Is being beautiful/ugly based on personality/mentality or is it based on physical appearance?

Question

There's this friend of mine that boys consider fat and ugly but she is one of the most nicest girls you could ever meet and she has a great sense of humor and because of that, I think she's beautiful. What do you think and why?

Answer 1

I wish it was based on who and what you are but the reality is that people (guys) only focus on what you look like. People are cruel and don't bother to look beyond the superficial to see inner beauty.

Thank you for being so supportive of your friend - you have got it right.

Answer 2

I feel it's based on physical as well as personality. Someone could look exactly as someone pictures their dream person but the second that person opens their mouth they could become the ugliest person in the world. It's also true the other way, you may have the most attractive personality yet there might be something about your appearance that just doesn't do it for someone. There is this amazing saying I heard a long time ago which holds true to this question, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Everyone is beautiful to someone for one reason or another and it's not because they look like the supermodel on the cover of a magazine, it's the whole package together.

Answer 3

Sad to say, humans have a very base desire for sexual attractiveness in the physical appearance of their mate. This is very primitive, but in all honesty a girl is far more likely to accept initial contact with a boy based on looks, and vice-versa.

However, it is the INNER beauty that will keep them interested. A few dates with a "hot" person may be fun, but after experiencing shallow drivel or self-centeredness for a time the person will bolt.

There is a little song that goes something like this, "If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife. From my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you."

Answer 4

I think that a great deal of our societal perception of beauty is from our training by the media and our social conditioning in that certain stereotypical body images have dominated the social landscape for generations. Some of it is also instinctual, as part of our survival mechanisms. Much of the other beauty, like the friend you described, is often only appreciated in it fullest after it has been experienced in person. It is often strange to me how I may see a physically attractive woman but when she opens her mouth much of the beauty can be taken away by her words and actions. The at other time I may see a woman that I am not immediately attracted to, but after hearing her talk or experience ing here personality, I find he far more attractive. It is a combination of all a persons traits, not just physical.,

Answer 5

Although appearance can be pleasing or displeasing to people, personality plays a major part in how sexy and beautiful people truly are.

Using the last season of American Idol as an example, imagine a woman as sexy and beautiful as Katharine McPhee or a man as sexy and handsome as Ace Young. These were two of the biggest heartthrobs in the competition. Based on our perception of them, they were very warm, kind and sociable. How would we feel about them if we learned that they were petty, demeaning, rude and insensitive to people? They would become pretty ugly in my book. (Having said that, I believe that they are both great people and I have heard nothing bad about either one of them).

People who are overweight or have other physical or mental disabilities have to do more to be noticed because too many people base a person on their looks before they take the time to meet the person and learn about them but true beauty comes from within.

Answer 6

Beauty, I think, depends on the criteria being used to determine it. There's beauty of the spirit, beauty of the mind and beauty of the body. Few people can be beautiful in all three, but many are in one of the three. There is a song that goes "Everything is beautiful. (Everyone is) beautiful in (their) own way." I'm not sure exactly how it goes or who sings it (Ray Stevens?) but it does express this idea that beauty can be many ways.

Beauty of the spirit is something that more people possess than there is beauty of the body. For instance, I knew an older woman who worked with a group of young people that I was unofficial advisor to, a university newspaper staff. Just the fact that she did what she did--acting as kind of a go-for to the staff--made her exceptional. She was a beautiful spirit, even though physcially she was broken down, knarled by her age and a hard life.

Beautiful minds may be more exceptional than beautiful spirits. These are minds that have a purity of intent, and a certain openess and brilliance for nuances in understanding what to most of us are things unknown or mysterious. A mind such as Microsoft's founder must have had when young, Bill Gates. A mind that is keen to learn and just as keen to put that learning to use or share it.

It goes without saying what beauty of body is, for this standard is well established in our American society. Yet in other societies there are standards of beauty that are different than ours, and who's to say that that standard is not as valid as ours. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's not a trite axiom, but true.

So there are ways to be beautiful, including your friend's niceness and sense of humor (beauty of spirit). One shouldn't judge beauty on just one level. You are so right about your friend.

Answer 7

It's impossible to see someobody one likes in an objective way when it comes to the appearance.

For people, who are generally being considered beautiful, it's probably easier to get in contact with others.
But in a friendship that factor becomes more and more unimportant.

And personally I consider the last thing - having just a few close friends - way more precious than just a lot of superficial contacts.

Answer 8

Most of the time it is based on looks. That is the first thing we as in men see. Second mentally and personality fall in the same category as in if we like the girl for how she thinks and reacts to certain situations in a relationship. Have you ever seen Shallow Hall? now that was based on personality/mentality.

Answer 9

For me - very little is based on personal appearance.

Who hasn't initially seen someone & thought, no they're not my type.

But once you got to know them & found out they were funny, smart, interesting, well travelled or just had an amazing energy about them - they immediately became more attractive!

To the point where you couldn't remember what you didn't see in them.

In the end, if they don't have it on the inside - who cares what the outside looks like!

Answer 10

I think that's your call. I've met SO MANY GIRLS that think MONEY, and BEAUTY were ALL that MATTERRED! Character speaks VOLUMES over EVERYTHING!! STANDS HIGH above it all! Character being, in MY humble(?) opinion:
a) the ability to balance a checkbook, and have an ethics of spending, WITHOUT a credit card!
b) allowing your guy to be the man, when things get tough, to make the right decisions. That's the core and right of manhood.
c) having the ability to fight fair, without screaming, and cursing, and name calling to demean your man. Never using the "D"(ivorce) word IN a fight.
d) NEVER demeaning of your children, even when you THOUGHT they should have known. Always doing your best to keep good thoughts with them, about them, and doing things that BUILD relationships, and not destroy them.

In a nutshell, you decide what you want to be after you turn 18.