[brains, N*E]

[wispfox]

How the _hell_ does anyone ever deal with 'oooh, shiny brain' and 'oooh, yummy person' at the SAME DAMN TIME?!

See, I usually have the 'neat person, must get to know them better' thing first, and the 'oooh wait, I'm actively attracted to them, _too_!' thing after I know someone reasonably well. So it's... seriously strange to have had them at the same time, immediately upon meeting a person, and I do _NOT_ have the toolset to deal with this (and, really, beyond doing a reasonable job of keeping it from leaking out all over everything - which I think I'm already doing an ok job with - I don't know that I _would_ be able to deal with this even with experience and practice).

And I'm vaguely amused by the 'hmm. Let's investigate something-ing with two different people at the same time; one I've known for a while, and one I haven't' thing I seem to be doing right now. Ah, the timing. ;)

*shakes head* Hey, at least I do a reasonable job of saying 'hey, I'm being ridiculous and I _know_ I am, but I want you to know what's in my head'. And I'm amusing the hell out of australian_joe and ladytabitha, I think...

Comments

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I half wonder if the fact that I tend toward developing friendship before realizing attraction is simply self-defense, since this really does seriously confuse the hell out of me.

Really, though, I suspect that it's just that I rarely get a sense of someone quickly enough for immediate attraction beyond that they are fascinating in some way.

[szasz.livejournal.com]

Well, if so, it's not a bad defense mechanism. I was just talking with a much younger friend of mine about levels of trust necessary to actually act on physical attractions. It hadn't dawned on me that trust corresponding to the level of (risk/intimacy) that goes with a particular physical act is a measure of the safety and, hey, responsibility with which one conducts one's relationships, but of course that's exactly right.

I was reminded of earlier times when I was much less able to control how far I took sex, and of the thing that would happen repeatedly where I'd discover I sorta liked someone, to the point where I'd really want to make out with them, and so we would, but then things would amp up on the physical lust side and before I knew it we'd be actually HAVING SEX and then I would get really shy, or unsure, or unsafe, or some combination, and then things would get awkward and weird. I'm really just realizing now that it's possible to like someone at a level where smooching sounds really nice and seems totally appropriate, but not at a level where things need to go further.