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and no, by the title this is not about if people are born gay or not, this is about attraction of traits and features. my roommate and i were talking once and it came across the idea of having a type and the fine line of it becoming a fetish. i think a bit of where we develop what we're attracted to is based on lived experiences and what we associate with certain traits. my type has become all over the place over time, but there are some consistencies, especially long term wise. in the early days of my dating life, i always talked to asian guys (im asian lol) and my first boyfriend was asian and my second one was wasian. which makes sense, a lot of people who are a certain race would date in their race/ethnicity out of safety, comfortability, and familiarity. but i remember my first crushes in elementary school being anything but asian lol, but why/how does this happen? i guess as a kid, we don't really think of logisitics like that. i think a lot of what our "type" becomes or the people we form interest around is formulated through mere exposure effect. the mere exposure effect is a psychology term, where if you see someone or something enough times or see it often, we will have a positive perception of them compared to meeting or seeing something/someone for the first time. for example, we are more likely to form romantic connections with people we are friends with or friend of friends with because we have consistency in exposure leading to positive perception whether that be from being friends or merely seeing this person often. to be frank, a lot of connections/hook-ups/relationships were formed through this effect and if i were to meet them on a whim then i would not be invested or have curiosity about the person. it's interesting how people im friends with or see often can become ideas of desire BUT if i saw them on hinge it would be an x. exposure and personality exploration can really do something to attraction but how and why? a person that can be totally not your type can still enter your field of attraction merely out of friendship and conveience of interaction. how much of attraction is out of conveience? proximity is such a defining factor of who we pursue, like billions of people on this earth but we only really build connections with the people we are surrounded by.