It’s interesting how people talk about their initial attraction to each other. For the most part it seems as if people rank themselves and the person they’re attracted to on a scale from one to 10, one being “dear god, not even his/her mother could love him/her” and ten being “holy expletive! I’ve seen such a god/goddess of hotness before!”. Once ranks have been given to each person the seeker (the person who is going to pursue the other) asks friends or themselves “Is he/she out of my league?” I’ve always wondered where this whole idea of leagues came from, were we all just baseball players in a game of love?
Well, thanks to Dr. G and social psychology I now know why we have these leagues of beauty, to put it bluntly. According to the matching hypothesis people tend to be attracted to and become romantically attached to people who are their equal in terms of physical beauty (Feingold, 1988). The best way to illustrate this I think is with one of my experiences from high school.
When I was in high school I had a friend/acquaintance (a fraquaintance if you will) who was probably one of the most arrogant, pretentious girls you will ever meet in your life. I have to admit, she was very attractive, but she knew it and tended to use it for her advantage. Well, we all know about homecoming in high school and we all know that that the best way to ask someone to homecoming was a large public display. She and I were in band together and I always felt as if the band kids were the ones who did the embarrassingly, cutesy, public askings the best. About three weeks before homecoming a great guy who plated the tuba (sousaphone, if you were in band and know what I’m talking about) asked my friend to homecoming. He was a very nice, sweet, and intelligent guy but he was not exactly what society would call a perfect 10 if you know what I mean. Well he asked her to homecoming during a timeout for our home team and had arranged with the announcer what to say and do. So out over the intercom plays “Hey Baby” and then he comes down to the woodwind section with flowers and asks her to homecoming. She said yes during the game to avoid publicly humiliating him (thank God!) but afterwards pulled him aside and said that she could not and would not go to homecoming with him. When he asked her why she said “well you see, I’m a nine and you’re a three, people like us just don’t mesh well together, it’s just not going to work.”
As pretentious of a statement as that was, she was right as the time. They couldn’t work together because they were so dramatically different in terms of the physical attractiveness.
On a side note, they both went off to college and their senior years came back to our high school for homecoming and saw each other again. He had changed a lot to say the least (I would say from a three to an eight or nine) and he asked her out on a date and she said yes. They’re now married and she’s pregnant with their first child.
Feingold, A. (1988). Matching for attractiveness in romantic partners and same-sex friends: A meta-analysis and theoretical critique. Psychological Bulletin, 104, 226-235.
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2 comments:
That's adorable that they ended up getting married! I think it just shows that your personality can get you a long way. Even though you say his looks improved as well, I think his persistence probably played a big role in it. The guy I have been dating since last spring was like that in a similar way. Although I did nothing as blatant as your friend did, I just casually avoided his every request to take me out on a date for a few months. I just didn't think we "matched up." Once he finally got me to know him, everything changed of course. It's so interesting that physical attractiveness can keep us from what might make us truly happy.
That's an awesome story! I doubt, however, that it's a very common one. There are a lot of 3s who never improve their lot.
This idea of attractiveness keeping us from what might make us happy is really interesting, though, and I think it offers a lot to those of us in today's world. A lot of the time we are only attracted to people who are bad for us, and we need to learn that attraction is sore competition for a true connection, which takes work and an open mind sometimes.
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