Can’t keep my hands off.
Can’t stop thinking about being together.
Closing my eyes, and reliving. . . everything.
Chemistry. That elusive element of sexual attraction – all the moments and threads, the knowing and not knowing, the words, the whispers, the silences.
The piercing gaze you cannot turn away from.
So many sensory experiences.
Inexplicable.
Utterly essential.
Beaker Seeker
I seek that beaker full of undefinable, irrepressible, electric jolts of “something” that set off an unstoppable chain of reactions.
You know it when you feel it, and when you don’t. You know it when you see it, and when it’s missing. We all want it. Money can’t buy it. Alcohol distorts it. Love recasts it.
And there’s nothing quite like it.
You know it when you see it
Last night I watched a romantic comedy with Jennifer Lopez and… someone. But already I’ve forgotten who the leading man was.
I couldn’t get invested. Sure – she looked beautiful. And he was adorable, whoever he was. So why didn’t they work? Why was the movie a bust?
Right. No chemistry.
But there was another a few years back. Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney. Out of Sight.
A standard crime caper. But I watch it every time it passes by on cable.
Mmm. Chemistry.
Sights and smells?
Is it really all pheromones? Could it be that simple?
I just don’t buy it.
But our senses certainly come into play. The sound of a voice. The curve of a hip. The grace in a gesture. The glimpse of muscle beneath a shirt that causes you to… catch your breath.
First, there is usually sight to spark its ripple effects. We know the notorious “men are visual” argument. But women are visual, too. Still, there’s more to it than that, or every pairing of beautiful people would crackle with chemistry. And they don’t.
So what about charisma? Its mix of brains, confidence, and often – humor? For some of us, smart is sexy and everything else flows from that. But what else does it take, exactly?
Sexual maturing?
What about the accumulation of birthdays? Does it help? Does it hurt?
A little age and experience certainly helps you discern what you need, and what you like – whether it has to do with the attributes that attract you, or anything else. When we hit our reproductive prime, perhaps all systems are go to get us to procreation lift-off. And after? As we head into 40, then 50, and past? For some, the yearning for burning yields to a call for companions. For others, the sexual smolder remains paramount.
Recently, I received a message from a site where I’m no longer active. I can’t open messages any longer, but I popped by the other night, curious due to the man’s clever pseudonym. In his picture, he resembled my grandfather.
18 years my senior, I was staring at the face of an old man, which means, I suppose, that in 18 years I’ll be an old woman.
Chemistry?
Nada. And nada chance.
Old is relative, chemistry is absolute?
When I was 16, I considered 25 to be old. When I was 25, I thought 40 was old. At 40, 65 seemed old. Now I deem “old” a mind set. How’s that for a touch of denial? Or perhaps – the best sort of reality?
The more rings around our trunks, the more our definition of aging changes. Not only does it stay well ahead as a moving target, but the span of years to reach it may increase as well.
So while my current age marks me as decrepit to some, and (potential) younger woman to others, it’s simply “where I find myself” as I slog through the day’s tasks. It is ultimately meaningless when it comes to chemistry, though the age issue – older men, younger women – becomes a barrier past a certain point. Certainly, for a woman who cares about passion.
And I continue to pose the question: How is it that even old men have the balls to seek women two decades younger?
Money? Funny? Sunny?
Does the answer to sexual attraction lie in the absence of its formula? It may require money and power for some, wry humor for others, or a cheerful disposition.
I venture to say it nonetheless necessitates the interplanetary pull of fine form, vibrant voice, seductive scent – or a look you can’t turn away from.
Whatever it is, I know it when I see it, and I know it when I feel it. As I grow older, I’m less inclined to dismiss it, and more appreciative when I sense its sizzle in the air.
- Are you a beaker seeker?
- Does sexual attraction develop as you know and trust your partner?
- Is it stronger with a stranger, or early in the relationship?
- Is chemistry absolute, or constantly evolving?
- Do signs of aging affect your sexual confidence?
- If there’s love, do you believe none of this matters?
Click still of George Clooney to access sizzling scene with Jennifer Lopez on Youtube.
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I love chemistry. It isn’t always the most successful way to maintain a relationship – but it is noted when it is missing. It is “There” or it isn’t – and I am not sure that it can be discovered when it isn’t noticed from sometime in the beginning. It is one thing I hope science can’t recreate – though I have a feeling they will try!
“It is noted when it is missing” – yes indeed.
And when chemistry turns to comfort, is that a problem?
I think that chemistry does turn to comfort after a while, but then when you invest…become truly there in the kiss or let your mind wander a bit while you stare across the dinner table…the chemistry comes back–that’s how you know it’s real 🙂
I keep thinking about other chemistries, too. Comfort and companionate settings are also chemically derived: oxytocin being one molecule that bonds people to each other.
As I near this next step: empty nester/mother of high school senior who is college bound; I know that I will be lonely in that proximate-child/proximate mother way. What I won’t miss are the ice cream bowls and Dorito crumbs I find in the AM: Socks, too, and papers about in a creative foment of homework and applications….but, his hair, skin, and presence, bike and drum kit, and the acoustic guitar that I love to hear him play but not look directly at him, then he is self conscious.
His hands are very like three of four brothers, so too the eyes. When he looks down, I see my father-in-law’s face, but only then. That is the only feature he shares with his father. I should not care that this mix yielded this but I think this a small and chemical and genetic mini-miracle that I don’t see that face. His father is cruel in the most withering of ways: how does the chemistry of love and attraction give way to the chemistries of distain, revenge, and sadism.
I could love the boy even if the face was very like his father. Of course. Not hard. Oxytocin jumps across the interface between the reserved bodies of boy-man and mother dancing in the last days at the same address. Oxytocin is a love molecule, surely as norephinefrin and dopamine….aren’t those the attraction chemicals?
Other chemistry: I feel the surge of some hormones as they begin to go quiet into the next nights. Widely wishing to hold a baby and also to be relieved and detached in some sage way. And, how these chemistries, internal, make me unreliable: hot skin, a wish for covers and then not…..in the mirror, I see that I am not as flushed as I feel but then, a look at my face, saying, not bad but my goodness, that is my mother’s skin, partly, and an aunty’s eyes, larger now. And, that fat falls away from hands and feet, but not at the waist! My granny’s shape is emerging; will I keep her slim ankles that she remained proud of into her 90s?
Chemistry makes this happen…..and still, some wild wild molecules remain. Just enough. But, for what? I am not sure.
This is fine; this is life. I can see that I will shed some silly cares and conventions. Huzzah!
But, I do not want the red hat/purple garb ladies to invite me into their special club. Just, not for me.
What a beautiful, thoughtful, honest response. I understand so much of these worries, and this magic.
I think chemistry has to be constantly evolving, along with our wants and needs and our memory and our confidence. I do think that it’s easier to come by early on in a relationship – at first it’s like a drug, after all – but in comfort you can find chemical romance, too. Later on and deeper in, there might be kindness to notice, handiness to be thankful for, tender moments with children. (That said, sometimes I’d love to go back to those early days and weeks. Lord. We need a vacation.)
Those early days and weeks – yes!