by Patrick Sills

Created on: January 10, 2010

How would you respond to being asked whether or not you'd date someone who is ugly? Well, first and foremost, it would depend on just what you define as ugly. Are we talking about physical appearances such as severe overbites, rotten, brown teeth, pock marks, warts, harelips, single eyebrows that are six inches in length? Perhaps someone who is morbidly obese and looks 20 years older than their actual age? Someone whose facial expressions never deviate from looking as though they just smelled an eye-watering, pungent fart?

Or do we refer to the person in question’s disposition? Is he or she a hateful and bitter individual? Is this person surrounded by a perpetual aura of negativity, misery, and despair? Is the person filled with violent intent or inherently evil thoughts toward all who approach?

In either of both of these instances, we have a good definition of ugly. The first example is that of physical unattractiveness; a person with visual shortcomings. The second, and far worse of the two, is suggestive of someone most of us simply would not want to associate with on any level. In this particular scenario, a person may not discover this aspect of ugliness until a date has already transpired.

We’ve all undoubtedly heard that the contents of a book should not be judged by the cover that lies outside. A physically unattractive individual can indeed be a beautiful person in all other aspects and conversely, a real knockout in the looks department can turn out to be the coldest, meanest person one could ever have the misfortune of meeting.

However, and with that said, we remain a superficial species as a whole, and thus it is reasonable to assume that most of us would find it difficult to date someone we find physically ugly. How many times have we acquainted ourselves with someone who is looked upon as a pleasant individual but is too homely to ever consider being more than just a platonic friend? It happens all the time, doesn’t it? It’s simply next to impossible to become sexually aroused by someone who fails to fall within our acceptable parameters of good looks. To put this into perspective, let’s suppose you are shopping for a used car. You would prefer a well-maintained model in good condition over some rust bucket with bald tires, would you not?

But there remains one question: How ugly or good-looking do we think we ourselves are? Moreover, just who represents the benchmark? Most of us fall into that state of limbo known as average. That is, we are neither what one could describe as ugly nor are we strikingly handsome or beautiful like George Clooney or Halle Berry. We must therefore be realistic when it comes to choosing our dating partners. We thus achieve this goal by selecting those who likewise fall into this average category; or at least, what we perceive as average. For example, if the average human male looked like a Klingon out of Star Trek, then we would likely seek a female who looked more or less the same. This is why we typically see buff, muscular, handsome males paired with gorgeous women who could be supermodels or Playboy Bunnies while overweight guys with beer guts are paired with similarly-constructed women.

So would I be willing to date somebody I find ugly? The answer is no. But at the same time, I would take a long look at myself in the mirror before passing such judgment on others.

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