It has to be a balance within your own limits. If she's extremely beautiful, you better have extreme confidence knowing that she'll be hit on a lot every day. If she's extremely smart, you better be on your game or the mind **** she'll pull on you will be levels deep into the gates of hell. If the girl is great, but imperfect, you can have some good days and some bad like all the other suckers who want just a little more. Life is weird like that.
If i'm smart, she doesn't have to be. She brings the looks, I bring the brains. We work together in perfect harmony.
I think it depends on the long term vs. the short term. In the short term the beauty will be a lot of fun. But eventually people will want to be able to converse and have an exchange with their partner on some sort of regular basis. So in the long term brains wins out. Also after a while a person with enough brains to demand respect for their brains becomes more attractive to people that are willing to listen or give them a chance. Of course there are all sorts of other issues that can go along with either brains, or beauty to rule either of them out such as insecurity, hyper-synsetivity, etc.
Beauty is a proxy for other social and behavioral traits that can't be fully verified when you have limited time or are too young to understand their value. Women and men are less explicitly drawn to wealth and beauty than to attributes they feel they lack.
Brains. Very hard to love and count on someone stupid. Do you want some one dumb raising your children? As for the beauty part, I can bang a mistress.
Here's another thing. Beauty is purely a result of genetics. It is pretty much no credit or effort on behalf the person. Brains, are different. They can absolutely be a matter of dedication and character of the person with the "brains".
There are studies which indicate that IQ can only be raised by about 5 points from what comes naturally. Beauty, on the other hand, is available at the cost of plastic surgery. I fundamentally disagree with your premise. Having said that, I would go with beauty. I am not interested in marriage and family and I have more short term fun with a ditzy ****bunny than a brainy uggo.
Beauty requires an understanding and emulation of favorable social aesthetics with regards to grooming, presentation and physical fitness. It's extremely subjective and transitory with regards to age, trends and social class, so those who garner that perception over multiple stages of their life and across broad groups of people have consciously made favorable choices based on personal insight. Beauty requires as much effort and skill to capitalize on as intelligence, the debate is whether or not it's as practical an endeavor.
I disagree. The social aesthetic may differ, and change, but it still requires genetics. There are a couple of reasons why I think this way. 1. Choosing clothes that flatter one, or makeup that flatters one isn't really beauty, it's using other things to maximize what people have or don't have. 2. working out, dieting etc. only goes so far. Some people can work out all they want, and while they may make some improvements, and get in good shape, unless they have the certain genetic code they won't be as cut or proportioned as people with those certain genetics. People may be able to maximize their looks but they won't be actually beautiful unless they have those particular genes. That doesn't mean that what is seen as beauty is always the same in every society and time period, but it almost always comes down to genes, or disguising and altering what you have to appear as if you have those genetic qualities. Also looks will change with age. Sometimes they will improve sometimes they will get worse, often it will do both during different periods.
A couple of things. One is about why and how the IQ test was developed. The other has to do with a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset. https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc The studies associated with shows that potential can be flexible. That being said, I understand that not every person has the same potential. I also don't have a problem with folks choosing short term relationships over long term relationships. If that's the goal then beauty would be a valid choice over brains though not the only way to choose. Also of course, I don't think it has to be one or the other. I think people can definitely have both.
This is a big one. I've seen men marry women who aren't as attractive on the ladder. While it's not my business or I'd ever call that out, it may be that to them the consequences generally attached to beauty doesn't go away as time goes on... Or have those guys have really great character...
