I SWEAR this is the last time I am going to visit this topic!!!! But I am still processing and it is going to be a slow day today anyway. I look at relationships and attraction differently than society tells me to. I think one of their main purposes is to teach us the lessons we need to know. When we meet people who are compelling, often times the Universe is trying to send us a message. If it doesn't work out, we can lament the prince who got away, or wonder what it was we were really meant to learn!
There is just one more thing I want to cover (I promise) and that is why some people who are bipolar can be so attractive. Thinking about it, I really didn't even know this person I mentioned in my previous two entries all that well. But he had a certain charm and charisma that was hard to get out of my system. In my brief internet research, I came across this reaction quite often. Many people seem to have their hearts stolen away in a short time, only to be crushed in the end. So my question is why can some people labeled as "bipolar" be so initially compelling? I have a few theories:
Compliments! I have read that sometimes people who are bipolar will do things ordinary people would not dare to. This can be physical feats, such as what is done by daredevils. But it can also involve emotional risks. I know this person was free to compliment. Not just any compliment, he told me a few things I most wanted to hear. I don't think it was manipulation, I think he was just in tune with my essence. So many of us are afraid to compliment, afraid to reach out to the core of a person! There are strokes, and there are strokes which stoke our deepest passions. This guy knew how to hit the G-spot in my psyche!
Creativity - Most people who are bipolar also have tremendous creativity. What I think is that they remind us how much of our own creativity lies dormant. We all desperately need to create to keep our souls from stifling. But how often do we get the opportunity? We just sit back and let someone else entertain us. It used to be so different! People knew the art of telling stories instead of vegging in front of the couch watching commercial ridden mind rot. Long before Ipods people made their own music. And people would get up and dance themselves vs letting the stars do it for them. Going from active to passive is mind numbing! I know just listening to live music vs recorded music is the difference between fresh food full of vital nutrients and the over processed kind deadened with preservatives. Not only does it taste differently, it affects the life force differently. So when we meet someone who is still very much alive with the creative energies, how can we help but be seduced?
The Edge. Going back to DaBaer's samurai analogy, some bipolars can live on the edge. They take risks. Another thing we have forgotten to do. For most of human history, life was at least a little if not very dangerous. People were never guaranteed tomorrow. Actually, we still are not guaranteed tomorrow, but we are given the illusion of safety. If only we wear our seat belts and keep our cholesterol down we will live forever. We use health practices such as eating the right foods as a talisman so we can convince ourselves we will never die. And if we don't want to be good little boys and girls, the Nanny State will find a way to force us into compliance. We have become too effete for our own good. What we need is a reminder that each one of us is always on the edge of life and death, no matter how we pretend otherwise. And what is so wrong with living on the edge? What if we all lived each day like it WAS our last. Would we be more moral? More joyful? Have fewer regrets? The edge is a damned exciting place to dance for those of us who want to feel truly alive!!!!!
So those are my theories as to why people who are bipolar can be so damned attractive. But for me, there was a personal reason as well. For years when I was younger, I had a fantasy of how my life SHOULD turn out. Granted, I no longer want this fantasy, it was socially imposed and I internalized it without thinking. But I still remember it. I wanted to live in Orland Park, IL the suburban paradise my uncle used to live in. I probably picked it because my uncle and aunt were the closest example of normal that I had. During my preteen years I would read the Family Circles and Women's Day cast offs of relatives and plan every detail of my life. What my house would look like, what my kids would look like, what the garden in front of the dog cottage would look like. I would read the monthly recipe planners and pretend to cook dinner for my imaginary family. Of course I had an idea of what my perfect husband looked like and WTF, it was this guy that I recently met. Of course, he looks much different now (still sexy, just different!!!). But when I saw a picture of him when he was younger I almost fell of my chair. That was HIM, the fantasy husband who would step out of the white Chrysler cordova with its rich corinthian leather, make his way down the driveway with its pink Martha Washington geraniums and eat my artichoke and asparagus tip chicken casserole. I mean, he fit the details down to a t. Being a natural blonde until I was almost 20 (no really) I wanted someone dark as the perfect compliment. He was, and still is, slender and elegant. Back then I needed someone thin as a validation I could be loved by someone who was one of the "in" folk. (I have long since broadened my horizons to appreciate all body types, including ample men who I find sexy!) Even the receding hair line fit my imaginary profile. Sometimes what attracts us in relationships is what we need ourselves. I had a deep seated need to love a physical "flaw" because I myself needed my physical "flaws" and vulnerability loved. And he was then, and still is now, very very handsome!
The joke is back then or now, I highly doubt this guy would have had the slightest interest in mowing lawns or chicken casseroles. I, myself, find it too much trouble to poke air holes in the plastic of microwave ready dinners, let alone plan menus from Family Circle. I did the marriage and house in the burbs thing over a decade ago and get hives just thinking about it. I needed out and have no regrets about cutting and running. But how funny that, at least physically, my ideal man existed. And just why in the heck did I have a brief intersection with him five minutes before menopause??? Is life just messing with me?
I don't think so. He himself, when he was talking me into meeting him, said this was part of a larger assignment for me. I think he was right. My soul was going into inertia. I was becoming the living dead. Oh I was going through the motions, but my passions were dying! I am no longer sure where my passions will lead me, but I do know what I found most attractive in him also exists in myself to some degree. It exists is all of us to some degree. Today is Easter, a time for renewal. What an opportune lesson at the most perfect time. If I look at this as so much more than just a little fling that ended way too soon, I can find a message from the Universe. It hasn't given up on me all that time I was hibernating. Indeed it loves me VERY MUCH and is patiently waiting for me to join IT on the dance floor!