Things I learned after it was too late

Actually, this post will only be about one thing. I think I might make "Things I learned after it was too late" into a series of posts that cover many things, but today there will only be one topic.

For today's topic, I'm looking for a little bit of feedback in the comments. I think I now understand something that I didn't understand before. However, I also might just be talking out of my ass, so please let me know if I'm actually making any sense of not.

The "thing" I learned too late probably won't be much of revelation to most people, but it's something I didn't understand for a long time.

OK, enough with all these little preliminary remarks - the "thing" is ...

- One single person can find another single person physically attractive, charming, and can think that person is a great person, and yet not have any romantics feelings for that person.

OK, that's a rather complex sentence I just wrote, so let me break it down and qualify it a little bit more.

When I say "romantic feelings", I mean the feelings that would make you say to yourself "Hey, I'd really like to date this person", or "I think I have a crush on this person", or "I think this person could be THE ONE for me".

Let me clarify my statement I bit more ...

Let's say you've got two people, person A and person B.

Both person A and person B are single. Both are roughly the same age and live in roughly the same place. There are no religious/cultural reasons why person A and person B could not be a couple.

Person A thinks person B is physically attractive.
Person A thinks person B is a great person.
Person A thinks person B is fun and entertaining.
Person A and person B share many of the same values.
Person A thinks person B is a "great catch" and would love to set
person B up with his/her friends.

And yet, person A may not have any romantic feelings for person B.

This can be very hard to understand sometimes, particularly if you are person B, and you do have romantic feelings for person A.

Why do I bring this up? Well, obviously this has something to do with me (doesn't it always? ).

However, first of all, let me make this post even longer than I had planned it would be by going off on a little tangent.

There's and old song that goes "It's So Easy to Fall in Love", but actually it isn't so easy. Perhaps it's easy to become attracted to somebody quickly in a "Love at first sight" kinda way, but in order for one person to really fall in love with another person, three hurdles must be cleared.

1) First of all, a certain level of physical attraction must be there. I know that looks matter less to some people than to others, and we sometimes think of those who focus on nothing but looks as "shallow", but none of us are completely un-shallow. We all draw a line somewhere. Some people might draw the line at "looks like a model" and some might draw the line at "not particularly unattractive", but we all draw the line somewhere. I don't know if a lot of other people share my feelings about this ( there must be some people who do, because I can't possibly be that unusual ), but when it comes to determining whether I could really fall for a woman, I've always rated looks in a rather binary way. When I say "binary", I mean my rating system consists of a 0 and a 1. I could potentially fall for woman who I would rate 1, and I couldn't fall for woman who I would rate 0. That's not to say I don't have strong and specific opinions about what I find physically attractive, it's just to say the once the physical beauty of a woman crosses my own personal "line in the sand", the level of that beauty has never really mattered much. "Gorgeous" and "pretty" have always both rated a 1 on my binary scale, and after that, all the other factors take over. Sure, I'm not going to deny that gorgeous girls always caught my eye more quickly than pretty girls, but I never fell deeply for a girl until I met her, and after I met her, the question of whether or not I would fall for her was almost 100% determined by factor 2 described below. Anyway, I guess the point I'm trying to make it is that while physical attraction is definitely a hurdle that needs to be cleared before you can fall in love with somebody, I don't think it's the hardest hurdle to clear. If somebody thinks of physical attraction in a "binary" way, it may not be that difficult a hurdle to clear ( assuming the person doesn't draw his/her "line in the sand" at the "looks like a model" level ). However, I think hurdle number 2 is always a very difficult hurdle to clear.

2) You can't really fall for somebody deeply, unless there is something about that person's personality and mannerisms that does something to you. You may not be able to put a finger on what IT is, but unless IT is there, you are almost certainly not going to fall for that person. IT may be that person's "energy" or "confidence" or "sweetness" or "sensitivity" or "enthusiasm" or "wittiness" or some crazy combination of several factors, but IT has to be there. You may not know what IT is, you may not be able to describe IT, but what you do know is that being with that person makes your heart smile.
I think that this is by far the hardest hurdle to clear, as well as the hardest hurdle to explain. It's the most important hurdle to clear, because this is very often the hurdle that needs to be cleared before dating starts.

Let me try to clarify my definition of IT a little bit more by drawing from a few examples from my past.

The first story is about College Girl #1 ( For those of you who are new to my blog, there were three girls who I had strong romantic feelings for in the years before I met my wife. All three of these girls ultimately rejected me, but I think I learned some valuable lessons from each experience. I met two of these girls in High School, and one in college, so rather than use their real names I just refer to them as High School Girl #1, High School Girl #2, and College Girl #1 ). I met CG#1 during the first semester of my Freshman year of college ( mid-October, 1988 ). My friend Jerry had become friendly with her ( we were all Freshmen Engineering students ), and one day he invited me to come with him for a hangout/study session at CG#1's place. CG#1's dorm room ( A room she shared with two other Engineering girls ) happened to be on the top floor of one of the oldest and most beautiful buildings on campus ( Baker Tower ). CG#1 had told Jerry how nice the building and the dorm was, and Jerry was curious to see it.
So anyway, Jerry, my friend George, and I headed off to Baker Tower on a Friday night to meet CG#1 and her roommates. That night would have a pretty big impact on the next 22 months of my life.

It was that night, when I really discovered the power of IT.

It's really hard to explain this IT that she had, but IT affected me like nothing else ever had before. Let me start out by saying that she was a pretty girl ( certainly would have rated a 1 on my binary scale ) , but she really didn't have a look that I would generally be strongly physically attracted to. In other words, if I had seen her at a party ( and not met her at all ), my jaw wouldn't have dropped, and my eyes probably would have quickly wandered to some other girl.
So, I don't think there was any kind of "Love at first sight" dynamic going on that night, but after hanging out at her place for 4 hours, there was an incredibly strong "Love at first meet" dynamic.

It's really hard to describe what happened, but I'll never forget how intense the feelings were and how quickly they hit me. There was just something about her. There was something about her that made me feel all happy inside. I don't know exactly what it was, but it kind of made me feel like sighing all night. I guess, if I had to pick one word to describe her, I'd pick "ebullient". She was really like a ray of sunshine. She was the type of person who could somehow light up a room when she walked into, and make you feel better about yourself. I don't know exactly what it was, but by the end of that night I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do other than be in her presence.

So yeah, I fell for her. Fell really really hard. Fell for her so hard that it ultimately was emotionally crippling. She rejected me in March of 1989, and even though there was no hope for a relationship with CG#1, and I was a young man on a campus full of girls, I found that I wasn't able to think about any other girls until August of 1990.

I guess the main point I'm trying to make here is that none of this makes any sense. It made no sense that I would fall for her so hard and so quickly ( I mean - how well can you know a person after 4 hours? How could I have let those 4 hours impact the next 22 months of my life? ). However, IT usually doesn't make sense. You can't quantify IT, you can't put your finger on IT, but IT is definitely real. At least from my experience, IT is a more powerful force than all the physical attraction in the world. I'm sure I've thought thousands of different girls were pretty, but less than a handful of girls really had that IT factor.

I think IT is required to really fall for somebody, and you never really know why you feel IT. Sometimes you don't feel IT at all, when objective analysis suggest that you should. I know this, because I can think of one example of my life where I didn't feel IT at all, even though there was no objective reason why I shouldn't have.

I'll call this girl High School Friend ( HSF ). She was one of the folks in the letter writing society I was part of ( details in Old School Blog video ) in high school. We didn't really hang out much, but we were close in the sense that we knew each other's secrets ( via the Old School Blog ), and we became even closer when she headed off to college ( she was 6th months older than me, and 1 year ahead of me in school ) and we started to exchange long letters and engage in long phone calls.

Sometimes the way you feel about somebody is shaped by context, and I'd be lying if I didn't say context played a role in the way I felt about HSF. When I met HSF I already knew ...
a) She had a boyfriend.
b) My best friend ( who was not her boyfriend ) had fallen for her.

So, in that context, it was very unlikely that I was going to fall for HSF, and indeed I didn't.

However, while I'm 100% sure that I would have never tried to court HSF under those circumstances, I know from experience that circumstance have never stopped me from falling for a girl. If HSF had that IT that CG#1 had, I would have certainly fallen for her, even under those circumstances. I wouldn't have taken any action under those circumstances, but I would have fallen for her. However, HSF never had that IT which makes me fall for a girl. Even years later when the circumstances changed ( she was single and my best friend was in a happy relationship ( which eventually led to marriage ) ), I never felt any romantic feelings for her.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with that. A guy certainly isn't going to have romantic feelings for every female friend he has, but when I compare CG#1 to HSF, it really underscores what an elusive and mysterious thing IT can be.

HSF was certainly pretty - certainly would have rated a 1 on my binary scale of physical attraction. She also was ( well actually is - we got back in contact recently ) a great person. During the years when we would exchange frequent phone calls and letters, I was probably as emotionally close to her as I've been to any woman in my life. I told her about all my courtship sob-stories, and she certainly cried to me over the phone more than once. I certainly got emotionally closer to HSF over the years than I had gotten to CG#1 in the first 4 hours I spent with her, but I felt zero romantic feelings for HSF, while I became fixated with CG#1 for 22 months. I certainly loved ( and still do love ) HSF, but it was the kind of love you would feel for a big sister ( I've always though of her as the big sister I never had ). She simply didn't have that IT ( Oh, and for what it is worth, I'm 100% sure that HSF's feeling for me were exactly like my feelings for her. In other words, I think she thought of me as a little brother she loved. So, we always had a very comfortable relationship in that way. ).

So, I guess my point is that you really can't pick who gives you those IT feeling, and you can't make somebody else feel IT. It's either there or it's not, and you really shouldn't try to fight the power of IT.

If I had understood that sooner, I think I would have handled rejected much better ( and I certainly wouldn't have had such a fear of rejection ).

3) I think that hurdle number 3 is something that you usually encounter when you've reached the dating stage of a relationship. Often when two people date, it's because the first 2 hurdles of romantic love have been cleared by both people. If the third hurdle is cleared, then marriage might be in the cards. If the third hurdle isn't cleared, then a break-up is almost inevitable.

OK, this is where I might be really talking out of my ass. I've never broken up with anybody ( I married my first girlfriend ), so I'm probably not the person who should be talking about break-ups. However, I do think I've learned a lot about human nature over the years, so just bear with me, and hear what I have to say. If I really am talking out of my ass, feel free to call bullshit on me.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons why people break up that have nothing to do with these "Three Hurdles of Romantic Love" that I've just made up. Everything I've written so far is based on the assumption that everybody who enters into a relationship is looking for romantic love. Obviously, that isn't the case. There are plenty of people that aren't looking for long-lasting romantic love in a relationship. A lot of people are afraid of commitment. A lot of people just want to "have fun" and "play the field". Quite often when two people enter into a relationship, one or both people never really intended for the relationship to last a long time. Obviously in those situations, it's not surprise when those two people eventually break up.

It's also true that people sometime break up for practical reasons. Perhaps one person moves far away, or the the families of the two people don't get along ( or parents don't approve of the relationship ), or there are religious or cultural issues that doom the long-term prospects for the relationship. That's all true, but for the sake of my little "Three Hurdle" theory, let's assume that we are talking about a relationship where both people are looking for romantic love, and there are no external hurdles ( distance/family/religion/etc. ) that would keep the relationship from being a success.

With that in mind, what exactly is hurdle 3? Well hurdle 3 is what tells you whether or not the feelings you felt when you passed hurdle 2 are real or an illusion. As you get to know somebody better, your first impressions are either confirmed or proved to be false. You begin to find out what a person really believes. You begin to find out what a person really values. You find out how the person treats his/her friends and family, and perhaps more importantly you find out how he/she treats people he/she doesn't really like. You see the person at his/her best and his/her worst, and you see if you are really compatible with that person.

Anyway, what I said above is pretty standard stuff. It's probably a good idea to make sure hurdle 3 is cleared before you get married or decide to have a very long term-relationship, but sadly, I don't think things always work that way. After you've cleared hurdle 1 and hurdle 2 in your mind, you're pretty much in love with the other person - and being in love, you very much want to believe that hurdle 3 can be cleared, even if there is evidence to the contrary. It's almost impossible to be objective when you are in love, so sometimes you just have to be lucky to avoid getting hurt. My wife's sister wasn't so lucky with her boyfriend from college. She was with the guy for 10 years, and we always assumed they were going to get married someday. They lived together in Boston for many years ( They met at MIT ) , and we figured they would get married when she finished medical school and he got his PHD ( In some kind of Marine Biology field ). Well, she became and an MD, he got his PHD, and he was offered job as a professor at a university in Hawaii ( This was about 4 and a half years ago ). It was at this point that we assumed that they would get engaged, and when it didn't happen, my wife's sister told her boyfriend that she'd like to get engaged before making the commitment of moving out to Hawaii with him. Well, to the surprise of everyone ( I always assumed he would be my brother-in-law someday ), he kinda freaked out and started to ignore her ( even thought they were living in the same place ). So, that was pretty much the end of a 10-year relationship.
Now, my sister-in-law eventually did get a happy ending. She eventually found and married a better guy, who is nicest and coolest brother-in-law a guy could have. So, that's all good, but my point is that sometimes it takes a very long time to see somebody's true colors when you are in love with them.

---- End of tangent ----

Good gravy, that was quite a long tangent! I'm not even sure what my point was anymore. I've written a lot of rambling blogs, but this might be my rambling-est.

I guess I should get back to the whole Person_A/Person_B scenario. I guess my main point is that there are a lots of reasons why Person A might not fall in love with Person B, and most of these reasons ( especially the hurdle 1 and hurdle 2 reasons ) don't really say anything bad about Person B.

I guess this blog post is kinda a follow up to the serious parts in my "The Stalker". In that video, I spoke about how you shouldn't let the opinion of one person ruin your self-esteem. I was mostly talking about looks ( the hurdle 1 factor ) in that video, but now I realize that I should have spoken about the hurdle 2 factor ( the IT factor ) some more.

I realized this when I remembered something High School Girl #2 ( HSG#2 ) told me when she rejected me. This little thing I remembered is what led to this huge rambling blog post. When she rejected me, she told me that she thought I was a nice guy, and that she thought I was good-looking. I distinctly remember not believing her at the time. I figured she was just saying that to be nice. I figured that she thought I was ugly and/or a complete loser, and that belief adversely affected my self-esteem for years. I couldn't imagine why a girl wouldn't want to go out with me if she thought I was good-looking and a nice guy. However, now I realize ( almost 22 years too late ) that she might have actually been telling the truth. Sure, I have no way of knowing what she was really thinking. She certainly could have thought I was an ugly loser, but for my own mental well-being, I should have just taken what she said at face value. It's quite possible that she could have meant all those nice things she said about me, but I just didn't have that IT that would make her fall for a guy. Yes, it's quite possible, and if that was the case, I shouldn't have really felt that bad. I couldn't really blame he for not seeing IT in me, and I couldn't have blamed myself for not having IT.

Yeah, so I guess that's my really long-winded point. If I had understood the power if IT back in my high school days, perhaps I would have been better off. I don't know if I actually would have dated anyone, but at least I would have felt a lot better about myself.

God, what a long-winded self-indulgent post! Sorry about the folks. I promise the next post will be more fun and interesting ( I have a story from my Texas days! ).

Anyway, it's getting quite late, so I should go to bed. Thanks for reading.

Rich