We like … in different ways

Ordinary morning of an ordinary family. 7:15. The teenager, having closed himself in the bathroom, carefully smoothes his bangs to hide a pimple on his forehead. In the bedroom, the father, standing in front of the open closet, can’t decide which of the two suits to wear. He has to conclude an important deal, and in order to impress a partner, you need to look solid and reliable. His wife has just run off to the fitness center: it is important for her to stay slim. The high school daughter, meanwhile, is trying out a new perfume in hopes of attracting the attention of a handsome guy they sometimes run into in the hallways of the school.

Without knowing it, all members of this family want one thing – to please. And this is quite natural for “social animals”, which we can all be considered. We must communicate, negotiate, convince, and simply live under other people’s views. To succeed in this, you need charm, sex appeal, the ability to captivate, be charming … Having understood the different facets of charm, we may be able to show our attractive sides more often.

Sexual attraction

Survive and procreate – this desire is still stored in our genes. “In evolutionary terms, it is important for a person not only to survive on his own, but also to please a representative of the opposite sex, to successfully choose a partner and be able to raise offspring,” says anthropologist Marina Butovskaya in the book “Secrets of Sex. Man and woman in the mirror of evolution. “That is why men unconsciously look for signs in a woman that speak of her reproductive potential, and women look for evidence of a man’s ability to provide resources and protection for a future family.”

Attraction arises unconsciously, instinctively. In a matter of seconds, the brain assesses the attractiveness of another person: there are many indicators by which we instantly evaluate his health, sexual maturity and social status. Harmonious appearance, sexuality, body proportions, face shape, eye shape, size of the nose and lips – all this matters to us.

Often we are attracted to a person in addition to our consciousness: this is how the “molecules of love” – pheromones affect us. These special protein compounds enter into chemical reactions that we are not aware of. It is pheromones that make us more seductive.

Smell plays a leading role in the sexual charm of both men and women. People with an ordinary appearance can be exceptionally popular due to the smell. This was the writer HG Wells: surrounding men could not understand the secret of his phenomenal success with women. Once one of them, unable to stand it, asked a lady in love with Wells what she found in him. She, blissfully closing her eyes, answered: “He smells of honey.”

No less attractive can be a voice. Do you melt when you hear his unique, low and warm timbre on the phone? “The voice indicates the potential fertility of a man,” explains social psychologist Nicolas Gueguin, “because testosterone levels affect the state of the vocal cords.” From the point of view of evolution, the voice has always been one of the important parameters for choosing a partner – after all, at night it was impossible to evaluate other qualities. But even today, in the age of electricity, the voice still tells us about the sexual (un)attractiveness of another person.

The spirit of the holiday

So who are we? Are they just mammals that respond to sexual cues? Of course not! We are attracted to the one who makes the world, our life more beautiful.

“A charming person is a conductor of sensual energy, he gives people pleasure, activates the pulse of desire,” says culturologist Olga Vainshtein. – Many of us at some point in our lives forget what acute sensual pleasure is. But when we meet a charming person, the mechanism of infection immediately turns on. We reach out to him, because he knows how to turn on the rusty desire machine.

The story of the French dandy Comte d’Orsay is known – everyone loved him. When he greeted someone, he said: “Oh, my friend!” Everyone aspired to it, because they wanted to hear these words addressed to them. It was said of one admirer of the Count that he fell in love with d’Orsay at the moment when he saw how the Count was appetizingly eating a steak. Other people noted the count that winter, when he rode around Paris on a sleigh in the form of a dragon: he did it so beautifully that everyone began to take an interest in him and wanted to get to know him.

We are fascinated by those who have the ability to decorate life, create a special, festive atmosphere. A man is charming if each of his compliments is worth a bouquet of flowers, if he infects with his enthusiasm and is ready to share interesting ideas. A charming woman opens doors to other universes. Seeing her posture, the landing of her head, hearing sincere laughter, we seem to be looking at a new page in life. And we lose our heads.

Gift of Charisma

Translated from Greek, “charisma” means “divine gift.” In ancient Greece, this was the name of those who knew how to attract attention to themselves. In modern science, a charismatic personality is considered to be a person who is able to influence others with great emotional power.

“He does not call for himself, people follow him themselves, unconditionally accepting his values, feelings, worldview, his whole world,” adds Gestalt therapist Maria Andreeva. “Charisma is always the result of a colossal work on oneself,” Olga Weinstein is sure. “Other people see only its result: effortless self-control.”

At its best, charisma gives the word a unique weight, illuminates the speaker with inspiration and illuminates the path to the future for his listeners. Charisma is possessed by great political and spiritual leaders who are able to infect others with their convictions.

“But as soon as you tell a person that he has charisma, before you have time to look back, he will turn into a guru!” warns behavioral psychotherapist Isabelle Nazar-Aga. Actors are also endowed with it, and even a university teacher who, with his lectures, awakens in us the desire to defend a dissertation in his department or to read Joyce in the original. It turns out that charisma is either there or it is not? By and large, this is true, but charismatic traits can be developed in oneself.

Dual charm

Charm is not always clear. Often we are attracted to a person by his duality – the unconscious mechanisms of attraction are based on this. “Charm and especially charisma suggest that a person has some unusualness, which can be both good, positive and negative – defects have a great attractive force,” says Nifont Dolgopolov.

A person, for example, endowed with sexual attractiveness, can easily turn into a seducer, and then ease becomes a deliberate tactic, and an innate and pleasing talent to please – a tool of seduction, cold calculation, which ultimately separates the seducer from other people. The seducer seeks to take possession of another person, as if prey – in this case, from seduction at hand to kidnapping – as in Greek myths, when the gods simply took mere mortals to their halls.

“Knowing our charm, we can attract people to us, charm them, having a sincere interest in them, conveying our benevolence and love to them,” says Nifont Dolgopolov. “An unpleasant shade of manipulation appears when a person shows himself to be different from what he really is, wants to get what he wants by deception.”

Fortunately, there is a real, disinterested charm that equally pleases both the one who charms and the one who succumbs to the spell. Philosopher and psychoanalyst Yuliya Kristeva tells a fascinating story about charm based on self-knowledge and deep acceptance of one’s essence: “To seduce means to bewitch others, to force them to move away from their usual way of feeling, loving, thinking; bend them to your charms. Some work this magic naively, with the simple charm of life, not caring about knowing themselves.

There is another charm that subjugates us to its will – beauty that knows its secrets. This kind of self-knowledge—without reasoning, without rationalization—is a weighty force. Let us recall the charm of women who are endowed with an “inner life” and live in harmony with it: this life is visible in the way they talk, dance, dress, swim in the sea, feed their children. It is the highest art to bring into everyday, most ordinary gestures that note that is unique to us and which, ripening in our joys or sorrows, marks the impression that we make on others with the seal of truth and beauty.

This capacity to please can grow and blossom in each of us, giving us the power to touch—and perhaps win—hearts even in the most mundane moments of life. For example, when we stand in indecision in front of a mirror or open a bottle of perfume.