The Proper Response to Attraction

Have you ever found yourself in the presence of someone else and felt inexplicably drawn towards them? Maybe everything stopped. Your heart. Time. Reason. Cue the slow motion, music, and feels… and welcome to the experience of attraction! If you’ve ever wondered what to do with the feelings that arise in this experience, it’s your lucky day! I am here to help you with some advice you might sound surprising. The proper response to attraction is falling in love. 

Let me explain.

First of all, it is important to understand that attraction, at its root, IS GOOD. Why? Because attraction is a unique human experience in which we are drawn out of ourselves. In a world where it is so easy to isolate ourselves or aim for self-reliance, attraction wakes us out of our own ego by reminding us that we can be profoundly affected by the presence of another. The deep ache in our hearts for communion, connection, and intimacy comes to the surface. 

The experience of attraction does not have to be sexual. I have encountered many wonderful hearts whom, through their beauty, have simply drawn me towards them, attracted me towards them, in a platonic way. However, sexual attraction, the experience of a bodily or emotional reaction to the unique feminine or masculine characteristics of another, is also a reality… and an experience that is important to know what to do with because in a very tangible way sexual attraction is the raw material for either love or lust… to selflessly giving to another or to selfishly using them. The difference lies in if we allow attraction to draw us towards the reality of the person in front of us, or away from them.

For example, there was a man I encountered once. He was good-looking and I was especially attracted to the incredible virtue of his masculine heart. Honestly, my first instinct was to emotionally indulge in imagining how we might come together in the future or what he might be like. But what I was called and able to do instead was orient my initial rush of feelings towards actually encountering the person in front of me. By truly getting to know him, I came to no longer see him as an object to be won or as an object of my imagination or lust, but as an actual, complex and multi-faceted person, gift, and friend. Only then was love possible.

Because, at its heart, attraction is an invitation towards A PERSON. 

Not just any man or woman in the abstract, but the wonder and mystery of a specific man or woman who exists in reality. And, FACTS: we can only ever truly love a person in reality. This is why I advise you to fall in love… authentic love. Because real love moves us towards something way beyond our initial rush of feelings… it wills the good of another and engages with the other as, first and foremost, a brother or sister in Christ. 

This is how we are called to see every single person. This does not mean that we can’t pursue someone romantically. What this does mean is that we must take the time to ensure that our attractions orient us towards the good of the fullness of the person, and not towards the shell or idea of a person as an object for our emotional or physical pleasure, before taking the next step. Instead of repressing or inordinately indulging our feelings and desires, we get to integrate them with reality in a way that actually helps fuel authentic love! 

So, go ahead, fall in love! Living healthy and fully alive looks like engaging with our hearts honestly, and according to reality. Love is creative and love unnumbs our hearts. Love calls us to higher and higher heights, and to sacrifice for the truest good of another (which may or may not look like pursuing them). Falling in love even gives us a taste of how God loves and is captivated by every single soul. In fact, when we fall in love with one person, we can allow our desire to serve and uphold them overflow into all of our relationships and help us see the glorious reality of every heart. Don’t get me wrong, authentic love is no flowery thing, but it’s demands are beautiful and it is exactly what we are created for!

I want to leave you with a quote to reflect on about the power of falling in love from Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.:
“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”