Effect of Awakening on who you are Attracted to

[Accelerator]

Hmph. Sounds a lot like an exalt.

[Aleph]

I think that if mages weren't limited by the diverse facets of Paradox, they would start looking a lot like exalts

[HorizonParty2021]

I can imagine a special realm where Mages from opposed factions meet to have sex.

[Accelerator]

I can imagine a special realm where Mages from opposed factions meet to have sex.

Truly.

Behold my magical realm!

[Bluecho]

That strikes me as more of a Mage: the Awakening thing, where everyone has an always-active mage sight that overlays a magical reality over their regular senses. In Mage: the Ascension, you don't get any sort of special insight unless you ask for it.

While somewhat true, the enhanced senses from Spheres aren't limited wholly to Effects.

In the Mage: Sorcerer's Crusade - I believe it was in one of the Order of Reason books - it talked about how simply having elementary dots in Spheres enhances what information a character can get from Alertness and Awareness rolls. Indeed, it made a mnemonic about it: "Alertness, Awareness, or Arete?". A fact highly important for Order of Reason characters, who may not even be aware they're doing anything special. But this is presumably true for all Awakened characters.

So if a Mage with Life 1+ looks at a person, even if they have no active Effect running that would give them a supernatural cross-section of the subject's body down to a cellular level, may still gather facts about the state of the subject's health that an unAwakened person of equal Alertness/Awareness never could. Simply because their understanding of that aspect of Reality lets them process information better (Alertness), or else get flashes of insight (Awareness). They aren't receiving any more data than a normal person, but can make use of it better because of those Sphere dots.

[Bluecho]

To get back on topic, I think the Awakening has the potential to both help and hurt one's ability to find other people attractive.

On the one hand, enhanced perceptions allow a person to see qualities in someone that would otherwise be missed. Life to see a person's health, vitality, and good genes. Mind to read emotional state, to find those who are more receptive to romantic advances. Spirit or Mind to read auras, or pick out auspicious Resonance. Entropy to see how significant a person is to one's destiny.

On the other hand, enhanced perceptions can pick out reasons why a person might be unsuitable, or put a damper on their attractiveness. Life to notice hidden physical ailments, genetic defects, or the presence of certain toxins (like from tobacco, or more stomach-churning chemicals). Entropy to pick up on dishonesty or the threads of poor fate. Mind to spot mental or emotional complications, or that reveal levels to which the subject's actions are calculated or artificial. The latter, while not an indictment of the subject, can be distracting to the Mage, who may be too aware of how genuine the subject's words or actions are. Much of modern dating is built around polite acting, levels of obfuscation that a Mage pierces through quite readily, whether they'd like to or not. A fact which can remove much of the enchantment of romance, and cause the Mage to become more cynical.

[Gryffon15]

Something I also think could be relevant to consider regarding this topic is the reciprocal nature that the Awakened share with Reality, as in, getting out what they put in.

Even if you don’t use the Resonance rules, I think that one should also consider paradigm when thinking about this. While the progression of an Awakened’s Arete/Genius will determine how potent their impact is, anyone Awake will have an impact on their local Reality.

So you have to begin considering Paradigm, Resonance, and Essence then I think. For instance:

A Progenitor workaholic might have virtually zero interest in sex or romance, understanding that attraction is just a chemical reaction to incentivize reproduction and the survival of the species. Understanding that they have no obligation to heed the flukes of hormonal biology and that humanity is overpopulated as it is, the Progenitor avoids romance and as their Genius develops, romance avoids them. The potential partners they meet becoming increasingly infrequent and focused on short-term pleasure gained and so the Progenitor remains involved in socializing only to indulge the occasional desire for animal joy. Overall though, they aren’t interested in what’s outside their studies.

An Ecstatic celebrates love, romance, and sex not only as sources of pleasure but as avenues to broaden ones perspective. In a lover’s embrace the Ecstatic enters into a communion of two bodies as one and through such acts the Ecstatic expands their perceptions outside the limits of their own body and to the communion of all life. They put out waves of compassion and so those needing to be understood find their way to the Ecstatic through Reality’s slight manipulation as their Arete grows. More and more the Ecstatic develops their view of love as a timeless weaving of all life and Reality gives them more opportunities to expand that perspective and draw Sleepers and Sleepwalkers into that network of mutual understanding and euphoric compassion.

These Awakened are both getting out what they put in, no more and no less, be both are using it to further develop their understanding of the Reality that they shape around them as they heighten their Arete or Genius.

[HorizonParty2021]

A Progenitor workaholic might have virtually zero interest in sex or romance, understanding that attraction is just a chemical reaction to incentivize reproduction and the survival of the species. Understanding that they have no obligation to heed the flukes of hormonal biology and that humanity is overpopulated as it is, the Progenitor avoids romance and as their Genius develops, romance avoids them. The potential partners they meet becoming increasingly infrequent and focused on short-term pleasure gained and so the Progenitor remains involved in socializing only to indulge the occasional desire for animal joy. Overall though, they aren’t interested in what’s outside their studies.

An Ecstatic celebrates love, romance, and sex not only as sources of pleasure but as avenues to broaden ones perspective. In a lover’s embrace the Ecstatic enters into a communion of two bodies as one and through such acts the Ecstatic expands their perceptions outside the limits of their own body and to the communion of all life. They put out waves of compassion and so those needing to be understood find their way to the Ecstatic through Reality’s slight manipulation as their Arete grows. More and more the Ecstatic develops their view of love as a timeless weaving of all life and Reality gives them more opportunities to expand that perspective and draw Sleepers and Sleepwalkers into that network of mutual understanding and euphoric compassion.

I wonder if the Verbena's view would be the best possible synthesis of these perspectives. While the Progenitor has declined to participate in a reproductive function that doesn't serve them personally, the Verbena see sex as necessary for the purpose of perpetuating Magickal bloodlines. Both understand that it serves a function, but have made a different enlightened choice, valid to their paradigm. And the Verbena share a lot in common with Ecstatics. Sometimes they share a bed.

[Aleph]

Verbena see sex as more than necessary. They see it as part of the natural cycles of life, that they revere. Double so for those that actively worship fertility gods. Odd would be the Verbena that doesn't think it's good.

Progenitors probably have different views about it. For some it migth be a primitive way to reproduce and get pleasure. For others could be an efficient, tried & true, way to do these things (as doctors could say: it's healty for relationships!).

[Koronus]

I think the point of "biologically hardwired" functions might not be automatically changed by Awakening. You might be able to change that on purpose, but I don't think it will change by itself.
As far as I remember, Research says that we select our partners in the first way by cues that on the one side indicate desirable attributes and by gene matching (which partly works over pheromones). Someone might look good, but if the genes of the two persons wouldn't match, they can't smell each other. Good looks are another indicator for good genes. And that's what the biological aspect of finding a partner is about. Clean skin, good hair, etc. all speak for health and good genes. That's important when choosing a partner for reproduction. And then there's the (more female) point where the ability to take care of the wife and children comes into play, reflected by physical ability, wealth, status. When looking for a long time partner, females would prefer the second type and then take a look for good genes for their children. Ideally the chosen partner has them, too. But you could go and get them elsewhere, the caretaking father might never know. All these are biological aspects the influence decision-making subconsciously. And then conscious thinking starts being of importance, too.
I hope this was helpful.

You are right as long as the mage has neither any rote in life or mind. And even Ghosts change drastically the thoughts of people.

I think with Mages one thing to be considered it's that they tend to have very high Willpower. 5 it's the minimum, and that's already way above the norm.

Actually no not really. In the W20 Core rulebook (S 261 in German version) there is a list saying how many people have which willpower.
I just copy them right now
1 10%
2 20%
3 18%
4 15%
5 13%
6 10%
7 7%
8 5%
9 1,5%
10 0,5%

So while it is not part of the most common 50% it is still more likely to meet someone with Willpower 5 then with 6 or 1 which are both together as much as most common willpower people have.

Anyway about the topic, I have read often, while sexappeal (especially from vampires) can even work on mages, most of them will because of the seeing of their world rather be together with those that share their point of and for those mind mages without scrupel they can instead just brainwash the person they want while life mages instead will look for the person with the best fitting personality because something small like the look of a person could easily get changed and your love would love you even more if you would be able to give her the body she always dreamed off.

[Dataweaver]

I'm not sure how much I'd trust the statistics from W20; the average Willpower of a regular human, according to those numbers, is 3.965, or 4. That seems awfully high to me, and doesn't match the description of Willpower 2 being typical. (For those of you familiar with statistics terminology, 2 is the Mode of that distribution, but not the Mean.)

But even if we take that distribution as being accurate for regular folks, mages aren't regular folks; conceptually, they're fundamentally willful people: it's generally taken as a given that the essence of Magick is Enlightened Will; and if you lack the Will, your Magick is hindered. (M20 even has a rule for this: your Arete cannot exceed your Willpower.)

In an attempt to compare apples to apples, look at the starting Willpower of a mage vs. the starting Willpower presented in Gods and Monsters. Mages start with Willpower 5; Companions start with Willpower 3.

This further supports the notion that the Awakened have more Willpower than Sleepers. So I'd say that Aleph's point stands.