Have you ever had one of those magical moments of connection – a flash of familiarity that slips through your fingers like quicksand? And then lingers under your skin for the rest of the day?
I rarely ever feel attracted to anyone (honestly, especially not Adonis-looking gym-sculpted creatures). Truth be told, I feel devotedly loyal to he-whom-i-have-not-yet-met.
And i’m generally wired as a Demisexual. So there’s that.
That being said, last week i was playing violin at ecstatic dance, when suddenly a super tall, dark haired man was standing in front of me, looking like he had been chiseled from marble. Beaming sunshine directly into my face.
Our eyes met for only a moment, and we exchanged a million watt smile that lingered longer than it needed to. I felt an intense jolt of electricity shoot through me, which startled me. I’ve only felt physically shocked as if by lightning bolts, upon meeting someone, twice before in my life
I, of course, didn’t assume or project anything about this random man. But it was a sign to me to pay attention. A sign that in the video game of life, there was something here for me to observe and learn from.
I didn’t want to make meaning out of it, and I was performing, so I turned away, sealing myself behind my eyelids. Losing myself in the music.
When i opened my eyes again, he was gone. He never came back. Ah well. I didn’t think much of it, and had quite forgotten about it – until today when i was leaving a different ecstatic dance.
I had ordered a scooter taxi to head home, and the map showed that my ride had almost arrived. I walked out into the parking lot and was looking down at my phone, when i saw Him out of the corner of my eye.
Rephrase – i didn’t even see him. I felt him. I knew it was the same man, even though I had only seen him once, for a split second. He had a unique, warm, soft energy. It seemed to tendril outwards from him and reach right into me. Interesting.
As I walked past, he spoke in a warm, friendly Australian accent. “You have amazing hair”. He had an easy-going, flirtatious ways of speaking, that indicated he was used to women fawning over him and being flattered by his attention. A Chris Hemsworth type.
I was in the middle of texting my driver with directions, so I barely even looked up at him as I said “Oh thanks! You should see my mom, she has twice as much as me,”
Just then my taxi passed by, so i turned away to call out to the driver and beckon him over.
He said “I wish i had my mom’s hair!” as I climbed onto the back of the scooter.
“Oh does your mom have amazing hair?” i asked, but then had to lean away to fix the footrest on the bike. I didn’t even hear his response. It all happened so fast. I was in my flow. On my mission.
I waved and said “have a wonderful day!” And poof! Just like that. We drove off. Leaving my mystery man behind in the dust.
It feels like a blur. I still don’t know why i didn’t just pause and talk to him. He had reached out and struck up the conversation with me. He was friendly and warm. He seemed like a decent human, maybe a new ally, or even just someone to have a momentary exchange of friendliness with.
Even my electrical body had signaled for to me to pay attention. But i couldn’t seem to make myself connect.
All afternoon the fleeting incident has lingered on my mind, which is highly unusual, as I rarely ever feel drawn to anyone. Hmm. What was i supposed to learn from this situation, i had to ask myself?
*
I hate the shallow attraction / validation games that men and women play, and i usually try to keep my energy neutral and sisterly.
I’m holding out for something special, and nobody has blown my mind yet. I’m patient. And very content in my own field. I generally don’t look outside of myself for validation or wholeness.
But when you have one of those missed connections … one of those drive-bys… one of those “what if” moments… it really makes you look at yourself. At your walls. At the ways you hide from others.
(*note: walls vs. healthy boundaries = two distinctly separate things)
I could have just let my driver wait a minute. I could have forged connection with this man, just to see what was there, even just long enough to get his name.
Why didn’t i? I guess maybe i do know why.
It’s because love scares the shit out of me, deep down. Letting people in scares the shit out of me. And feeling actual energetic connection and attraction to a man is so rare that it makes me cautious. It makes me contract.
And – let me just be super real and open – there’s something i don’t trust about gorgeous men like him – lanky, ripped, big biceps, six pack abs, 6’3” (this guy was practically a Disney prince cartoon).
There’s also the fact that almost every woman in the world is going to be trying to hook a guy like that. And that someone who has sculpted their body to that degree likely has a higher degree of superficiality than most. I find those factors unappealing.
When considering being curious about someone, we must look past the exterior and into the depths. The soul. As John Mayer said “If you’re pretty, you’re pretty. But the only way to be beautiful is if you’re loving. Otherwise it’s just “congratulations about your face.”
We all have different things that attract us to others. I know what I am attracted to, and it’s heart, soul, integrity, communication, and a man’s energetic self mastery. Very few men know how to seal their energy fields and properly hold a container. And i’m not the kind of woman who will invest myself and then tolerate leaky energy or game playing.
I also suppose I assume that most pretty boys are players seeking validation (after all, even many of the non-“pretty boys” often are). So i didn’t want to give him my attention, and leak my energy, and be yet another fawning female.
Isn’t that me discriminating against strikingly handsome men? It is. Is that me pre-judging a dynamic with a person i’ve barely even met just to pre-emptively keep myself safe? Yepper pepper. It is.
*
I’ve been in relationships with men in the past who were gorgeous hunks, and i’ve also been in relationship with scrawny awkward guys who were shorter than me.
Short. Tall. Scrawny. Fit. Chubby. Bald. Hairy. Old. Young. Cross-eyed. …Whatever! Appearance doesn’t matter much to me. I think everyone is beautiful.
The only reason I ever haven’t been physically attracted to someone I had an otherwise strong connection with, was if they looked unhealthy and clearly didn’t take care of themselves. I place a high value on treating the body as a temple and keeping it clean, inside and out.
Generally, I respond to core energy, connection, and how my soul senses we can help each other grow. I look for lifestyle compatibility and puzzle pieces of mutual uplevelling.
If anything, in my generalized experience, the super handsome guys I have been with were more full of themselves & cocky, and in the long run it was harder to connect deeply with them beyond the honeymoon phase, or to truly get to know their substance.
One exceedingly sexy fellow I briefly connected with regularly talked about “how hard it was being so hot,” and how hard it was that “every woman wanted him” (it made me totally unattracted to him, and it also made me throw up in my mouth a bit). I ended that almost before it had begun.
Meanwhile the less traditionally attractive guys were the most handsome to my eyes, (and i was so much more deeply into them), because our souls were able to bond in a different way without that arrogance in the way.
Not that a beautiful face can’t have a beautiful soul – of course it can – but there are also reasons for generalizations.
So is that a fair reason to blow somebody off? Perhaps I need to dig deeper into my discrimination against hunky men.
*
Deep down, one core issue is probably that there is some part of me, (as with most women), that has always doubted my own beauty….Or not really cared one way or the other about it – knowing it will fade eventually…. knowing that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that i’m not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. And that the aging process will have her way with me eventually.
I refuse to attach my identity and sense of value to my appearance, even as I live in a world that seems to want me to buy into that program. I also get that we are all artists, and our bodies are like marble that we sculpt and adorn.
There is also a deep-seeded part of many women that has to navigate the fact that no matter how dynamically amazing and vastly cultivated she is, many men are often superficially oriented, and often have wandering eyes / seem to want what they can’t have.
I have no desire to play games, or compete. Or to be with a man with a wandering eye. Been there, done that. It’s exhausting to navigate all that energy as a super sensitive creature.
Our value is in our depths. On a soul level, we only want to be around people who operate from their depths, and who value that in us.
When it comes to men, the fact is, I just want my One.
I am a penguin.
I am a lobster.
My inclination is to mate for life.
Appearances fade, and i want to be with a man who thinks i’m beautiful even when i’m an 82 year old lady.
And
Maybe deeper down, i’m sad to recognize that maybe some guarded part of me just doesn’t trust men in general. (Or most people in general?)
Sigh.
How does one deprogram mistrust from the nervous system?
*
I know there are men in the world who value substance over appearance. That’s the only kind of man I want.
Strangely, I have overheard many men who are out of shape, and don’t take care of their bodies at all, talking about how they only want to be with a super hot, fit woman. They objectify women as if we are composed simply of body parts that they feel it is their right to assess, judge, compare, and approve or disapprove of.
It’s depressing and pisses me off, simultaneously.
The last guy i started to open my heart to was bald, entire body covered in thick hair, with a potbelly and a ton of injuries. I didn’t care. I only wanted to make him feel like the most handsome man in the world. Because to me, he was. I only had eyes for him.
But he made commentary about his preferences in women’s physical features, and made shady player choices that made my heart shrivel right up and close. These Peter Pan boys want to have their cake and eat it too.
They say men are wired visually; and it seems appearances matter to most of them, even if they don’t take care of their own body temple (oh the irony)
I realize that we are all individuals, and that just as i would be indignant to be grouped into a stranger’s generalization about “all women,” I have to be very careful not to generalize about “all men”, or write people off before i know them (or worse yet – create a self-fulfilling prophecy of limited thinking)
*
O me, o my, but despite all the mental gymnastics, those flashes of electricity make our minds go blank, and make us feel like baby kittens caught by the scruff of the neck, rendered paralyzed.
All day it has been tugging at the back of my mind… that fleeting missed moment … I have been wishing i had just let down my guard. Paused. Chatted a bit more. Not just disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Maybe it would have been nothing. But at least i would have found out. Or at least made a new friend.
I’m about to move to another city, so who knows if we’ll ever run into each other again. Who knows if I’d even recognize him if we did?
In the caution of my mistrust, I tell myself i’m just protecting myself from players… keeping my heart safe and strong and guarded (like the treasure it is), so that when i meet someone i genuinely have a connection with, i will still have a soft heart, and a clear energy field to offer him, free of cords.
But, nonetheless, the heart quivers at the anticipation of possibility. And i’m pretty sure something electric did sizzle there. Even just for a moment. Which is exceedingly rare.
Maybe this only happened to force me to examine my walls. Which is a necessary step in order to melt them. To make space for something aligned and real.
In the end, I left it in god’s hands. No attachments.
As we zoomed away down a windy jungle road, i whispered to the beautiful blue sky, bursting with billowing clouds – “Alright god, if we’re meant to connect, it’s up to you. And if not – at least i am softening, melting, and opening to possibilities, little by little. This or something better.”
At some point we all have to look at our walls, and question if they keep us safe? … Or just isolated and alone.
Are they walls? Or are they boundaries? Hmm.
I am doing the best I can to trust the path and melt my heart, as fast as i can. One little electrical shockwave at a time.
MAESYN'S MUSINGS 
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