to a dyer disciple

You keep saying that to attract that which we desire, we must become what we desire.

I think you're half-right. In a sense. Mind you, this is just my viewpoint, from my experience, as an (almost) self-actualized young woman (I'm getting there. I think it's the half-life rule: each time, there's only a sliver of myself left to discover, left to love; I will always find something wrong with me, but for now, I revel in it).

How so?

As children, in this society, we learn that if we don't adapt to our surroundings in school, we will not be accepted, and so we chameleon. Those that choose to color themselves as themselves will utimately be worn down, be threatened with the promise of being worn down, be hurt, or, in some happy cases, not care, and go about as wiser beings than 90% of us bipedal husks of skin and skeleton.

As youth, when we start to figure out that some people (supposedly) contain the south pole the north pole of our magnets are so desparately attracted to, we think that we should adapt to said magnet. Like attracts like, it's true; opposites together work well for passionate affairs, but quickly fizzle out--or unravel to reveal that maybe you two are more alike than you once thought. We gravitate towards people who like the same things and do the same things as we do, and gain friends, why shouldn't it be true in romance?

There was a boy who once thought he loved me. He was my brother's age, and I fancied a man nine years my senior, so of course he was too young for me. He thought that by changing himself--changing his hobbies, changing his schedule, skipping classes to be around me in the student lounge, learning how to dance, hanging out with my friends--that I would, perhaps, see him as more than just the puppy-eyed boy who was friends with my brother. He was a sweet kid. He was intelligent. However, he also convinced his friend to help him steal a street sign with my name on it--not just the flat sign, but the heavy, triangular, metal kind--a street sign that happened to be right under a streetlight, on a busy street, and oh, look, there was a thunderstorm on its way. He thought it would make a great gift--an offering, a post-modern version of the old-fashioned ceremony of courting.

It did not. It took many times a "no" before he finally, reluctantly, and, presumably of his own choice, relinquished his grip on the fantasy. That's not what I wanted. That's not what I ever want; to have someone go out of their way to become something else in hopes that their pipe dreams will come out from underneath, and crawl into bed with them.

However, and sometimes lately, I still find myself wondering, "What if I did this...?" in respects to whomever the current object of my attraction. What if I re-learned the violin? What if I moved to Brooklyn? What if I moved to that other city instead?--it's a cheap place to live, and I could start getting more film/commercial stuff on my resume while slowly getting on my truly independent feet. What if I exercised, started running? What if I got a reduction? What if I grew my hair all the way out again? What if I trimmed the sides and got a Teagan-Quinn-hawk? What if I dyed my hair? What if I bleached the shit out of my teeth? What if I spent gobs of money on revamping my wardrobe? What if I got a job in management and representation of artists? What if I was more into sports? What IF, huh?

Fantasies, merging themselves with possibilities. In this culture, it's almost nature.

I think it's true that most of us automatically start aligning ourselves and our desires with the desires and selves of those to whom we are demonstrably attracted.

However,

I have found that yes, when I, and sometimes this happens so suddenly that I have no time to strategize, encounter a person and feel that warm buzz in my bones, am not the full manifestation of myself. Or maybe I am? I realize how much larger a me I am around them, how I suddenly become enigmatic, a personality that they would find alluring, but a personality that actually exists as, well, part of my character--just amplified. Some people bring out sides of me, of which only my closest friends are privvy to the occasional glance.

But, all in all, I am me.

Being here, now, this person, me, all that I've thought and done and gone through to become me--this is a relatively happy me. I say happy in the sense that life always has tribulations, but I do not doubt the most of me, if not the all of me--I do not doubt who I am. And the best part is this: that, like I mentioned before, there are parts of me that I have yet to discover, and those will only be unearthed with experience and, naturally, time.

I'm tired of dancing a dance to which I don't know the steps. If someone doesn't like me for all of my pieces, no matter which happen to be clearer and sharper than the others in any given week, it's their loss.

Maybe that's what you were saying; that we involuntarily bring forward the parts of us that we think will attract those who we desire. But just in case you weren't, old friend, here's just what I think.