Catholic & Single How important are one's looks in finding true love?

Apr 16, 2008

Dear Anthony,

It seems many men are interested only in good-looking women and not what’s inside. But I don’t find the opposite to be true — women generally are more accepting of a man’s looks. Would you agree?

I certainly understand your position and have heard it from many members. I do admit there is a large problem with men and the whole “looks” thing. Some of it is understandable, and some of it is not.
 
We live in a time when men and women are fooled into the distraction of looks masked under the term “chemistry”. They say “chemistry” but they really mean physical attraction. To be clear, I am NOT against physical attraction at all. But as I shared in my discussion group on our recent Caribbean cruise, MOST people will experience love under three key conditions: (1) time, (2) proximity, and (3) familiarity.
 
Very few people have the “love at first sight” experience. And to believe that you will “know” in the first few minutes (or even seconds, as I have sometimes heard supposed “experts” say) is to hurt yourself and your opportunities for true love, not to mention undermine the mystery of love from the perspective of God’s intervention.
 
Love, for many, will come in time. So there must be an openness to be dedicated to investing “time” in a person before determining if they are someone you might end up marrying. Take time to meet more than once, but in fact a few times at least. Take time to get to know a person. Take time to see that person in many situations. Take time to see that person with their friends and family. It does not take much “time” to know if this is a person you want to invest more time in, but if you don’t give it some “time”, you may be prematurely ending something that might have turned into true love.
 
With this investment of time comes “proximity” because you are with the person physically. This implies you cannot ever know anything “for sure” about a person until you are spending time with them in person, not on the phone or by email. Email is a great way to write nice letters and get to know someone. The phone is wonderful for interacting with that person, but being in proximity (time in person) is the only way to get to the point of saying that you are or are not interested in spending more time with that person.
 
With more time and proximity comes “familiarity”. Obviously, the more time you spend in proximity with someone, the more familiar with them you become. And familiarity can make love happen where it was not happening before. That is exactly why good friends of the opposite sex often (much more often than people know or will admit) become interested in more than just being friends (or at least one of them does, which can cause a friendship to naturally end). This is also why I do not believe men and women can be very close or best friends. You marry your best friend, you don’t just ever stay close friends. And when best friends of the opposite sex do not marry each other but, rather, marry someone else, they can no longer remain friends. Why? Because the spouse of your close friend will not take kindly to his or her spouse having someone close to him or her (maybe even closer) than he or she is.
 
Time, proximity, and familiarity. These are the key ingredients to how most true love is formed. It is false deception of the devil to trick people into believing they should try to choose people they will correspond with on any singles site, or to judge from just looking at a photo or determining the physical attraction of another person from a distance that this person might be someone you would eventually marry or not. It’s absurd! Every person has something about them that is interesting, and you just never know whom you might end up being really attracted to, not because of their body or model-like face, but because of the way they laugh, or their eyes when they talk, or the way they conduct themselves, or their voice, or their virtues in action, or a multiplicity of other things.
 
Sure, we all have a general idea of our “type”, but I assure you that there are too many examples of people coming together about whom others who know them would say, “What did they ever see in each other?” or that they, themselves, have said that they did not have attraction to AT FIRST!
 
It is precisely because of that “at first” reality that men and women (especially men) should not allow themselves to be too quick to discount persons just from looking at them, or from reading their age or weight or whatever. Marriage is so much more than looks. And love is such a mystery that we should never think we would know love when we first see it. It is a mystery precisely because so many who experience true love have had it happen to them in time, proximity, and familiarity first! This is why you hear of men who run off with their secretaries. Is it because the secretary is so drop-dead gorgeous that he just “had” to do it? No. It is because he spends more “time” with her than with his own wife, he is in “proximity” to her often, and of the “familiarity” he experiences with her over time. He falsely comes to believe he is in love with his secretary. Perhaps he is. But his marriage is a promise for life, and he has a duty to give his availability only to his wife.
 
And this is my final point. Marriage is about two people coming together in something more noble and sacred than themselves. Marriage is a covenant, a promise, that two people decide of their own free will to do before God that promises fidelity, permanence, and openness to children (or for older persons, the parental role exercised in some other way, like adoption, helping raise the children of siblings, helping with the children of the parish, etc.). That kind of love is so much more than looks. It is a vocational love. A love that gives, and does not seek to receive. A love that has purpose that glorifies God, not a love that satisfies the self.
 
The bottom line is that we are all on this earth for a very short time. Do we want to spend most of that time loving a good, lovable, attractive person of God (maybe not drop-dead gorgeous, but attractive in many endearing ways), or do we want to waste most of the time looking for someone that we want so much, based on our checklists and selfish desires and what movies, magazines, etc., say are the ideal “looks” of someone we want to love but who will never come into our lives?
 
Some people think I am saying to “settle” on a loveless marriage just to be in marriage. Yes, I am saying to settle, but not in the ways they assume. By “settle” I mean to “settle” on a good man or woman (much like the Scriptures describe to us), and not be so narrow-minded on a great or perfect-looking person. Settle on a good, virtuous, kind, giving person with a great smile and sense of humor. Someone who can make your life full of many moments of happiness, joy, peace, and grace; not be so shortsighted as to make physical attraction primary when those looks decline more quickly than you realize. Open your eyes to the mystery of love in the persons that come into your life who come from God and from whom you can choose the one that you get closest to in friendship (best friends) and who makes you say, “I cannot see my life without this person”; not passing up those people (who come into our path from God, which all people in our daily lives do) in the name of assuming someone will come along who you think will be even better.

 

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