Leading a horse to a mirage

I call bullshit. I call bullshit on every single person who’s ever said that they met their future significant other and knew momentarily they were meant to be with them. In other words, I call bullshit on ever single man and woman who have ever gotten married on a TV wedding show or been featured in the New York Times engagement section.

I am a hard core romantic in so many ways, but that is not one of them. I don’t think you can look at someone and know you want to spend the rest of your days on earth looking at them. No one is that attractive. I think you have to let it marinate. Get to know them. Find the intricacies of their personality. Allow yourself time to fall for them.

But some people think that you should just know. Be attracted to them right off the bat. If not for the long haul, at least to spend the next few months with a companion until someone more suited for you comes along. This theory doesn’t allow wiggle room for the idea of a mounting attraction.

Is it an impossibility to think that if you spend more and more time with someone, you may come to realize just how attractive they are in every sense of the word? And if you didn’t feel it right off the bat, is it wrong to keep exploring just to see if it does develop? Is that, in a sense, leading them on?

I’m not sure. I’ve never been on that end of the situation. I usually convince myself there’s something a play with any guy who likes to talk to me, only to find that the attraction was either one-sided or a complete fabrication.

But I do know that the few guys I have dated (or, more often than not, made out with once) weren’t guys that inspired me to jump their bones the moment I met them. It took time. The more we talked, the more we exhibited a fun repartee, the more I wanted to be with them. The more I wanted to kiss them. The more I developed some sort of feelings.

And if I hadn’t developed those feelings, I don’t think I could have been rightfully accused of leading the guy on. Because sometimes, in order to lead yourself to water, you have to lead a horse to a mirage.