The Laws of Attraction

Was up last night watching "Laws of Attraction," staring Julianne More and Pierce Brosnan. It was hillarious watching two supposedly high-powered divorce lawyers bicker so much that they ended up getting married and falling very deeply in-love.

The thing about romace movies is that they often make me wonder about the nature of love and attraction. Why do we fall for certain people and not for others? More importantly, why do certain people fall for us and why do others not fall for us even when it's text book perfect?

I must confess that I'm a little strange when it comes to the laws of attraction. A psychoanalyst might suggest that it's a cross between my father's philandering when I was a child and my mother's overbearing nature and philosophy that all men are useless and to do as they are told. Like any child of divorced parents its wonderful to be able to blame your parents for all your problems!

As a man, its generally easy. I like to look at the usual physical attributes of a woman - face, figure, breast, legs, toes, fingers and you name it. But once the hormones have finished playing their dirty tricks, you realise that body parts are pretty much the same. At the end of the day, its not the woman's body part that counts but what you can do to make that body part work for her. Likewise, the same goes for the male anatomy in the laws of attraction.

It's as they say, a question of chemistry and personality and that is at the end of the day a tricky thing. Why do we end up with certain personality types even if we tell ourselves we don't like that personality type. Freud would blame it on our parents, for boys, it's the eternal desire to run away from the father and towards the mother and visa versa. Like most things Freudian, it sounds like a load of crock until you end up in the situation yourself.

For myself, I have Gina to thank/blame for this. In many ways, Gina is nothing like my mother. Mum, as far as I've known my mother is refined, dignified, warm and enjoys being in the company of people. To her credit, she's always put the welfare of myself, Tara and Christopher before her own. Much of her life has been devoted to pursuit of her children's dreams. On the other hand, I've always seen my Dad in more remote way. With my Dad, life seemed so centred around his business, his career and his glory, with all else in life being a side show. I didn't doubt my father's love for me, if there was no love, I wouldn't have half the things I've enjoyed in life, but as a kid, you do want to hear words like I love you or I'm proud of you etc etc and my father for one was never much for those things. Birthdays, for example, were a big thing for my mothers family but mere coincidence in my fathers.

My perspective on things started shifting when I got involved with Gina. Although I had hopped that I would end up with Carra, the ultimate career girl and homemaker rolled into one, I found Gina's spiel of being a simple girl who wanted to be cuddled and given alot of attention to be fun. It was fun to have someone who enjoyed being cuddled like a Teddy Bear and who was passionate about you instead of you being passionate about the other person. It was really fun before the psychosis started to come into play and the signs that psychosis came into play whenever I was working and could not spend time with her.  - Dad was the one who said it best "There's alot of your mother in this girl."

Mum was most insulted to be compared with Gina, but as my marriage wore on, the more I looked at my own relationship and compared it to the one my parents had. Suddenly, Dad's burning obsession with his career seemed like a normal thing for a man to go for. I saw my mother's burning need to be the dominant party in the relationship to be - tiersome. The cuddling is fun and its cosy and its nice but there's got to be more to life than having a perptual teddy bear. To be fair to my mother, she never had her needs carried out to the extent that Gina did and she has style, which Gina lacks in many instances - but somehow, after being married to Gina, I've developed a twinge of sympathy for my father and stepfathers. Its hard to live with a woman who needs to be the centre of attention and the central focus in your life.

Have I learnt and progressed since then? In a way, I have. I'm a little more weary of psychosis in women. I'm alot less tollerant of the mind games that women so enjoy playing. Between Gina and working in an office dominated by women - I'm currently in a NO Middle Class, Graduate, Singapore Chinese girls phase of my life (I don't understand how my Indian and Malay friends can find this species interesting - they're better off with Indian professionals from India or sweet Malay girls from Malaysia - at least they can hold a conversation that goes beyond the sales at Robinsons)

However, having said all of that, what have I actualluy been doing in the following the laws of attraction? I've been heading for the signs of the old attractions. Since Gina, there have been two women I've been vaguely interested in. One was Angela, a sweet, intelligent, beautiful, creative, artistic girl from China. The other is Han Li, a hustler by nature who sounds like a market seller when she's on the phone and guess what....someone who desparately needs me to focus attentions on her. Guess which one I'm with and having been sticking with for a while......?

Admitedly, Han Li comes along with a package called Thui but why do I get myself involved with a woman who needs me to make her the centre of attention and cannot tollerate the idea that I have other female associations in my life. - Why do I find it attractive when a woman goes through my phone to make sure that I don't have photos of other women? What does that say about my personality - other than the fact that I obviously seem attracted to women who like me to focus alot of attention onto them and the fact that I obviously enjoy the idea that a woman can become obsessed with me.

Laws of attaction? Nobody has yet to codify them but somehow, I think they exist - they're the laws of having the other person appeal into some deep and psyhological need within yourself. Freaky!