The L-Word

Years of what felt like conditional love growing up — from my parents, from my teachers, from pretty much anyone who wanted me to succeed at something in the 90s — created in me an insatiable desire to please. I know I’m not alone because something drove us all to win at high school and get into Middlebury, but I am doing something even more productive (well, maybe) with my conditional self-esteem than trying to win college. Trying to please people all the time requires a sense of when another person is pleased with you, and trying to please people as if your life depends on it develops that sense into a survival skill.

I could go on and on about fostering general social rapport, but you didn’t flip to this page to learn how to make friends. When you’re making eye contact with the guy across from you in your history seminar, having an ambiguous lunch date or sidling up to a lady at a party in the Suites, your likeability is probably not the first thing you’re worried about. Likeability is important in job interviews, real dates and when meeting the in-laws, but college kids tend to trade more in the currency of attraction. Is this person attracted to me? We want to be liked, sure, but even more we want to be sexy. I worry that’s an ass-backwards (literally) way of going about connecting with people, but hey, I just write this column, I don’t make the rules.
All of my training in the world of “Please like me!” prepared me well for the slightly different challenge of “Please want me … rawr …” Both, I believe, have to do with what other people notice when they interact with you, and how they show their notice. Attraction is an appetite first kindled by the eyes and then fed by sight until another sense — usually touch — is allowed to play, so noticing what someone is noticing about you is especially useful in the first few interactions with a potential partner. Sometimes it’s painfully obvious, especially with alcohol in the mix; unbroken eye-to-playful bits contact couldn’t get much clearer. But really you want someone with a little more nuance than that, right? I think catching someone staring at your collarbones or wrists, for instance, might even be a sign of greater attraction — it seems to me that the person who can resist looking you straight in the crotch would be more likely to savor you and any intimate experience you might share. This is probably a good time for a disclaimer — I don’t actually know any of this stuff, these are just my theories and poor attempts at pop psychology. But like any mediocre pop psychologist, I can present some anecdotal evidence!

I have learned that I have two features that don’t tend to draw attention from anyone other than people interested in me. First of all, I have freckles. If you’re taking the time to comment on my disordered skin pigment, you’re taking the time to notice a lot of things. The second is a piercing inside my ear called a daith. You have to look at me precisely when I am not looking at you to see it, and aside from piercing enthusiasts, my daith usually goes unnoticed. There are obviously exceptions to the rule, like people (parents, friends, mentors) who have a reason to pay attention to my body and its state of wholeness and well-being, but I think everyone can think of something about themselves that other people only occasionally notice.

Eyes are the classic fallback, and certainly if someone is gazing into your eyes and telling you they’re beautiful, they probably don’t find you repulsive. But don’t discount the attraction value of less traditional features. Maybe you have distinguished eyebrows or raised veins along your arms; maybe you give great hugs, or you have a particularly charming gap in your teeth — or at least someone thinks you do. Attraction, in my experience, has rarely been about classical beauty; rather, it has been about someone noticing what makes you stand out, what makes you you. Someone who has taken the time to find out what sets you apart and then drawn your attention to it has spent a lot of time considering you. Take the compliment of their attraction, and then flaunt what you find out you’ve got.