Prefer to be beautiful to having brains?

[charlmarascoxo]

I was asked - would you rather be beautiful and have below average intelligence or would be rather be clever and be dull looking/plain jane.

I went with beauty.

It seems to me that in society having beauty is quite highly valued and life is perhaps easier because you are more accepted. Most people however chose brains over beauty. So perhaps I am in the minority?

Brains. I'm no genius but I like being reasonably intelligent. It makes life more interesting IMO.

I wish I had things more in proportion. I sailed through school and Oxbridge and now wish I'd 'made something of myself'. I'm plagued by existential angst and didn't seem to grow out of it! I now live in a fairly boring area. Boring life. Brain spins but no outlet.

I was missed out in the looks department.

I'd have prefered a bit of both.

I think research has shown that you are slightly less likely to suffer from dementia if you keep intellectually active in your old age. But obviously it's a statistic thing, not a certainty: some people lead a healthy life and still have heart attacks.

Bolter Most people who are beautiful have to back it up in some way with a degree of charm or wit or friendliness etc in order to be considered beautiful in real life past a certain point. We are all influenced by personality over the longer term not just looks. We must all know people who are beautiful but vapid or really unattractive but lovely and once you know them its very hard to see them without seeing who they really are (IYSWIM)

Being in the press is different - you can;t "see" peoples real personality in Hello magazine.

I'm fortunate enough to have both so this doesn't apply to me.

The mind of Stephen Hawking, the body of Gisele and the face of Megan Fox.

< nods a lot slowly >

Loving your confidence bub
Go girl.

EverlongLovesHerChristmasRobin

If only it was a tiny bit true - haha

I'd go for beauty. After all, everybody has a brain.

Yes, but you could just as well say "everybody has a face", surely, Ifnotnow.

I'm plain as day but on the one occasion I had a professional facialist, make-up artist, fake tanner, manicurist and hairdresser (my wedding day) I looked bloody fantastic. This is what all celebs have, every day. We could all be beautiful, given money.

I would take being immune to procrastination over being brainy. Women with energy inevitably achieve more than women with genius. Look at Anthea fucking Turner.

Not getting this "but being bright means being tortured by the complexity of life and being socially inept" claim at all (perhaps I'm being dim). The world is so interesting, and being bright enough to dig below the surface of things is so much fun (whether it's following a Shakespeare play when seeing it for the first time, having never studied it, or appreciating a Bach fugue, or the Lorentz covariant forms of Maxwell's equations, or realising you've actually got the hang of the Schwarzschild solution to the field equations of general relativity, or thinking Cantor's diagonal arguments for the countability of the rational numbers and non-countability of the reals are just totally cool, or loving Hume's demolition of the argument from design). This doesn't stop me from liking everyday stuff too (happy to devote head space to which actors would make a good Jack Reacher, given that Cruise is clearly a disastrous choice), and I do have friends (most of whom I don't talk about esoteric stuff too, though have got mummy friends I can talk to about abstract algebra or philosophy of science), love doing physical stuff - climbing, football - as well as intellectual stuff. I totally agree that women with energy achieve more - but it doesn't bother me, I'm happy bumbling along thinking about stuff, earning enough to get by (research scientists are not paid well). Not ever been anything but plain, can't say it's ever bothered me. Alzheimers permitting, I hope to still be reading interesting stuff when I'm old.

You could Jux, but not everybody has basically the same face
Everybody's brain has the capacity to learn, and become "clever".
Whereas if you have a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp there's not a lot you can do about it.

I had both when younger (looks long gone) and the looks were definitely the most fun and helped in my job .I definitely got work then because i looked a certain way(not boasting people told me I thought i was hideous)

Yes, Ifnotnow, but some people are just dumb and no amount of trying or learning will make them a genius.

Seems you could say the same about faces - you could have anything from ugly as sin to total beauty - as you can about brains, anything from severely learning disabled to Einstein.

All brains are made up of neurones which interconnect, and all faces are made up of features which interconnect. I really don't see a difference in principle.

Being bright does not mean tortured, but the few real geniuses I have met do often have problems.

bub just pretend to us lot.

It's funny that the question is brains or beauty. people saying brains are doing so to take the moral high ground, but then ruin it with - so you can earn more!

The most objectively gorgeous man I ever dated was an abusive asshole. He got ugly in my mind very quickly!

I know it's prejudiced but it's been hard for me ever since to trust really handsome men...I guess I mean "pretty boys", not the ruggedly handsome type. :) I'm getting over it though, I have known some with lovely personalities.

On the issue of male looks, I am slightly suspicious of conventionally gorgeous men. They don't do it for me. I think men have to be slightly ugly and very clever to be attractive to me.

I would rather be beautiful than intelligent; i'm prettyish in an average way but i'd love to have the kind of looks that stop men in their tracks... sorry if that makes me shallow but i don't care!

Ps. i'm intelligent-ish but not enough; & definitely not educated enough.

I went out with a guy like that for a couple of years LaQueen-not that he was a git, just really good looking.
I broke his heart by running off with a much less good looking man.
Paying for it now though with my loooong dry spell (otherwise known as my Thirties).
Ugly bloke turned out to be an abusive wanker. I dont really regret it though. I wouldnt have been happy with beautiful guy either as he was really rather dull.

I get called 'sweet' a lot. Yuck. I would rather be beautiful or brainy or both.

I don't think good-looking men are always that confident IME; not sure why.