My Outer Beauty Hypothesis

Recently I've been attempting to figure out the correct formula for attracting the type of person you want to attract, and it is expectedly a complicated system to consider. When I say 'attracting someone' I do mean in the typical sense of attracting a person that could potentially be interested in you romantically, as well as mentally and spiritually. 

Now, common knowledge dictates that though we can easily attract someone on a (for lack of a better term) lower rung - on the physical appearance scale - it is most common for one to find a mate at about the same "beauty level" as ourselves. And logic dictates that putting effort in to make yourself more attractive could increase your romantic possibilities, as you are now able to attract a wider range of people. My own opinion dictates that a woman most often must be more attractive than the man she ends up with - and I say this in the most kindhearted way; as a straight woman I can't get enough of those handsome fellas; but I normally find the girl in the relationship to be gorgeous and the guy to be just okay, meaning the REALLY handsome guys end up with the most beautiful women. 

And yes, again, I am straight, through and through. So by my thinking, if I want to attract a guy who is already naturally on a higher rung then me, not only must I get to his level; to be safe, I must exceed him in attractiveness.

Now this all sounds incredibly shallow - but I am being honest. As a frumpy child - literally until college - I know what it's like to be so unattractive that you'd take anything that might come your way. And even then, though many want to say that looks aren't everything, deep down I and everyone else secretly want to be as good-looking as possible - everyone, that is, except the tiny fraction of people who are in fact quite resilient to the societal expectations to which the vast majority of us subscribe. 

A somewhat homely girl (which I truly am) embraces the beauty she has (even more infinitely embracing the beauty that comes from within, but that's obviously not the topic here), but never goes so far as to think entirely backwards, that yellow teeth are beautiful and that excessive lip hair is becoming. We can choose how many social norms we subject ourselves too, but we can't completely reverse the system just for ourselves. If one decidedly enjoys the sweaty smell of one's own armpits, one is not fooling anyone and one might as well give up the act. 

Now all of this is to simply state my understanding of how the system works. So the real question here is, can a person climb in the ranks of appearance without losing any essence of who they are as a person? To consider every possibility, logic tells me that to gain beauty, there's something we must have to give up to compensate. On an episode of Parks and Recreation, Ann Perkins tells Leslie Knope a lame joke, to which Leslie comfortingly replies something along the lines of, "Oh, Ann, beautiful Ann, it's not your fault you're not funny; you never had to compensate for anything." 

This line of thinking makes sense to me, and I believe it affected me, my own inhibitions allowed me to make any joke I pleased. While it seems that with a high status (made possible by attractiveness) should make one more conscious of what they say, this doesn't seem to rule out being funny.

My question is this - does it work in reverse? If I, once having been ugly, become beautiful, do I inherently lose my humor? More than that, do I lose the character traits that have, so far, made me me?

In the movies, we are warned about how we, after climbing the ladder in some way (social, physical, professional) become too big for our britches. But though it is a pattern, is it an automatic result? Can one better themselves in one way and manage not to become worse in another? A prime example is a studious girl, with much of her time devoted, loses her social life as a result. This makes sense, as in both areas, time is the currency being dealt. But being either funny or simply kind to others doesn't take more time than being rude or bland. And while it can be argued that maintaining a healthy physique takes time, this can often be concurrent with social time and therefore even further enables one's capacity for humor and kindness.

So what is lost once I become beautiful? I cannot think of a thing. What I can surmise is often the case is that though people are at one point aware of how they should treat others, in time they often forget to care. It eventually no longer becomes "worth their effort" to be nice. And the crutch of being "the funny guy" can still work, but is no longer necessary to aid their social status and thus the effort stops there too.

It's a funny thing, analyzing it all in this way. I'm sure I've overlooked many counterexamples, but to my knowledge I cannot imagine a sufficient excuse for those that gain beauty and lose compassion. Consequently, I can also not see why I should hold myself back from becoming as beautiful on the outside as I feel on the outside. If the danger is not being aware, I readily admit, or claim, that I do see the trend and I am responsible for the change in my own behavior, and that I have no intention of allowing my looks to override my good sense, or my intelligence for that matter. One can hope that even if no one acts on what they know to be true of themselves, that at the very least most people are aware of their own true nature.