The Law of Attraction

We are attracted to that which is hard to get, and we think little of that which is easily obtained.

There is a strange fact about human nature: We value and prize that which is difficult to get and we treat lightly or despise that which is obtained with little or no effort on our part.

The rich kid whose parents give him a brand new sports car on his sixteenth birthday is not likely to value it as highly as the fellow who has worked and saved for three years to buy his first set of wheels.

The Law of Attraction works in guy-girl relationships. You are attracted to the person who is hard to get and you think little of the person who chases you.

Some time ago in California, a wealthy, lovesick young man named Keith was very attracted to a young girl named Karine. He proposed marriage but she said, “I don’t love you and I’m too young to get married.”

What did Keith do? He holed up in a $200 a day hotel room nearby and spent a lot of time crying. He also spent roughly $20,000 trying to get Karine to change her mind.

To show his affection for her, he provided a Learjet, placed on standby at the airport, “in case she wanted to ride around.” He sent between 3,000 and 5,000 flowers to her house. A limousine equipped with a bar and television was kept parked outside her door. He sent musicians to serenade her. He sent all kinds of fancy food, candy and perfume. He had people walking around her house carrying signs which said, “Keith loves Karine.”

What did Karine say to all this? She said, “NO”—period! She didn’t love him and she was not attracted to a man who was trying to bribe her and making a fool of himself in the process.

The moral of the story is: Don’t chase someone of the opposite sex. When you do, it wipes out your dignity and self-respect, and it lowers your value in the other person’s sight. How does that person react? He or she usually runs as fast as he or she can—in the other direction.

Some girls are so boy-crazy that they will write or call a guy on the phone to tell him that they will be only too glad “to prove their love” for him. No decent guy would be attracted to a girl with so little self-respect.

The Law of Attraction works not only in the initial contacts but in the relationships as well. A girl can never understand why a guy dropped her after she gave in and did what he had been begging her to do.

There are two reasons for this. One reason is that, for many guys, the thrill is in the chase. In the boys’ locker room, one guy will ask another, “Get with a girl lately?”

After the conquest has been made, the guy is ready to move on to the next challenge. He doesn’t care about the emotional wreckage he has left behind him. The poor girl is left to pick up the pieces of her life the best way she can. Fortunately, most guys are not that callous.

A second reason why a guy drops a girl after she gives in to him is because he loses respect for her. The Law of Attraction operates. That which is easily obtainable becomes “cheap” in his sight. He is attracted to another girl who is not so easily obtainable.

Many guy-girl relationships die because they are smothered to death. Usually one person tries to possess the other person, and that does not work. A girl may want her boyfriend to spend all his free time with her. He has to account for all his time and actions. She is upset if he looks at anybody else.

One reason why becoming involved sexually usually breaks up a relationship is that the girl expects too much. She thinks, “I’ve given myself to you completely, and I expect you to give yourself totally to me. I want you to be around when I need you. I want you to meet all my needs.” It’s almost like she thinks it is a marriage relationship instead of a “going together” relationship.

How does this affect the guy? He is no longer pursuing but being pursued. He says to himself, “This is too much! I have got to have some space!”

That is exactly what a good relationship needs, so don’t smother it. He or she may be attracted to someone else, but you have to take that chance. The popular saying is right: If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it is yours. If it does not, it never was yours.

The Law of Self-Image

We are controlled by the way we see ourselves inwardly.

What you think about yourself is very important. It affects not only your happiness but also how you get along with other people.

Those who study and understand human behavior tell us that we are controlled by the way we see ourselves inwardly. To put it another way, you are going to act out the way you see yourself. If you see yourself as not being worth much, you are going to act that way.

We all manage to remember all the “put downs” we have experienced. If somebody said to you, “You never do anything right!” you will always remember that.

When you started school, you became conscious of your appearance. As you grew older, your physical appearance became more and more important to you. You began to look yourself over for every possible “defect.”

And just in case you might have missed something, your classmates were only too happy to point it out to you. If you were shorter than the others, you were “Shorty.” If your ears protruded a little more than others, you were “Ears.” Or maybe you were a girl who was a little oversize and you got the name “Moose.”

The result of all this is that you end up with a bad self-image. You feel that, somehow, you came out on the short end of things.

Here is a strange fact: We are often totally mistaken in the way we see ourselves. A girl may be good looking and have a great personality, but because she was not elected cheerleader, she thinks she is not worth much. A fellow may have a lot going for him, but because he is not a star athlete, he has a poor self-image.

Often young women have a personality disorder called anorexia. Though they are not really overweight, they see themselves as being fat, and they become obsessed with the desire to lose weight. Many reach the point where they develop an aversion to food and simply stop eating, resulting in permanent damage to their bodies.

Sometimes it even results in death. The tragedy is that it is all based on a false idea.

But whether an idea is false or not, if we believe it, we will be controlled by it. Many young people have a low sense of self-worth. If we could listen to the thoughts inside their minds, we might hear something like this:

I am not worth anything. Nobody likes me. Why should they? I am not good looking. I am not smart. I don’t have a lot of money. I am just plain worthless.

Your self image depends on how much respect you have for yourself.

This feeling of worthlessness makes young people desperate for the approval and acceptance of their peers. They will do almost anything to be liked and accepted.

The number one reason why teens get involved in sex is their desire for love and acceptance. The girl with a poor self-image is likely to say yes to any guy who shows her a little attention. She craves for someone to hold her close and tell her that she is worth something. If it takes sex to get that, then she is willing to give it.

She says, “If losing my virginity is the price I have to pay to get my boyfriend to love me, then I will just pay that price.” To her, it seems that this is the best way to get the love and attention she needs to build up her self-image, and make her feel better about herself.

The tragedy is that, sooner or later, the relationship will break up. Now that the girl is rejected, she feels like a piece of trash. What little bit of positive self-image she had is wiped out. On top of that, she has to fight feelings of bitterness.

Your self-image depends on how much respect you have for yourself and how much respect others have for you. You build respect by setting high standards and living up to them. Nobody can make you “cheap,” but you can make yourself cheap. Most large stores have a bargain table. The stuff on that table is cheap because it has been handled by many people. Nobody can put you on the “bargain table,” but you can put yourself there by allowing people to handle your body.

The Law of Self-Image will work for you if you can see yourself as you really are—a person of priceless value. Every human being is priceless.

Think of a group of people on a late afternoon outing in the mountains. Darkness is beginning to fall when someone suddenly realizes that a little five year old girl is missing. The alarm goes out, “Janie is missing!” Immediately everyone begins to search for her. Other people are called in. Search parties are organized. Soon hundreds of people are anxiously combing the mountainsides. The search continues on into the night. No effort or expense is spared because every child is priceless. Think of the joy of the parents when Janie is found!

Because we live in a world that practically worships success, we tend to judge the value of things by size or dollar value. This is a big mistake! Those mountains with their colossal size may contain minerals worth millions of dollars; yet their value cannot be compared to that of the little five year old girl who was lost. Janie weighs less than thirty pounds, yet everyone recognizes that she is worth far more than those mountains.

Every human being is priceless.

Why is this little girl so valuable? Because she is a living person—she can laugh and love and be loved. She is priceless!

All the things that we value so highly—bigness, success, money, glamour, and fame—are nothing compared to the worth of any human being.

When you begin to see your value and the value of other people, it will affect the way you relate to them. Guys, that girl you are going out with is more than just a sex object to give you pleasure and satisfy your sexual desires, and then be thrown away when you are tired of her. She is a priceless human being with all the possibilities that every person has.

And girls, to put it plainly, you are priceless, not just some guy’s sex object.

The Law of Difference

There is a basic difference in the way guys and girls think about love.

Guys and girls are different in many ways, not only in the obvious, outward differences in the way their bodies are made, but in many other ways as well.

One basic difference between a guy and a girl is the way they think about love. A girl thinks of love in terms of romance. She wants a guy to love her, cherish her, talk to her, listen to her, and put her on a pedestal. She wants love, protection and security.

A guy thinks of love differently. He thinks of it more in terms of sex. The focus of his attention is the physical body of the girl. He is not daydreaming about romantic love; it is the sexual aspect of the relationship that has his attention.

There is a reason for this. The time of greatest sexual desire for a guy is in his late teens. His glands are working overtime. This is why he tends to think of love more in terms of sex, but his desire for sex is not an evidence of real love.

Just because a guy wants to have sex with you does not mean he loves you.

Girls, write this down in concrete: Just because a guy wants to have sex with you does not mean that he loves you. We do not want to be too hard on the guys but the fact is that most guys could enjoy sex with anything in a skirt! So do not get all excited just because some guy lets you know that he would like to have sex with you.

The peak of a woman’s sexual desires comes later. In a guy-girl relationship, the girl is not thinking primarily about sex. She is thinking about romantic love.

Many guys and girls cannot figure out what happened to their romance. Everything was fine when they started out, but now they do not see things the same way. There are misunderstandings and arguments. The reason is they are coming from different directions.

It has been said, “A girl plays at sex, for which she is not ready, because what she wants is love. A guy plays at love, for which he is not ready, because what he primarily wants is sex.”

What the girl primarily wants is love. She wants someone to hold her and tell her that she is special. She wants a committed boyfriend who loves her—someone to talk to and to share her life with. Her love drive is mature.

A girl plays at sex—what she wants is love.

Her sex drive, however, is not mature. She is not ready for sex and all the dangers and problems that come with it. She knows that it is the girl who gets burned in these matters. She has a lot more to lose than the guy, and she is not ready for all the heavy stuff that goes with a sexual relationship. But she does not want to lose her boyfriend, so she “plays at sex” to get the love she wants and needs.

The guy, on the other hand, is not ready for love. He is not ready for a lifetime commitment. He is not ready for all the responsibilities that go with being a husband and a father. His love drive is not mature at all.

A guy plays at love...what he primarily wants is sex.

His sex drive, however, is mature. At 16 or 17, he has powerful sexual desires and they do not want to wait. What does this mean? It means he wants a girl. He wants to pet and caress her body. He wants sexual intercourse.

What does the guy do? He “plays at love” in order to get what he primarily wants. He uses words of love and tells the girl what she wants to hear. We do not question his sincerity, but the focus of his attention is on sex. He may sincerely think that he loves the girl, but he does not understand real love. He does not realize how selfish he is in thinking only of his sexual needs.

The test of true love: it is unselfish and committed.

If a girl is not careful, things can get out of hand very quickly. She gives him an inch and he takes a mile! Before long she is wondering if she is out with a sex maniac.

Let us say that Debbie is out with Larry and she likes him a lot. They park in a lonely place and talk. Then he begins to come on real strong. He is telling her how much he loves her and how much he needs her. He is breathing heavily and his hands are starting to roam. She does not need to read a book to figure out what he has on his mind.

If Debbie does not know the facts of life, she may reason like this: “Larry wants to have sex with me. I would not want to have sex with a guy unless I really loved him, so Larry must really love me.”

Hold it, Debbie! Do not get carried away with that reasoning. Sexual desire in itself is NOT an evidence or proof of love. Debbie should guard her affections.

Most guys know that a girl will not give in unless she thinks the guy really loves her. So Larry says, “I love you, Debbie, and one day we will get married. I want to ‘express’ my love for you.”

Is that love? No, it is not. Remember the test of true love—it is unselfish and it is committed. When these two qualities are missing, it is not real love. His strong sexual desire is NOT an evidence of true love. It is just his glands pushing him. If he really loved her, he would want what is best for her, not just a thrill at her expense.

Strong sexual desire is not an evidence of true love.

Girls, when a guy is getting himself all worked up and telling you how much he “loves” you, tell him to back off. Guard your affections. Strong sexual desire is not an evidence of true love.

When a couple becomes sexually involved and later breaks up, it is the girl who suffers. Even if there is no pregnancy, the break-up is much harder on her. One reason for this is he got what he wanted, but she did not get the love she wanted. She feels used.

In fairness to the guys, it should be said that often it is an aggressive girl who is putting the pressure on the guy. Some girls have little or no self-respect and they are relentless in their pursuit of guys. The following letter from a mother appeared in the “Ann Landers” column of a newspaper:

How far is too far?

Research has shown that, even with couples who do not intend to go all the way, they will be sexually involved after approximately 300 hours spent alone with each other, unless definite steps are taken to prevent this. The formula goes like this:

How far is “too far”? An automobile is equipped with safety devices to let you know when you are in danger of ruining the engine. For example, when the engine is running hot, a red light flashes on the dash. This lets you know that something is wrong. You need to stop immediately and find out what it is. Here are some “warning lights” to let you know when you are going too far:

• You are going too far when a guy’s or a girl’s hands start roaming.
• You are going too far when either of you starts removing clothing. Keep all of your clothing on all of the time.
• You are going too far when you are doing something you would not want to be doing around someone you really respect.
• You are going too far when you cannot make an intelligent decision as to what you should or should not do and carry out that decision.

^top

---