Can you force yourself to be attracted to someone?

Nope. I've tried to force myself to be attracted to people- anyone- and I've never succeeded.
 
Yes, it's possible. It really depends on the circumstances. Love is not perfect. Arranged marriages are a good example of situations in which someone may grow to develop affection, feelings, or a greater attraction to someone because of prolonged contact or social expectations.

The culture or world we live in says everything is a choice. So, you can make choices to do something even if you didn't initially feel this way.
 
Restraint said:
Yes, it's possible. It really depends on the circumstances. Love is not perfect. Arranged marriages are a good example of situations in which someone may grow to develop affection, feelings, or a greater attraction to someone because of prolonged contact or social expectations.

The culture or world we live in says everything is a choice. So, you can make choices to do something even if you didn't initially feel this way.
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But is that really an attraction, though? To make my question more precise, I am asking do you think it's possible to force yourself to fall in love with someone. (In case some of you were wondering, the original topic on INTj revolved around the fact that the poster could not find a man attractive at all due to his physical awkwardness and his height, but she found that he liked her and wanted to like him for that sole reason of that he liked her.) I believe that you can focus on a few things that you find attractive and be with a person, let's face it you probably won't find a PERFECT match, but I don't think it's possible to force a match between just anyone.

On that arranged marriage thing, I would suspect that the couple grew to love each other, like normal people do, or they have grown to accept the fact that they will be married for the rest of their lives and have obligations that herald from that union.
 
Reon said:
But is that really an attraction, though? To make my question more precise, I am asking do you think it's possible to force yourself to fall in love with someone. (In case some of you were wondering, the original topic on INTj revolved around the fact that the poster could not find a man attractive at all due to his physical awkwardness and his height, but she found that he liked her and wanted to like him for that sole reason of that he liked her.) I believe that you can focus on a few things that you find attractive and be with a person, let's face it you probably won't find a PERFECT match, but I don't think it's possible to force a match between just anyone.

On that arranged marriage thing, I would suspect that the couple grew to love each other, like normal people do, or they have grown to accept the fact that they will be married for the rest of their lives and have obligations that herald from that union.
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Ok, I see where you're going with this. But is it really that different? Deciding to find things to be more attracted to someone is not very far from "forcing" yourself to feel something.

Actually, i'm now a bit curious as to what you mean when you say "forced." Forced, however limiting still suggests choice. Unless someone is pointing a gun to your head, you still have a choice when deciding how to feel about someone. Western culture says, attraction is a natural occurring phenomenon. But is it really?

I don't think the distinction is as black and white as it seems.
 
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Restraint said:
Ok, I see where you're going with this. But is it really that different? Deciding to find things to be more attracted to someone is not very far from "forcing" yourself to feel something.

Actually, i'm now a bit curious as to what you mean when you say "forced." Forced, however limiting still suggest choice. Unless someone is pointing a gun to your head, you still have a choice when deciding how to feel about someone. Western culture says, attraction is a natural occurring phenomenon. But is it really?

I don't think the distinction is as black and white as it seems.
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Hmm, forced in this situation is disobeying a natural subconscious inclination (or the lack of having a subconscious inclination) and choosing that you will be attracted to someone, even by ignoring potential features and emphasizing others. In a way, it really isn't that different, but both emphasizing features and 'forced' love have different connotative meanings.
 
Everyone is different in some way, so I would imagine that there are some people who are able to do this.

Myself though, I can not. I can trick myself into liking someone more then I actaully do, but I can not make myself interested in someone that I am not (I have tried).
 
You can force yourself to tolerate someone and maybe have sex with them if you're desperate enough..

As for forcing attraction, how do you force yourself to be drawn to something?

Attraction is the wrong word to use, I'd say you can fling yourself at someone you're willing to settle for.
 
Julia said:
My attraction is based on the person's kindness and intelligence. I find my physical attraction and interaction is unusually flexible. On the same note, if someone is a jerk they could look like a movie star and have no effect on me in terms of attraction. I could definitely not force attraction to someone mean.
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This is it for me. Physical attraction for me is based on who they are and not any kind of specific physical look. I have been extremely physically attracted to people who would be considered 'ugly' by mainstream society simply because I really like them romantically.

It works in reverse too. You can be a super model and I will be physically repelled based on your personality.
 
No, I can't. Have been with wonderful girls who have had great qualities, with whom i wanted to stay, tried to force attraction, and focus on the good qualities, but couldn't manage to do it. just pushed things past a comfortable leaving place.
 
Attraction
I do believe I can make myself develop a crush for someone. All I have to do is think about her all the time, and other normal non-healthy crush things. Normally however, I do the opposite; I try to prevent myself from developing crushes.

Love
While I may not be able to force myself to fall in love, I can definitely force myself to fall in love faster. I do this the same way as above: I start to do all the things that I would if we were in love. This is how I forced myself to open up to my last girlfriend after she had fallen in love with me.

Whether I truly forced myself to love her, I do not know. She loved me, and I eventually loved her.
 
Reon said:
I was running and playing amongst the INTjs on their forum when I ran upon this comment that one intj suspected that you could force yourself to be attracted to someone when the have one feature that you find particularly unappealing. I was quite taken aback, I never thought anyone had to force themselves to find someone attractive, or that they would want too. It seems fake to me.

What do you think?
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No chance that I can force myself to be attracted to someone if there is a particularly unappealing feature. And if its unappealing it would probably be discomforting, so forcing myself as I once did in the past, would only make me uncomfortable and want to get as far away from this person as I can xD IT never works when you force it!!!
 
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