Theory of Attractionem

'Attractionem' is the Latin term for the common modern day english word 'attraction'. Attraction is typically defined as two individuals (can be objects, people or animals) drawing nearer each other. The definition to accurately explain this theory, is the drawing closer of two people (either one sided or two).

The attraction between two (or more) people is a reoccurring segment of life. This interpersonal attraction can be done due to many reasons. One of these reasons is the one that will be discussed below. Human beings see that the magnetism between each other to be the fault of 'love' or some other humanoid emotion. However, this may not always be true.

The 'Theory of Attractionem' argues that the reason to why one may find another individual to be appealing, is due to their covetous nature. To elaborate, an agent may not find another individual to be desirable no matter how long they have been in contact for; however, the second that they are told that this individual is in fact alluring (from the voice of another), they immediately take this thought into consideration. The considering process of this new concept causes the agent to find this individual suddenly attractive, due to the simple reason of covet and wanting to maintain one's position and status in another's life.

For example:

Ryan was friends with Lucy for a number of years, and he never had any sense of desirability to be in a relationship with Lucy, other than that of pure friendship. Ryan's friend Paul meets Lucy for the first time, and states to Ryan that he finds Lucy 'pretty'. This unlocks a thought in Ryan's mind, and he slowly devours the new idea that Lucy is 'pretty'. Ryan's new idea then leads to him believing that he 'likes' Lucy. 

If noticed, Lucy only became noticeable to Ryan as a 'pretty' figure, after the thought from Paul struck him. This 'realisation' that Ryan has is due to the fact that he covet Lucy in the sense that he does not want Paul to 'take her away' from him. Which in turn allows it to be arguable that Ryan only 'likes' Lucy because he believes that his position with her is being threatened by the newly introduced Paul; and Ryan reacts to do this by modifying his feelings towards Lucy, to be that similar to Paul's and then magnifying it. 

This theory is simply a slight modification of that of Pheme's Theory, with a more precise recognition of emotions, than general ideas. 

Pheme's Theory

Introduction

In general, everyone in the world has heard at least one rumour throughout their life time about them. Pheme’s Theory is a hypothesis based upon the way humans treat and translate information that they are told. This type of information that is translated is commonly known as rumours.

Rumours

Rumours are the type of information told by one person to another that spreads quickly throughout the population of people who are interrelated to the person that the gossip is about.

Most (nearly all) rumours  are news that have some sort of factual knowledge within them. The beginning of all rumours are true, making the only reason that rumours are considered as false knowledge is because they are overly exaggerated in comparison to the absolute veracity.

For example: “James is the size of a mountain.” The truth is that James is not the size of a mountain; however, he may just be a slightly chubby boy. Even though the rumour does not seem true at all, the fact that James is a slightly chubby boy is the truth that has been over exaggerated.

Pheme

Pheme (also known as Ossa) is the Greek goddess of further communication, or messenger of Zeus. She is depicted with feathered wings and a trumpet. This goddess is said to enjoy prying and listening into the affairs of mortals and the gods. Her ability after learning of new information is to gossip on with a  slight whisper into another’s ears, and then this whisper slowly becomes louder and louder. This characteristic of hers causes Pheme to transform from the goddess of gossip into the goddess of rumours. The Roman equivalent of Pheme is Fama.

The Proposition

The proposition of Pheme’s Theory is about how a character accepts a rumour that they have recently heard, and how they translate it. There are many ways to how a new rumour is processed by the individual whom this gossip is about.

Firstly, the individual may become angry or upset because of the rumour due to their perspective of the hearsay. Some of these gossips that are continually brought up before the agent increases the initial emotions that the said individual obtained against the topic.
After a certain amount of time (different depending on each person, but definitely the period of time is considered as ‘long’ for the agent) the character becomes exhausted and simply accepts the teasing or complimenting that this rumour has upon them.
Furthermore, the tittle-tattle that has been spreading around the agent, after being accepted, becomes an idea that unconsciously enters the individual’s mind. At this point, human beings who allows the gossip to enter their minds, dwells on it. The individual thinks to themselves if the rumour is true or not. This doubt that arises in the mind of the agent has the potential to sprout into a thought that may be dubbed as the truth.

However, the second that the individual begins to dwell on whether the rumour is true or not, they themselves become confused on the credibility of this information. The confusion causes the agent to not be able to differentiate the difference between fact and false.

For Example: “James likes Gabby!” Given that James is the agent, his friends continuously spreads this rumour about him and his female friend Gabby. At first he rejects this idea because he believes that they are just friends. However, after a period of time, the teasing becomes so intense that James dies down into an exhausted mode, and simply accepts the fact that he can’t talk over his friends. Later, James thinks to himself about Gabby. He slowly develops feelings for her according to that of the rumour; but, James is unaware of the properties of the gossip (if its true or not). James then acts upon what he feels (which is the rumour, as humans are unable to control their own feelings), complicating his relationship status with Gabby (if they were close friends), or simply just follows the Nightmare.

Conclusion

Gossip is an age old weapon used by many people throughout their life time. A rumour has the ability to affect a person no matter how strong their guard is. Tittle-tattles have the potential ability to destroy an individual without a problem, given that it goes on for a long enough time to influence the agent into believing that the rumour may be true, placing them in a state of confusion. Therefore, even though rumours may seem harmless, their attacking ability is inevitably powerful.