How do you handle inappropriate attractions?

[Macrina]

Okay, so let's say you quite involuntarily feel an attraction toward someone who is, for whatever reason, not an appropriate person to receive your affections. Have you ever had that happen? How did you handle it? How do you think you would handle it if you had feelings of attraction for someone who was off-limits?

 

[mina]

I don't know. Do you mean like an inappropriate age difference? I think there are several guys at my church that have an unhealthy attraction to me and it really disturbs me. I try to stay away from them.

 

[Arclight610]

Yep. Supress and destroy the attraction mentally. It's not healthy otherwise.

-TJ-

 

[LonelyTraveler]

It happens to me all the time. I just see it for what it is and move on.

 

[sherri]

Okay, so let's say you quite involuntarily feel an attraction toward someone who is, for whatever reason, not an appropriate person to receive your affections.
How did you handle it? How do you think you would handle it if you had feelings of attraction for someone who was off-limits?

I remember having a 'crush' on a teacher at school once and also a youngish friend of my dads. I find those kind of crushs work themselves out though. The teacher turned out to be married (and hey, he was the teacher) and my dads friend had a defacto.

lol. So neither of them had much chance of sticking.

I tend to find that you can only maintain a crush when there's stuff underneath to maintain it. As soon as you find things out about the person that signals a dead end, it'll wither away automatically.

The only time I can think of when it hasn't has been when it's purely physical attraction, or the stuff is only 'kind of' dead end. Like he's had a wild past but repented, but you're not sure how much, and things like that. And he's really, really hunky.

In otherwords you have to go back to wisdom and lock up your emotions till you can work it through and make good decisions.

But if it's purely physical attraction and the guy is hunting you. RUN away. Far, far away.

I've had to do that when I found a guy attractive but knew he wasn't right for me. That and prayer.

 

[Niels]

If they're truly off limits, that's enough to turn me off. Given time, I will start to resent them. Nothing extreme, but just enough for me to lose interest. Because I'm not a glutton for punishment (self-inflicted or otherwise), my attention inevitably turns elsewhere.

 

[Sketcher]

Lust for "unavailable" women, I've had plenty of that. I treat that like I treat lust for "available" women since it's all lust anyway. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong.

I don't recall having a big crush on someone who is "unavailable," at least not in recent memory. The last time something like that happened, a girl I liked decided to date someone else, and we were all in Bible study leadership together. Lots of prayer helped extinguish that really fast.

 

[Renewme]

i am really frustrated. I just wrote you a long response and it erased. I'll try to rewrite later.

 

[Matt.9:22]

Yep. Supress and destroy the attraction mentally. It's not healthy otherwise.

-TJ-

That's probably the answer I could give. For example, I had a crush on my boss for the first year and I half that I worked at my job. Acting on it would have been insanely stupid. So I suppressed it and now I don't feel it anymore. Oh and I realized that the reason was that he looked like my ex-boyfriend. Go figure...

 

[radhead]

I try to pinpoint what specific quality attracts me to the person, and consider finding an appropriate person with the same quality.

 

[mwb]

Sometimes you have to work through it by letting it take it's natural course. It's not easy to just turn off the feelings but over time you realize it's not worth the trouble.

The few times it's happened with me, I try to remember how I felt about the person so when someone who is more appropriate comes along, I'll know how I'm supposed to feel.

 

[asianangel]

Just ignore them I suppose...

 

[silentpoet]

For me it is inappropriate if all I am interested in is sex. I just don't pursue that. I have to see more than just a nice bodypart or two to go after a woman.

 

[bigRedhead]

I was kind of on the reciving end (the "crushee"), w/o me having totaly knowlegde of it, I had an idea but was not sure. I saw the signs, but would brush them off being that this lady was almost old enough to be my mom. Then I was talking to her daughter, a freind from our youth group about that I was seeking a relationship with someone. Her mom broke down and told me about her "feelings" for me.....Man I was weirded out, and still am about it.

I had never done anything (that I know of) to show any "feelings" whatsoever towards this woman, other than what I show everyone.

The other thing is that she was going through her 2cnd divorce when she told me about this too. So I took it as a rebound thing. It still weird tho'

(Hope I did not get this thread off track with this)

 

[OhhJim]

None of my inappropriate crushes have ever returned the favor, so it hasn't been an issue. I'm not the type to obsess over them, so I just go about my business, and maybe sometimes fantasize about them a little bit now and then, if I don't forget them completely.