Ask the 2+2 Ladies Your Questions

[katyseagull]

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I think this is one of those theories that is working backwards. People choose people like them because they are the people most likely to have them. Different races develop prejudices against other races and preferences for their own.



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Well that's what I thought too but now I'm not quite sure. When I saw the piece on the Today Show, my eyes were suddenly opened to this really strange phenomenon, that a lot of people actually look very much like their spouses! I mean SERIOUSLY look like them.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say that I've been completely brainwashed. Now that someone has put the idea in my head I'll never stop seeing the evidence for it. But I predict that you will begin to see it yourself. You will notice that a man with eyes too close together on his face has chosen a wife with eyes too close together on her face. And you, Blarg, will quite likely end up with a wife who has ridiculously long toes and lanky limbs. Mark my words.

And the explanation is that we are comfortable with what we see in the mirror and it is familiar to us so we choose mates who have similar features...big nose, wide set eyes, whatever the case may be. Perhaps we want our offspring to look like us.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think this is one of those theories that is working backwards. People choose people like them because they are the people most likely to have them. Different races develop prejudices against other races and preferences for their own.



[/ QUOTE ]

Well that's what I thought too but now I'm not quite sure. When I saw the piece on the Today Show, my eyes were suddenly opened to this really strange phenomenon, that a lot of people actually look very much like their spouses! I mean SERIOUSLY look like them.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're going to say. You're going to say that I've been completely brainwashed. Now that someone has put the idea in my head I'll never stop seeing the evidence for it. But I predict that you will begin to see it yourself. You will notice that a man with eyes too close together on his face has chosen a wife with eyes too close together on her face. And you, Blarg, will quite likely end up with a wife who has ridiculously long toes and lanky limbs. Mark my words.

And the explanation is that we are comfortable with what we see in the mirror and it is familiar to us so we choose mates who have similar features...big nose, wide set eyes, whatever the case may be. Perhaps we want our offspring to look like us.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, Katey, you are vulnerable to passing theories. Don't read Cosmo or anything, or you'll have the potential to go absolutely batsh*t crazy every time you check the mail.

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And the explanation is that we are comfortable with what we see in the mirror and it is familiar to us so we choose mates who have similar features...big nose, wide set eyes, whatever the case may be. Perhaps we want our offspring to look like us.

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When I see a cute chick, offspring is the last thing I'm thinking about.

I also don't buy that we all think we're that good looking that we want our kids to look all that much like us. I've been complimented a fair amount in my life, and I'd be delighted to have an awful lot of things about me changed. People less satisfied with their looks would probably multiply that feeling even more.

If anything, I give credence to the idea that we often find lastlingly attractive physical traits we saw on especially good looking people when really young. This would often tend toward people like us, but not always. For instance, I grew up in areas where whites were a minority. It wasn't until I was about 15 that I even lived in places where whites weren't a tiny minority. All my models for what women looked good were non-white, specifically, they were Chinese and Japanese, or sometimes Chinese or Japanese mixed with white. There WERE virtually no good-looking white girls where I was raised. So in my case, it took me forever to even think blondes were worth looking at at all. NO blondes I had ever seen in real life looked good, so I almost completely lost my ability to see them as attractive at all.

Now I can see most types of women as attractive, but even those tend to have the type of facial features I saw and admired in attractive Asians -- slim, fine featured, dark haired, trim hips, butt and legs matter a lot but boobs not really, etc. In other words, even the white girls I like best tend to fall into patterns of typically Asian physical virtues. A long nose on a girl is probably more offputting to me than it is to a lot of other white guys, etc.

Anyway, there's a theory for everything, and almost any theory can be presented persuasively -- hey, it's on TV! -- and have at least some parts ring a bell. There's not a lot in life that is worth swallowing whole, though. Even though something new comes out claiming it should be every 5 minutes.