Tyranny of the Ugly Chick

I’ve had this discussion 4 different times with 3 different people and it annoys me every single time. The issue at hand here is over the use of the word “shallow” and how it has come to be highly perjorative and insulting. Some will argue that it’s simply descriptive of a certain set of actions… and that’s true… just like the word ‘nigger’ is only descriptive of a certain set of physical charactaristics (or, if you believe Chris Rock, actions). Which, clearly, is not the case.

Some conventions: I’m not going to worry about gender neutrality. I’m also going to speak in terms of “ugly” and “hot”… because I don’t feel like writing “physically attractive” and “unattractive” a billion times. Please note that I realize that this is a false dichotomy, but I’m extending the definition, for the purposes of this discussion, of ‘ugly’ to include those who may not be ugly, but are not physically attractive… and of ‘hot’ to include those who are not hot but are stilly ‘physically attractive’. Also: ‘attractive’ when used without any modifiers or qualifiers, is being used to refer to the sum-total of attractiveness… that is, how attracted one person is to another when all factors are considered.

‘Shallow’ was a word invented by ugly people to guilt-trip everyone else into liking them more. That’s pretty much the bottom line. When we talk about ’shallow’ we are, essentially, talking about how some people think that looks matter. Those people, apparently, are ’shallow.’ Because looks shouldn’t matter.

More directly stated, one person claims that you are shallow if you pass over a less attractive girl for a more attractive one. I think that’s a little too narrow for the purposes of our discussion. So we’ll just say that you’re ’shallow’ if you believe looks to be an important charactaristic of a future mate.

One thing that has to be assumed in order for the ’shallow’ argument to work is that, by and large, ugly girls have better personalities than hot girls. If you believe that, then the rest of this discussion is not for you. Personally, and I doubt many people would argue, I’m going to say that there’s no meaningful correllation between how hot someone is and how good their personality is.¹

One other assumption that we have to make here is that one cannot help what they’re attracted to. This is not a conscious decision. They can choose who they hit on, who they date, and so on… but, if you think you can choose to be attracted to someone, go ahead and try to be gay (or straight if you are gay)… let me know how that goes for you.

So now that we’ve got those two little bits of things out of the way… let’s move on.

There are a few central concepts here. One of them is that we have a finite amount of resources. I simply cannot do a thorough evaluation of every woman on the planet. There are at least 3 billion of them. If we assume that half of them are married, lesbians, or somehow otherwise totally disqualified… and if we assume that I live to be 80… I have roughly one second to allot to each girl to determine who is the best for me. It’s an extreme example, but illustrates the point. We simply cannot just “give everyone a chance.”

The other thing we have to consider is that I believe people are not only going to try to ‘maximize happiness’ but also that this is the appropriate course of action. People will choose mates that they think will make them the most happy. This, of course, allows people a lot of lattitude in terms of what makes them happy.

Given all of these points, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to pass over girls based solely on looks provided that a) you don’t think they would make you as happy, all other things equal, as another present option and b) That time is scarce as compared to options available. What’s that mean? It’s probably best to talk about some examples.

Let’s look at your average bar. Crawling with people. You’ve got beer to drink, guys to hang out with, and the bar closes in a few hours. In a case like this, you’re just going to have to start at the top of your list and work down. Someone might not make your list for a lot of reasons… they might be all up on some other guy, they might be obnoxious sounding, they might be completely trashed (or maybe that moves them up?), or you might not find them at all attractive. But the bottom line is that there are likely going to be a fairly long list of girls running around that would be ‘acceptable’ — but you’re STILL not going to have time to talk to all of them. So you’ve got to make some decisions. Now if we assume that, all other things being equal, a hotter girl will make you happier, it stands to reason that you will be going after the hottest girls on your list and, as a result, looking over a lot of others.

Different scenario… Law School. There are a lot of girls in my 1L class. There are a lot of really attractive girls in my 1L class. But even the ones who aren’t on the top of that ‘list’ will (pardon the pun) have their day in court. The time here — though still finite — is much greater on a per-girl basis. We’ve got three years of being around these people in all sorts of capacities, so it’s much easier to get a good feel for a lot (maybe all?) of them. So, to differentiate it from one night at the bar, this isn’t a situation where one guy is going to take the two or three top girls on his list and devote all of his energy there. Which is, most probably, why people rarely marry folks they met in a bar, but I digress. In this situation there’s a lot more “getting to know someone” and, because we see each other so often. This will also lend itself to guys dating girls that they’d never have thought about on the first day. This isn’t because those guys aren’t ’shallow’… it’s just the natural progression of things. We’re being forced to get to know these people.

In a less structured environment, an office for example, you don’t really have to get to know anyone… so you might be sitting three cubes away from The One (we’re going to save the discussion of why ‘The One’ is silly for another day) and never know it because you’re not taking the time to meet everyone. That, I think, is where these anti-shallow evangilists are bothered. Everyone knows the bar is a meat-market, and everyone knows that things like law school lead to all sorts of really peculiar human interactions… but in day-to-day life we have great latitude in who we meet and get to know.

…but our time to invest is still finite and the number of options out there is still far greater than we could ever devote an ample amount of time to discovering. So I guess it comes down to this… would you rather make some guesses and really get to know a small number of people and choose from them, or have a very surface-level knowledge of a lot of people and go based on that? If the former, then there will necessarily be choice involved and, excepting outside information, looks are a huge decider because they’re the only thing we know when we first see someone. In short, we are constantly having to choose and, unless we have something else to go on, we’re just going to have to choose the hotter ones.

And I realize that this cuts both ways. I’m going to get ‘passed over’ for some hotter guy, and that’s cool. I’m ok with that. They get props for being so hot, and I’m just going to have to work a little harder than they are. That’s life. Life is not fair, and I’m ok with that too.

I only have a few more questions worth pondering.

First… if you’re not attracted to ugly people… and you get chastized for being so shallow… so you start dating people you’re not attracted to… doesn’t that make you more shallow? Wouldn’t it be less shallow to just say “Well, sorry, I’m not attracted to that person”?

Second… is it really any different for a person to criticize another’s dating choices on the grounds that they’re shallow than it is for my buddy to give me hell because my girlfriend isn’t pretty enough? In both cases you’re criticizing the conscious choice which is, hopefully, the product of an unconscious preference.

Third… and this is largely facetious, but still… girls want guys to not be shallow, but then they also want the guy to think that they’re really pretty. Can you imagine if my hypothetical girlfriend said “Do you think I’m pretty?” and I said “Well, I find you attractive!” I shudder at the “peaceful discussion” that a comment like that would invariably cause.

So… I guess the bottm line here is that ’shallow’ is not only normal, but probably the best course of action. Behaving in a way that isn’t shallow is probably highly illogical and, frankly, I don’t think we should feel obligated to modify our dating practices to appease some amoeboid group of people with low self-esteem who want to outkick their coverage.²

¹ - Some people might claim that ugly girls need better personalities in order to get dates and the market would force them to adopt such personalities, while hot girls would not feel that pressure and, as a result, a certain correllation would develop between ugly girls and better personalities… but given the number of repulsive, bitchy women running around who smoke, I’m going to just assume that this is a pretty weak market force.

² - A football allusion that I heard somewhere which essentially means dating someone too good for you. Like if Jessica Alba and I started dating, I would most certainly be “outkicking my coverage”.