The Force Of Attraction

I have been contemplating a great number of things recently. Among them has been the nature of attraction between two people. My scientific mind first conjures up memories of gravitational movement equations. I suppose the word "attraction" triggers that thought. What force draws two people together? What force allows the bond to remain? The amount of lurking variables in these queries are infinite and thus impossible to fully understand. Still, I try to make sense of the chaos. Let us try to tackle these two questions independently and view a few specific sections of the impossible questions.

What force draws two people together? To me, the best place to start looking at this question is at the first moment of attraction. Just like in physics, two objects will remain traveling as-is until acted on by an outside force. For humans, this most often by sight. We see someone and are either attracted or repelled from them. Note that this force is frequently not strong enough to cause any actual usable attraction. We see plenty of people every day we find beautiful, but we take no action. No, I believe that sight may be the first step in generation enough momentum, but it is not strong enough by itself.

The force of attraction must be compounded with other elements. After sight we often notice how the person sounds, acts, and smells. While they may not all be pleasant at first, the force required only has to be enough to propel both bodies towards each other. This is, unfortunately, harder to achieve than it should be. For the sake of simplification, let us call this required force the "Event Horizon" of attraction. This event horizon cannot be defined the same way as a black hole. In our case the "EH" of two people simply means that after the first meeting they want more of each other. Every meeting after that will then have its own EH. Using this definition we see that to be attracted over the long term requires a certain momentum that propels the parties through to the next EH. To me this feels like a linear magnetic accelerator.

The ball is the attraction between the two people and the magnets signify the EH between each meeting. With a magnetic accelerator we see that each ball moves faster when hitting each magnet. Again, this is not the case with romance. In romance the ball(attraction) randomly changes speeds and even reverses course for no reason. We can only hope that, in the end, the force was enough to make a bond.

At some point the event horizon / magnetic accelerator metaphor breaks down. We must then move on into a more stable and less chaotic model. When I think of a working long term relationship I think of two binary orbiting bodies.

The relationship is the velocity vector between the two bodies. As you can see the force between them is not equal. In real life, this makes sense. One person often has a little more pull, or power, in a relationship. The metaphor goes deeper. Just like the video, relationships have their fast and slow times. They ebb and flow. None of this really addresses the posed question. Let's get back to that.

What force allows the relationship bond to remain? In the same way that attraction was additive, so is the bond force. To hold a couple together requires a massive multitude of little things all adding up to enough strength to keep each person orbiting the other. With all the tiny interactions and forces flying about, chaos is rampant. To hold the two bodies together requires a reduction of chaos over time, and thus increasing stability over time. I think that is key. For two people to stay together their orbits must relax to a point where neither of the masses have to work at cycling each other.

Sometimes a much more massive body flies by and rips one or both of the masses apart. Newton, the bastard, loves to point out that sometimes things are outside our own control. Sometimes there is an external force greater than ourselves. No matter how hard we try someone can be ripped from us as easily as scissors through paper.

All we can do is try. Try to find the attraction force. Try to find the bonding force. Try to find that other body to orbit.