Are we all really so superficial?

I was just browsing through facebook (instead of studying) and I found this note my friend and formerly my tutor wrote. I felt it was very meaningful and have decided to reproduce it here.

Today I had a rather interesting conversation with two of my friends, who were talking about their boyfriends. They mentioned that their boyfriends had told them that they wouldn't consider being friends with a girl unless they were attractive.

I was rather taken aback by this comment. It seems really strange to me that you would base friendship on a physical quality. After all, there are many reasons - pragmatic, personal and spiritual - that you might want to be friends with someone. Friendship doesn't really cost one anything, and there are many good things to enjoy from a friendship even with someone you are not attracted to.

However, as I was flipping through my list of Facebook friends, it occurred to me that I might be guilty of a tiny bit of hypocrisy. There are certainly a lot of hotties on my list, and I think the distribution is definitely skewed towards the positive end of the attractiveness spectrum.

As a guy, I'm definitely programmed to pay more attention to the more attractive members of the opposite sex. (And by God, is it sometimes difficult to look away!) But I like to think I'm more than just the sum of my biological and mental programming.

So for all of you who are less than the embodiment of physical perfection (and I definitely include myself in that category), don't worry as I still want to be your friend, as I'm sure do many other guys.

After all, I think this would be a lonely old profile if girls applied the same standards as some guys!

I reflected upon it briefly and realized that this also affects me and I know I am guilty of selecting my friends. In fact, there was an incident earlier this year with my group of friends and I. I won't spill the details because too many people read this blog, but my group of friends (who read this) should know exactly what I'm referring to. The bottom line is, I think humans are predisposed to choosing attractive people as their friends. I think this only applies to the opposite sex and I think that could be evolutionary. I think it's the residue of our 'animal instincts' as we yearn to get all the 'quality' (in the superficial sense) on our side, in our tribe. However, I think this tendency fades as we get older, when our requirements change. As we get older, we tend to see beyond the superficiality of things. Of course we will definitely retain some of that superficiality, but it will definitely be at a much decreased intensity.

Despite that, I still believe in Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, and thus it is your overall quality that really matters. Looks will definitely come in handy as a tool and will always be a factor, but face it, if that's all you have, you're no better than a manikin. Thankfully there's more to it than that, such as EQ (Empathy Quotient) and stability. Looks fade, stability is somewhat arbitrary, but EQ will generally hold constant. So can I be more conspicuous about the importance of each factors? I think not.

For the rest who don't really care at all, keep dreaming about your rich, latin husband who will sweep you off your feet with his dark skin and exotic accent, or for the others, your va-va-voom model with (some) brains. If you keep it up, you might just end up as some lonely miser for the rest of your life.