A Surreal Experience

[Vampyremage]

First, I'm not sure if what I experienced is sexual attraction or not. It didn't really feel like sexual attraction but it didn't really feel like anything else I've ever experienced either. So, I figured I put it in here and maybe the greys among us can provide me with some perspective and opinions.

As a bit of background, I experience aesthetic attraction in droves. I love looking at people of all sorts. I am, I suppose, a people watcher by nature. There are certainly physical traits that I admire more than other traits and for people that have many of my preferred traits, I like nothing more than to simply have the opportunity to observe them or, at the most, maybe talk to them if they seem interesting. For me, however, aesthetic attraction doesn't really come with a drive or a pull towards an individual I find aesthetically attractive, its about looking and sometimes imagining but that's about it.

Then there's romantic attraction which is something I experience far less frequently. For me, romantic attraction is something that happens rarely and only after I've started to get to know a person. I cannot recall a single instance in which I have felt romantic attraction before talking to a person for at least a good few hours one on one. I don't consider myself demi because I don't necessarily need to know a person well or be close to that person, but I do need to have an underlying idea of who that person is.

Then there's what happened today. I was on the train going home from work and there was this woman sitting across from me. The only word I can use to describe her is beautiful. Not in the typically she's so hot and sexy sort of way, but in a way that seemed so much more organic than that. She was small and thin, wonderfully androgynous with a short blond mohawk stretched ears and a few piercings and her expression was sort of sad. But I suppose none of that really matters.

Instantly upon seeing her I just wanted to speak to her, get to know her, hold her and stroke her hair. Like I said, there was nothing sexual about it, but she was just so beautiful and I felt drawn to her. I wish I had had the courage to at least say something and it looked to me like she was kind of watching me out of the corner of her eye just as I was watching her out of the corner of mine.

I feel kind of confused right now. Of course nothing will come of this, she's just a stranger on the train. But I've never felt so viscerally drawn towards someone before like I was to her. I find myself hoping that I might see her again on the train in the future and actually have the courage to say something this time around. I also find myself feeling kind of creepy and stalkerish even though I don't think I've done anything that would really come across as either of those things. Its just so...foreign to anything I've experienced before.

I'm interested in feedback or similar experiences anyone might have to offer.

[Guest]

I believe it was sensual attraction. You didn't really want to do anything sexual to her, so it doesn't sound like proper sexual attraction. I can't say I've experienced this with strangers as I generally dislike being touched outside of a relationship, but I got that all the time whenever I saw my then-boyfriend. I had a constant urge to touch him and be close to him even if I didn't want to do anything sexual to him.

[Chopped liver]

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[Guest Invisible Pumpkin]

Things like that have happened to me. I feel it's more like a romantic attraction as I would like to meet them to develop a romantic friendship, like hugging, talking and things like that, not necessarily even kissing or beyond.

[Member33070]

I would agree that it probably wasn't sexual...in my experience, sexual attraction is unmistakably sexual. Involving sexual thoughts, fantasies, desire, arousal, fluttery feelings in relevant parts...stuff like that (but not all of them, necessarily).

Doesn't sound like any of that happened.

But...I'm not sure what it was.

And, honestly, that's sort of how sexual attraction starts out for me. I don't identify as demisexual, because I don't need a relationship or an emotional connection, but it seems like there's this process:

Aesthetic attraction

then

this feeling you describe - a draw, "pulling you in"

then

sexual/romantic attraction develop nearly simultaneously

*shrug* Could go further if you were to see her again. It could develop into more as your mind has time to think it over. I'm not so sure that sexual attraction is always instant, upon first sight, even with sexuals. *shrug again*

[Vampyremage]

Thank you very much for the feedback everyone. I think I would agree that it was likely sensual attraction more than anything else. Its not an entirely unknown feeling for me, but in the past its been pretty much exclusively reserved for my partner or whoever I wanted to be my partner at the time. To happen to a complete stranger is a bizarre feeling, to say the least.

As for whether or not it could ever lead to something more than that, I suppose I'll never know. As a random stranger on the skytrain in a city in which the greater area has around 2.5 million people, chances of ever seeing her again are fairly low. Then again, I'm pretty distinctive myself and there's always the possibility, small though it probably is, of her spotting me again. Just last night I met someone who said he had seen me around in 3 different places who I had never spoken to before :P

[elisa5?]

I've totally had that happen on the train too lol. For me, I believe, it was a romantic attraction, but nevertheless it was quite strong and I was quite taken wanting to know what she was writing in her journal and sort of making up a story for who could she be and where she was going in my head. Yeah, I like to speculate about what people are doing in life and philosophical stuff, I wouldn't say that's sexual attraction. Anyway, at the time I was pretty surprised because I was just coming to terms with my asexuality and my "crushes" on girls. I've actually experienced this on several occasions even when I was a young teen, but on this occasion it just struck me that I was different and it was really the beginning of my actually coming to terms.