If you take a moment to note your past relationships, more often than not you find that you have been dating one person all along. The faces and names changed and seemingly they were all different. But a careful relook may reveal certain constants of features and attributes that keep attracting you to certain types of people. All or most of your exes have it in some way or another. The question is why did it not work out if they are “your type” and why can’t you help being attracted to them.

 

Irresistible Attraction.

Let’s forget about everyone’s favourite features: amagwegwe, ama-yellow bones, amapantsula, men in suits and thick ladies in winter, etc. And NO! You are not Sapiosexual as much as a man who frequents brothels is a porn star. We’ll focus on personal attractions. Attractions that instantly make you want to fall in love with people who display or possess a certain quality, defect or attribute. The secret lies in the “want to fall in love”. Will discuss it shortly. This “automatic” attraction ranges from obvious attributes such as attraction to someone’s humility or intelligence or even affluence. To the deeply psychologically complex as constantly falling in love with whores and violent men. There is that guy who is always trying to wife that girl who took your street and next whole. That model C schooled lady who always dated amajita wase kasi. Driving her shiny piece of German engineering from the Athol to see ioutie eTembisa. Fede. The contrast between personalities and worlds is the cause of the attraction. And in most cases, it is the very reason why it will not work out.

 

Vicarious Living.

They say opposites attract, and it is probably true. Of course, there are more chances of a couple who work in the same office, same career path and given enough time and boredom they will eventually screw. I mean if you are in China long enough you will find someone to nail. I digress. The reason behind opposites attracting is vicarious living. You know yourself and you hang around like-minded people. You have created a stable and dependable circle of a chosen familia. But it gets bland. Then stability means it becomes predictable and somewhere deep down you wish you lived a certain life. You are content with your life but you are curious as to how it would have been had you chosen a different route. Dropped books and took that singing talent seriously? You would be in a different world right now where you have groupies.

A far cry from the hyper-opinionated woman with ostentatious careers that treat you like a subordinate… that more boardroom less bedroom life. What if you grew up in the hood than the suburbs? You would totally fuck men with rugged looks, pure grated facial features. Looks that say: “you are my bitch” completely flouting your qualifications and senior work position. The fact that you find yourself submitting to a man who probably has no matric but is stimulatingly intelligent gets you moist. These are male qualities Nivea or GQ can’t give to a man. When you date them you are effectively entering their world, you can live that life through them. So here you are being you and having someone who represents another version of you and you get to fuck them, yay! It is sexy, it is amazing because this is about your deepest desires and curiosities about yourself. You are essentially fucking an alternative of you. It’s perfect. For 3 months.

 

Enter The Ego.

There are aspects about your chosen way of life you don’t like. So when you contemplate a relationship you look for the opposite. Think of a guy who has an overly active social life, in most cases, they want a lady who has very little social life, predictable, easily accessible and does not hang out where he hangs out. He feels he can trust this type of woman because she is not like the ratchet ones from the ‘scene’. He figures he can trust her. The lady loves the guy because he has a colourful personality evident in his social life. Her career keeps her desk-bound and usually demands her to take work home. Church got her on lock and highly favoured. Her social life is at best inboxing university friends based overseas. She loves the new vibrant spaces and people she meets through the guy. He is exciting, unpredictable and a breath of new experiences.

The lady has a new exciting guy who opens up her world. Unlike those cardboard dry nerdy colleagues and churchy dudes who always try to nail her with dodgy bible lines. Anyway, the ego is amped, both people are complete and it feels like love. They fulfill each other’s “lacks”… it feels like the one. They can both introduce their partners to their respective circles and they are sure to impress because they are automatically odd, fresh and/or unexpected types. But then 3 months go by and both start forgetting why they wanted each other. Guy starts complaining that the lady is always at home and hardly tries new things, in fact, she should watch more porn. The lady starts complaining that the man is too friendly with everyone and never present for Chick Flick Fridays, in fact, he should enroll for a degree. Egos are bruised, then fock fock.

 

Why? They were perfect moes? They were different and complemented each other’s inadequacies. Ying Yang. Pisces and Virgo. So why did it not work? It is because they wanted to fall in love with a certain type of person. This means falling in love with the idea of the person and not the person. Your expectations are already high when you go into such a relationship. But soon you discover the person is different from the look. They look the part, sound the part but they are not the person you imagined. The person you imagined is the person you keep trying to find in these “representations” of her or him. In some cases, women date their fathers constantly.

Every man they had a solid relationship with, displayed strong attributes similar to their father’s. In more complex cases people look for people they feel would fix something they battle with. In others, a person feels they will save the people from being themselves. “Stop wasting talent”, “stop being a whore” or even clear their own conscience from their previous relationship by “doing things differently this time”. But after a while, everybody goes back to himself or herself. We always do. Your types are exactly that: your types, perfect creations birthed nowhere else but in your mind, they are you. Types are exhilarating experiences and provide much-needed adrenaline rushes. Have the genuine fun with them, enjoy the rides but keep in mind it’s ride. If it works out, then great… if you don’t, make sure you are emotionally prepared let it all fall apart.

 

Your Only Type Is A Person.

You will find that the most relationships that lasted longer and rewarding were with people you did not even think you would be with. Maybe you did not even like them at first. This is most often successful because you did not expect anything from them. You concentrated on yourself and each time you found yourself seeing something about them that made them amazing. And the surprise creates comfort around them, an attraction. The whole relationship started becoming a lesson and unpredictable journey of self-discovery shared. Here you are with a real human being and not an idea. When that kind of relationship works it becomes a life long beautiful story of this strange human who is differently similar to you so much you can’t help but want to see, learn from, teach and share yourself with them every day. Moments turn into years.

 

Writer: Banele Rewo