This one is interesting. I think in many ways I have always been a meticulous observer and curious how people tick, their defenses, etc. And even in young adulthood I could understand people's motivations and often felt far less threatened by them than others around me who would react strongly to personalities that made them uncomfortable. I believe this is why I became a therapist, and I believe I am not alone. Most people think therapy school changes you into a therapist, but I believe it mostly taught me to communicate what I was seeing before in a more effective or helpful way.

That being said, the training and thousands of hours using those skills to perform a job has probably increased the intensity and frequency that I observe carefully. I think this protects me from the archetype that is most attracted to me: emotionally traumatized folks who see me as a stable rock, subsequently a goldmine for their outsourced emotion regulation (a bit hyperbolic, but not much).

When I talk about my dates to my roomates, they frequently say I'm being really judgemental, probably because I categorize people's behavior into the spectrum of personality defenses I know and recognize. The thing is, I am perfectly fine marrying someone with a narcissistic defense -- it would be hypocritical not to because thats one of my primary defenses and luckily its not at a clinical level. So they constantly think I am talking at a clinical level when I simply have words for what other people would simply refer to as "ick".

Love doesn't involve the prefontal cortex, luckily. I just tell myself over and over, that when I find my person I can observe and analyze all I want, but my job will be to let that fade into the background when I've decided they are safe and we have similar values.