Would you be susceptible to a cult run by these two?
An exercise in writing down my long-running collection of thoughts on super-charismats: hyper-attractive, people-magnet, cult-leader, Midas-touch? … what does it mean?
I was friends in my mid-late teens with a super-charismatic; probably the closest experience I’ve had with someone like Alex or Miles.
these people are so interesting and attractive to such a huge proportion of society, they might be conventionally good looking, but often not.
They often have huge success cos everyone wants to be in their orbit, i.e. wants to know what they are doing, so they don’t really need to market themselves hard. It’s a Midas touch, of course.
Everyone says yes, but what they are saying yes to is their own idea of you (as always)…. if it ends up that you believe it - that your success is because you’re something special and therefore “great”, you might end up some sort of misunderstood baby-adult who gets everything they could ask for, and never realizes it’s not enough because there’s always another distraction.
Or, you might be lucky enough to have found someone in your life who likes you but is immune to your super-charisma… makes you realise that getting everything you want is never enough.
If they are ridiculously, conventionally handsome, aka Brad Pitt, Rita Hayworth, Steve McQueen, Ryan Gosling, Zendaya, etc… is that its own kind of attraction? It’s literally just a very pleasant (serotonin?) sensation to look at them.
my personal experience with a s-c (super-charismat) - I still think about him a lot. It’s weird, I’ll admit that freely! He is very very handsome, so maybe he’s more just nice to look at. But also, I don’t know if he was conventionally extremely handsome… maybe not. By what convention? Not sure… I was too young to know.
my friend moved to my little town when we were teens (redacted - I couldn’t handle the “oversharing and it’s bitter aftertaste”) ….We were not very close, but we would chat, and I wished we were closer friends… probably a bit too desperately. I think if not for that, we might have been better friends!. I couldn’t decide if I had a crush or just wanted to be his best friend. Then he moved away (redacted). We’ve seen each other once or twice since then. He’s now a famous (redacted)…
Oops… I got distracted down memory lane…
Anyway… the point is, these people exist in our lives. Paul McCartney and John Lennon. I think maybe Jane Austen might have been one. Byron, Jesus, Stephen Colbert. Somehow, seems to me, Alex Turner ended up with maybe the highest S-C quotient I’ve ever witnessed. And it is baffling. And it seems to have always scared him, and probably rightly so. He needs a personal security guard FFS. Like, how bananas would that actually be?! And how isolating, with people around but for what? A job or a piece of you. I would find that very lonely, with none of the benefits of being alone. We are all familiar with the trope- On the pedestal.
On top of or under the weight of the expectations. No time to yourself if you don’t carve it out ferociously (with incredible diplomacy cos privacy is locking down access to you - the vital currency, the life-giving waters, the serotonin-shots) that others need from you.
I read recently that one reason Paul McCartney ended up steadier in his life than John did… (and this is a v. short sentence that can’t encompass childhood trauma etc etc), is that he had a family away from the spotlight. His reason to be was his family[edit for clarity: and he treasured it].
maybe having that sacred family space where a few people could get to know him for real - good and bad, learn to adjust their rose colored view of him. People could need him for things, and he needed them, and a kind of equality of give and take could be arrived at. Maybe he had someone who was immune to his s-c quality and made him realize what was really worthwhile. And he got lucky as fuck ( growing up in a stable home, and he lived long enough to have this realization that life isn’t about what you get, it’s enjoying the process).
Paul’s very, conventionally, good-looking, so maybe he wasn’t a S-C at all. I mean, John was shot by a fan!
Though, like my friend, is Paul on the extreme good looks scale? Hmmmm…
my “friend” seems to be doing well. Though I now add quotation marks to friend cos we aren’t anymore- the only reason I know anything about his life is news or tv. He has a family, a successful business niche and seems content. his brother has the life that he so desperately wanted and could have had. But he seems content. I hope so.
of course all of this is just over simplifying and assigning made-up names to socially constructed norms and power dynamics and has no real basis in any fact. But damn it has occupied my brain, and I just needed to get it out.
Will I live to regret adding to the bullshit? I suppose I will… for one, if anyone from my circle reads this, I’m outed…so many details… so, why is this a risk I’m willing to take? I don’t know! But it’s driving me mad to keep it in!!
[ p.s. dear reader: I did live to regret it and have since redacted personal info to limit my anxiety… maybe this is personal growth in self care?]
