I'm not consciously aware of caring what someone smells like when initially attracted to them, but once they're part of my life, I do have a strong response to their scent.

[rho]

Just because intelligence is a morally neutral quality doesn't mean it's wrong to be attracted to it any more than it's wrong to be attracted to tall people or people with red hair or, for that matter, female people or male people. It would be a shockingly boring world if the only criteria people used for choosing whom they wished to spend time with were those of moral and ethical value.

[simont]

Good good. I was going to say pretty much exactly this, and now I don't have to.

[redbird]

More or less what I was going to say.

Yes, some people seem to think that being attracted to intelligence makes them better than people who are attracted to athleticism or good singing voices or cooking skills or reliability. But that doesn't mean being attracted to intelligence is a bad thing, any more than being attracted to particular voices is.

[liv]

Thing is, this about heart, not loins. I don't at all worry about finding intelligent people attractive, because I know that attraction is totally personal, and not really a moral issue in most cases. But I am not sure if it's a good thing that I only really want to be close friends with people who are intelligent. Indeed, I tend to be positively disposed towards intelligent people (whether or not they are admirable in general), and the converse of that is that I'm perhaps unfair towards less intelligent people. It might be that I'm letting my friendship decisions be biased by physical attraction, but I like to hope that that's not the case, I don't think of myself as only being friends with people I find sexy.

[redbird]

Ah, that makes sense. I think I want to chew on this some and maybe catch you in chat email.

And yes, I see a meaningful difference between "she's intelligent, I like her company" and "she's intelligent, I'll overlook something that I wouldn't in a less-intelligent person who did the same thing." I don't think a lot of people would use "has red hair" or "is a gorgeous baritone" as a reason to forgive or excuse certain things, but plenty will use different standards for members of their religion (either on a large scale or their specific congregation), graduates of the same university, professional athletes, or the like.

[liv]

That's a good point, definitely. These things are subjective, and that's ok. I guess if someone were attracted to tall red-headed women, that would be one thing, but if all their friends were tall red-headed women, you might start to worry a bit.

It's not just choosing whom to spend time with, for me, it's that I'm uncomfortably willing to overlook moral failings in people who happen to be intelligent, and I'm not sure that's the best way to conduct my life. I do completely agree moral and ethical values aren't the only criteria, but I worry that they should perhaps rank higher.

[nanaya]

I think there's also a lot of stuff to do with cultural assumptions about what we read as intelligence. A person isn't necessarily smarter because they have other traits commonly shared by intelligent people, but we often assume they do.

[ephemera]

tea, and being confident that you would push back if I did/said something you thought was wrong goes a long, long way for me, too.

[nanaya]

I can be quite pushy and domineering, and I like it when people don't simply assume I'm right because I state things forcefully.

I'm completely with you on this one.