Being Attracted To The 'Wrong' People.

I don't know if this one should go in the Science and Technology or Mental Health sections or here. But I'll put it here. Being attracted to someone who is evil isn't sometimes what you think it is. You're certainly not endorsing anything they did. Or on the subject of finding them beautiful. Sarah McLachlan wrote the song "Building A Mystery" about here stalker. And in it she tells him he is so beautiful. But he's a f'd up man too. Meaning, she thinks he's more sick than evil anyways.

Also, I used to think being attracted to people who do evil and violence was just about being attracted to that power. Or specifically power under control. Shortly after HS I had fantasies about having sex with a policeman who just had to kill someone in the line of duty.

As I said, I put this here instead of in the Science and Technology or Mental Health sections. But any psychologists, psychiatrists or therapists here? Want to weigh in?

 

I would suppose that depends on what "the wrong people" means to an individual. Women are said to love bad boys and good guys tend to finish last with them - but is that being attracted to the wrong person/people? I think that we have rules about who we should be attracted to and why we should be attracted to them which is all well and good... except we can find ourselves attracted to someone who falls outside of those rules and, as I have learned, it's not that you get attracted to someone that matters - it's what, if anything, you do about being attracted to them even if that person isn't someone you'd want to introduce to your friends and family.

Way, way back when I used to be a licensed therapist, I'd often have clients who'd speak to being attracted to the wrong person, someone who was outside of the social rules regarding attraction and how this bothered them since, duh, it was someone they knew they shouldn't be attracted to and getting them to understand that you really don't have any control over who you might wind up being attracted to or, there's nothing you can do about the way you feel - you can only do something about what you might do because of those feelings and this is the part of things that requires the most attention.

Like, if you're married and you really do love your spouse - but you meet someone and you become attracted to them (and they to you) and now you're all out of sorts because, of course, you're married and you're not supposed to be attracted to someone else and I'd say that makes them a "wrong person" and, yeah, you can get in trouble because you're attracted to them and even if you didn't do anything other than a totally harmless and innocent meeting someone. But, again, it's not that you feel attracted to this "wrong person" but it's all about what, if anything, you actually do about being attracted to them and wanting to do something about it can be pretty damned powerful and hard to resist.

Is it a "mental health" thing that can be construed as being unhealthy because one could find themselves attracted to someone who falls outside of the rules for being attracted? I just maintain that being attracted isn't the problem; acting on that attraction could be the unhealthy problem that has to be addressed.