This is for you, Jessica
"I can't go after him, he's not my type". "We didn't really click, she just wasn't my type". How often have you actually heard these lines?? I've heard a lot of people (especially girls to a guy) dismiss these lines as a load of crap. I don't particularly buy into that school of thought. I believe that everyone has a type of person he or she is particularly attracted to, and there are many schools of thought as to what influences and determines these characteristics. We will be exploring these a little bit later, but first a question must be posed. How do you know when you've found your "type" instead of just replacing the girl who you lost with someone else who reminds you of her. I, myself, have experienced both in a very big way.
Lets begin by exploring what it means to have a type. Most people have a set of specific, but sometimes very subtle characteristics that attract them almost every time. I will volunteer an experience of my own as an example. During the competition show that recently ended, King of the Nerds on TBS, one of the contestants, Genevieve Pearson, really really got my heart going like you wouldn't believe. Outwardly, she looked very VERY different from anyone I had ever dated or any celebrity I had ever expressed any interest in prior. In spite of this, one night, when my best friend came over while the show was on one night to discuss a different matter, I had glanced over at the TV, and stated "Genevieve makes me feel kind of funny in the pants.". Keeping in mind, that Jason had come over quite a ways into the episode that was aired, and all of the name captions had already passed, so he couldn't have seen any of them, he motioned to the screen and asked "You mean that one??", very quickly and correctly identifying Mrs. Pearson as the object of my affection. He knows me well enough to have noticed the things beyond the obvious. There are usually some pretty obvious reasons behind these obvious and subtle preferences, and when they are pointed out, they make a lot of sense. The most common, most prominent, and probably the most obvious is to take a good look at our old friends, Oedipus and Electra. Like it or not, and like your parents or not, our mothers and fathers, and the people who raised us, for those who didn't happen to have our biological parents with us, are the biggest influences in the world as to who we choose to be intimate with. They are, after all, the first people we imprint on and find comfort with. As disturbing as it is, most of us, in some way, are trying to find someone to replace our mom or dad with, I'm just as guilty of it as anyone else. Another big factor is friends. I'm not talking about your same sex friends who you sit and gossip about your sexual encounters with or your opposite sex friends now. No, the way I see the factors coming out is in the people of the opposite sex you hung out with when you were in grade school and middle school. Similar to the way our parents influenced our choices in mates, the people we hung out with when we were younger of the opposite sex are some of the first of our peers, opposite gender, that we imprinted on. Again, it's the people who first made us feel comfortable. Similarly, these children in our lives helped us develop our personalities and differentiated us from being clones from our parents, personality-wise. They were also there as we discovered our own interests, and many times helped us find them. Lastly, and this happens everywhere, but is more prominent in smaller, closer knit communities, and among people who don't move much growing up, we begin to grow up, and the girls and boys around us who helped us develop personality and find our interests grow up, and develop with us. As we see them in a new light, our hormones raging, and us discovering our sexualities, we continue to be drawn to the people who made us comfortable. Adolescents conflate sexual feelings with the feelings of comfort and familiarity, and associate features like hair color, eye color, race, and body shape with those feelings of comfort, whether the new people they are pursuing possess the certain interests or personality attributes or not.
One other factor that determines a type is the common peer pressure and social expectations. I think this is a little more prevalent in guys over girls, and if any girls want to call me out on that and correct me, you are welcome to. I can't speak for what happens solely between girls. I know that with guys, there is an expectation as to what kind of girl you are supposed to chase. They will make all kinds of jokes if you are going after someone who isn't a certain way, and usually it has to do with weight. Even if you try to justify your interest, you generally get met with more scorn. Recently, I had a small spark of attraction towards a girl in my Foodservice Cost Control class. I mentioned to one of my best friends (who is married to a very slender woman), and described her as "having a little bit of spare tire, but I don't mind it because she does have a perfect ass", he responded to me with "We all know you don't mind a spare tire" fairly scornfully. With women, even if I don't know what the basis of measure is, I do know that there is a level of social expectation among them, as well.
There is one last factor that makes people believe that another person is their "type" when, in fact, I don't believe it has any weight in determining what a type is at all. It's projection, and it generally shows up shortly after another relationship ends. Projection seems to be most common in the rebound phase of a breakup, when the memory is still fresh, you're missing out on what you had, and a lot of times, looking for a replacement. I have a prime example of this from my own life. Disclaimer: looking back on it, in spite of the elements I did use to justify this at the time and a long time after, what I did was, in fact, wrong. I can't go in the past and change it, though. A year and a half ago, as the relationship that I was in was on a serious decline, but before we ended it. To be fair, she did already have another boyfriend I didn't know about yet. I was out on a Tuesday night with my best friend in the world, Jason. We happened upon a couple girls in an empty bar that was closing early. J knew the one, I had never met either, but I was very, VERY strongly attracted to the other. With her short, brown hair, huge greenish/bluish eyes, fair skin tone, ample curves, and shapely behind, along with the fact that I am pretty sure she's part Italian, she was a verifiable clone of the girl I was dating at the time. She had been checking me out a little, too. Her friend, the one that J knows, was the more forward, offering to us that we go out together, a little double date, and gave me her number. While we were out, we sat coupled up. J and his friend on one side of the table and the lovely lady and myself at the other. Any chance that the object of my affection and I had to split off from the group and be alone for a few moments, we took, and seemed to be encouraged by our friends. I was falling fast, but I look back now and feel like it may have only been projection. I projected my feelings for my failed relationship onto another girl who was visibly near identical to my girlfriend. This factor has a lot of grey area, and can be open to interpretation. A plausible defense could be opened up saying that your significant other or former significant other would most likely fall into the category of your "type" and therefore, you have simply found someone else who is your type. My rebuttal, and final thought on this topic is this. When you've found someone who is your type, it's someone who is similar to you, and someone who will grow and develop with you at a pace you are comfortable with. Sometimes its fast, sometimes it takes years, but that is the preference of the people who are involved. Because projection often comes close to the end of a relationship, the subconscious is so eager to pick up the pieces and start right where the object of projection left off, that these feelings come on strongly and quickly, are mostly rooted in denial, and are almost always temporary.
As for how that night ended, that is between Jason, the two lovely ladies, and I. I shared enough to make my point, and that is all the further I will go, publically, to respect the honor of the one I admired.
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