Robert Greene's claim (from The Art of Seduction) that early dysfunctional relationships with parents can be charged with sexual energy — so people are often most attracted to partners who recreate that early charge, not to partners who are simply "good for them." Practically this means the exciting, high-pull partner is more likely to be the one who causes pain, while the stable "good for you" partner can feel comparatively low-charge. Greene's stated application is self-awareness: recognize when an intense attraction traces to unresolved childhood material rather than the partner's actual qualities, since acting on it unexamined sets up repeated pain. Compare Childhood Limiting Beliefs as the "Soil" Beneath Behavior (childhood origins of limiting beliefs generally) and Idealization-Then-Withdrawal as an Attachment Trap (a related attachment-trap dynamic).
Greene adds a specific claim to this pattern: early dysfunctional relationships with parents can themselves be "charged with... sexual energy," which is why people are often drawn to partners who will hurt them (reliving old trauma) more than to safe, caring partners. The risk is a felt asymmetry — the unsafe partner carries a "charge" the safe partner may lack — framed not as a reason to avoid safe partners but as a trap to recognize in oneself.
Ties to a broader need-for-drama theme: people are starved for enchantment in otherwise banal daily life, a need Greene traces to the childhood pleasure of being picked up and whirled around by a parent — being taken somewhere while under someone else's control.
Source: "The Ideal Seducer" (Robert Greene interview compilation), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sf_jfKokGk
Из тем: Relationship Dynamics: Boundaries, Attachment & Emotional Bonds