Captivating

I looked up the definition of captivate, which is, to hold the attention of someone by being extremely interesting, exciting, pleasant or attractive, I assume by being any one of the above, for if you possessed all of the aforementioned attributes at the same time it would surely demand a word all of it’s own.

It appears then, that one can be captivating by being extremely interesting, but how do we define interesting, I would find a chap discussing the finer points of maintenance on his vintage Bentley to be extremely interesting, one might even say captivating, however this would be enough to put my wife almost instantaneously into a coma like state. There are many women who find nothing more captivating than a shopping trip but to a large percentage of the male population the thought of a trip round the shops causes most of them to loose the will to live.

We all have different ways of looking at things, as indeed with the next option for being captivating, that of being exciting. Some folk may revel in the excitement of thrashing round a motor racing track at death defying speed or shooting down a bob sleigh run so fast the vibrations cause one to have permanent optical nerve damage. Conversely both these options, whilst being captivating to some may cause others who experience them to flee the scene in floods of tears to rush and change their undergarments.

When viewing the definition one would not have thought initially that one could be captivating by being pleasant unless as part of a Jane Austen novel, but remember many a heaving breast and finely turned ankle has wooed vast numbers of leading men when presented pleasantly. Indeed to quote Jane Austen, “a single woman of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.”

Finally we have come to the aspect which is probably most peoples idea of being captivating, that of being attractive or beautiful in a physical sense. Beauty is indeed a thing that is in the eye of the beholder, for it wasn’t that long ago in Renaissance art for example where the fuller figure was definitely de rigueur, moving through history getting slimmer in the 1960’s and later to the 1990’s heroin chic look and back again to the Kim Kardashian more curvy figure again today. With every age there is a look which young people aspire to as the look to be captivating, although personally I have to admit that eyebrows painted on so heavily they look like Groucho Marx’s moustache is one I don’t find greatly captivating.

Well, that’s the end of my blog for today and I’m hoping you found it sufficiently captivating to enjoy and read to the end.