What Melts My Heart vs Turns Me On

I've been paying closer attention these days to what I find attractive, and spending more time thinking about why it's attractive to me.

So, as I interact with friends, family and strangers, and as I watch television and watch the choreographed social interactions on a long-running TV series, I pay attention to how I feel and what I'm thinking about a lot more than I used to.

I watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager the other night that surprised me and gave me a lot to think about - it was in Season 6 and was an episode surrounding the highly logical Vulcan security officer by the name of Tuvok. At the beginning of the episode, Tuvok was hit with a weapon fire that damaged his brain, and severely altered his emotional personality away from the logical and towards the emotional.

Throughout the episode, Tuvok was "growing up" over again. Acting very child-like and embracing his emotional states with fervor we never see from his Vulcan character. He smiled and laughed and moved around in a way that was playful and relaxed - quite opposite of his normal Vulcan demeanor.

Of course, since he was demonstrating and embracing emotions, good emotions weren't the only ones he expressed. He got frustrated, he had little temper tantrums, a few victim pukes, and had some emotionally difficult encounters with those who were used to him being much more logical.

What I found fascinating about the episode was how I had always loved Tuvok's character and derived great joy out of his highly-logical way of looking at the world, but now that he was moving around more freely, smiling, showing his artistic side, and things like that... my heart completely melted to him.

When my heart melted, I realized there was no sexual polarity/attraction in the feeling, but just having my heart melted was like having my barriers lowered, and I felt closer to Tuvok in that moment (yes, yes I know, TV show, bear with me).

I immediately pulled back emotionally, however, realizing that the "artistic, sensitive and vulnerable" persona he was putting on was really NOT something I wanted to let my barriers lower about - at least when it comes to grown men. THIS is a habit I will be de-programming myself of.

Perhaps I do have a wee bit of maternal instinct in me, because a small child who is vulnerable, sensitive and artistic seems perfectly natural for me to lower my barriers to, and perhaps my example in that child's life could help them discern healthier relationships in the future. I certainly remember those kinds of adult coaches when I was a kid :)