Although I fancy myself an intellectual, a man of substance, a person concerned with important issues of character and integrity, one undeniable fact makes me a hypocrite—I am fatally attracted to physical beauty. No matter how hard I try or how much my brain tells me that a man’s character, soul, intelligence, kindness, humanity, etc. are much, much more important that his physical beauty, I am unable to see past the packaging and accord more value to the substance beneath the surface.
I don’t know why this is so, any more than I know why my eyes are hazel or why I prefer chocolate over vanilla, but I fear that my obsession with pulchritude will ultimately cost me dearly. I have been in love three times in my life, and each time I fell in love, the primary attraction was physical, compounded and intensified by the deep admiration I developed for the man’s character, wit, integrity, etc. (but this deep admiration came about only after I had ascertained that the guy’s physical beauty had me entirely enthralled). I know that it would never have occurred in reverse—never would I have become enamored of the guy’s substance first and afterwards come to appreciate his outer beauty. My interest is easily thwarted by a low level of physical beauty.
Not only does this preoccupation lead me to suspect that I am far shallower than I would care to admit, but I also fear that it has cost me in the game of love. Every one of the three beautiful men whom I have loved, whom I have thought the world of, who have made me feel heights of ecstasy and passion heretofore unimaginable—every one of them has broken my heart. Not one of them loved me with the same intensity I felt for him. My refusal to settle for a man whom I consider less than utterly breathtakingly beautiful might very well be the cause of the absence of romantic love in my life. Yet I persist. I want to be the guy who is wise enough to know that true love transcends physical beauty—but I don’t know how to be that guy. For me, physical beauty—and the tactile sensations that accompany my interaction with it—represent bliss. I cling, perhaps stubbornly, to John Keats’ argument:
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
I know a lot of people who feel the way you do, but I'm just not wired that way. It's almost as if physical beauty is invisible to me until I fall in love with someone's mind. There is no body part that is sexier to me than someone's brain.
ReplyDeleteHave you never experienced talking to someone who would not be considered one of the "beautiful people" and suddenly finding yourself attracted to them because of their intelligence, energy, wit, sense of humor, and self-confidence?