Should probably be rephrased to "We are only sexually attracted to people who we believe are attracted to us"

Which might still be stretching it a bit, but I believe it to be mostly true

A world in which this was even mostly true would have considerably less emotional pain in it. Nice to imagine, anyway.

At my workplace, there are probably 30 or 40 women I come into contact with during the course of my job, out of maybe 60 or 70 people in my area. One or two are over 50, and hence not very attractive to me (I'm 40). One is probably over 400 lbs, and I am not especially attracted to her sexually, but as she's a great person otherwise, she may be the only example of a woman I get along with at work with whom I would not have sex (were I single, etc...). So, I'm sexually attracted to all these women, though of course I have no way to know which are attracted to me -- certainly I hope they have no way to know that I'm attracted to them... it's the workplace, after all.

So, my experience bears out the author's assumption that if circumstances permit, sex would almost always be "in the way" of a friendship between two mutually possible sexual partners. I can only imagine how much more this must be a problem for those who are bisexual.

Really? So you've never felt attracted to a sexy film star? Or the person next door you have a crush on? That flame from afar who doesn't even know you exist?

Agreed. Or perhaps "we are usually only sexually attracted to people who we believe are or might become sexually attracted to us".

My point is that with a very few exceptions[1], apart from the occasional mis-fire or unrequited crush, we go through our life sorting people into "romance target" and "not-romance target", we tend to be very discriminating in our sorting, and gender is not the only criteria used for sorting.

[1]: The exceptions mostly involve very high hormones and/or very poor social skills. Example: A heterosexual male, borderline Asperger syndrome, 19 years old, just off to university to study computer science, far far too shy to actually talk to a girl is very prone to being quasi-obsessively attracted to a large number of inappropriate targets[2]. But this is not really a typical human experience[3].

[2]: Yes, I do speak from experience. :)

[3]: At the risk of stereotyping, it's probably a little more common among the HN readership than elsewhere though. :)

I'm no psychologist, but I think you're correct. Nobody likes to be rejected, so the safest option is to go for people who we think are attracted to us.

Agreed. How about Angelina Jolie? Does this mean I have a chance?!

He means people, not objectified people. I assume his statement was only meant to apply to people you know or meet in real life.

So, if I met Angelina Jolie I wouldn't be attracted to her? Nonsense!

If you were Angelina Jolie's neighbor and ran into her a couple times a day, then yes, you would stop being attracted to her eventually.

That's partly because you're attracted to a cartoon. A star's media image is very carefully crafted. People like that are much less impressive in person.

And that's partly because Lazare is right. You can be eternally attracted to a media image because there's a broken feedback loop. If you were displaying your attraction to an actual person, you'd be getting either positive or negative feedback. Eventually things would either heat up or cool down.

Think about all the people you know that you once felt strong sexual attraction for. How many of them do you still feel that way about? For me, the percentage is tiny.

I'm pretty good at keeping the cartoon in mind, even after knowing someone. Its called fantasizing, its pretty common, and it refutes the author's nonsense about not being attracted to someone who is not attracted to you.

Hrm. In my view, that's still being attracted to the cartoon, not the person. If you paste somebody's face on a blow-up doll and have sex with that, you still haven't had sex with the person. That you confuse your fantasy character with a real person doesn't make the fantasy relationship more real.

Also: continuing to display attraction signals to somebody who isn't interested in you? That comes across as creepy. As would fantasizing about someone you know who doesn't find you attractive. For your sake, I hope they don't find out.

If the author's black-and-white statement still is bothering you, go ahead and insert some nuance. E.g., "normally" or "for non-creepy people".

Wait! There's a huge, insulting assumption in there (or two). Perhaps I'm attracted to her genuine concern for 3rd world peoples, impressed by her large, loving non-standard family and in agreement with her political views! The sex thing is just, you know, gravy.

I think we're dealing with different kinds of attraction here.

>Taken literally, this is a pretty absurd claim.

Agree.

I'd say as with most things in life it's a gray area: a sliding scale of attractive forces; or a ladder if one might: http://laddertheory.com/ladderconstruction.htm

I went to that website, hoping for something interesting, and was disappointed to see that it's just misogyny disguised as humor (calling women "bitches" and implying that they only date men for their money.) I have to say I'm really disappointed to see something like this on Hacker News; it doesn't speak well of the community members here.

Don't post that douchebag bullshit here.

Shush! You're getting too close to reality. Let's just theorize eloquently instead!