Attraction is what draws people together. Friendships, romantic relationships, infidelity, marriage, lust, and love: all these things are founded on the deeper need of survival of the species. Yet, many experts still find it difficult to explain why certain people are attracted to others, not to mention whether or not human love is anything more than lust in disguise, another tool to ensure successful mating. Attraction is not only a means of self preservation and eventual perpetuation, it is a complicated flux of emotions and thought processes that governs human behavior, it is what drives humans to make connections and aide one another throughout the twisting road of life.
Although it is not known what precisely triggers attraction, it is established that each person has their own criteria for the quintessential friend and companion. What a person looks for in a friend, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband, a wife is as different and varied as a person's genetic code. It may be hair color, strength, intelligence, height, career, social status, or well-toned calves, whatever the case may be it generally accepted that each person has their own preferences. In many cases people are attracted to those of a nature similar to themselves, yet in others complete opposites in personality and form pair up, so it becomes impossible to predict, with great alacrity, who would be attracted to whom. What a person desires is usually influenced by the atmosphere they are raised in, so desirable traits can vary from place to place.
What is the difference between lust and love? Sexologist John Money draws the line between love and lust: "Love exists above the belt, lust below. Love is lyrical. Lust is lewd." (Hotvedt, Mary E. http://www.psychologytoday.com/) In a way Money is right, what drives lust is the manifestation of sexual attraction and is therefore predominantly physical. It is commonly a short lived infatuation that wears of and either develops into monogamous love or those involved go their separate ways.
