Cyrano -- this is sort of sideways from the OP, but... your comment rang a bell with me, because I've been like that my entire life. Attracted to rattlesnakes.
In my case (just sharing my experience, not saying it translates to your life), I had this incredible awakening. When I started getting romantically involved with the man I'm dating now (long-distance, friends for 30 years), I was utterly confused. Because my mind could not get the pieces to fit together: Here was a person I trusted utterly, that I would trust not only with my life, but with my children's life -- who didn't need me to save him from anything, who was nothing like any guy I had ever dated, who felt utterly comfortable and like coming home... to a home I never knew I had... but I couldn't wait to tear his clothes off. To me, that combination of finding someone utterly attractive and feeling utterly safe with him was an oxymoron. I couldn't get those two things to work together in my mind.
And then I realized: Hey -- this is how normal people feel when they fall in love: Love isn't the drama, the balancing-on-the-edge-of-disaster excitement that I've been mistaken for love all these years.... I couldn't distinguish between the adrenaline rush of danger and infatuation; I couldn't distinguish between pity and love.
Take what you can use, if anything... and as always, leave the rest...