attraction

I've been thinking a lot lately about attraction...what brings human beings together? Is it common interests, common values, differences in interests, differences in values, or some mysterious "chemistry"? I'm not just talking romantic relationships here, I mean all relationships--the ways which we connect with each other. Why are we drawn toward some people and not toward others? Why do we create intimacy with some people, but not others? How do we decide? How do we know? Why do we feel comfortable sharing parts of ourselves with certain people in our lives, and refrain from doing that with everyone?

These feel like BIG questions to me right now. I've spent the last 2 weeks connecting and re-connecting with a number of people. There are friends in my life that I don't see very often, but have gotten to see recently and even though we see each other infrequently, I feel completely open with them. There are other people in my life that I'm creating new closeness with, and I'm at different points on the spectrum of openness/vulnerability.

I once said to my ex-husband "I don't love half-assed". My tagline on my myspace page for a long, long time was "Love the ones you love with all you got." And I think these statements for me are really true. I don't hold back, and once my heart is "in", I'm all the way in. I may not be great about staying in touch (ok, I'm lousy at calling people), but my heart is all the way there. I think my openness scares some people; I think my directness offends some people. But I don't know how to be in real, authentic relationship any other way. To be sure, I don't love everyone that I'm in contact with, and I don't have real/authentic relationship with everyone I have contact with either.

I'm in process of making new friends right now, so the idea of attraction is really on my mind. How does this work? Is it conscious when I make the change from 'holding back because we're still scoping each other out' to 'letting all the crazy and shiny out because it is ok to be 100% me'? It seems it is different with different people.

Last summer I met an amazing woman, the girlfriend of a friend I was visiting--and over the course of a few days, I totally opened my heart to her--we walked in the rain and shared things that just don't get shared with casual acquaintances (or at least things I don't share with casual acquaintances). When did that change? How did I know it would be "safe"? Some internal mechanism just went CLICK and the laughter and tears and talk and deepening just happened. And it happened in a really short time-span.

Another friend from high school-the first time I met him I threw my arms around him and kept holding on--and he held me. There was some instant knowledge that I could completely be myself with this person who I had never met before, and that he would be able to meet me fully. I've never been able to really explain it, but I always, always, have felt a strong heart connection with him.

How does this all work? It is still a mystery to me. Maybe we aren't meant to know the how or why, we just feel.