Breaking Down the Myth: Is It Possible to Love An "Ugly" Person?

You can fall for a guy like this, can't you?

Ben Johnson wrote, "Our beauty is not ours," in a play. There are a ton of cliche's in regard to "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I currently teach at a local community college and in the midst of a lecture on exemplification and the process of writing a well developed paragraph, an interesting statement was made, by a young lady. We were discussing the fact that you can not generalize in a paragraph. In other words you can't say "All men are dogs." That is a generalization and it can not be proven. In other words, this sentence actually hurts the discussion in a paragraph. It's obvious why, but after we discussed this, I said that it would be better to say, "in my experience most men are dogs." I am moving away from the point though. In some way we moved into a discussion on beauty and looks for both men and women. My student stated, that she could never love an ugly man, it didn't matter if he was rich. I said I couldn't trust that statement and we went off track for another five minutes before getting back on track.

Now I placed the Ben Johnson quote up top because we were analyzing a poem in another class, and we could not decide whether Johnson was saying,

1. A person's beauty is determined by those around them and the person who is considered beautiful has no control over being considered beautiful.

2. Beauty is predetermined by certain factors in society that establish what beauty is.

Now both of these ideas are closely related. The end of the poem is what actually contributes to the paradox. He writes, "nature whithers the daffodil," or something to that effect (I'm being too lazy to look it up right now). What happened after reading this last line is that a student said it seems to him that the poet is saying that over time nature removes physical beauty so physical beauty should not be a measuring stick. This led to these two ideas:

1. A person's beauty is created by their own strength and confidence.

2. No matter what a person does their beauty is the last thing that should be considered when in love.

Okay, I know this isn't a lecture, but after my student in the other class stated she could never love an ugly person, that made me think. I am not what I consider handsome, by the Gary Joudain, Pooch Hall, Maxwell standards. As a matter of fact not many guys look like Shemar Moore or Idris Elba. My point is there are stereotypical ideas of beauty for both men and women, but the reality is people just don't look like these people. They are paid to be beautiful. Gabrielle Union, Kerry Washington, Zoe Saldana, are all women that no matter how much time a girl or woman spends in the mirror they won't be able to match the glamour and style. Now granted some people are able to look this good, but you get what I'm saying. This leaves me with a question then: Are women actually single because they are looking for these men and overlooking men who are very good guys, but may not be society's standard of looks?  If this is the case, is it possible for a woman to fall for a man who does not look like a mix of Djimon Hounsou and Omari Hardwick?

If women are not able to look past just looks, and they then say that "All men are dogs," then aren't these women creating their own circumstances that generate loneliness? I know it's hard to get excited when your man has belly like a pillow, or your man doesn't have perfect features like Boris Kodjoe, but what I find sexy about a woman is her confidence. (I'm married so I'm using an example here.) A woman does not have to be perfect. I often tell my wife that I love Queen Latifah (I disregard the gay and big girl comments). As I listen to students in my classes I began realizing that girls/women often create their problems when dealing with men, by only pursuing the flyest guys. If you put all of that time into building up the flyest guys, they won't be able to settle down since they have their pick of berries. 

So with this said, aren't women lonely not because, "there aren't any good men," but because they simply overlook great men because they may be flawed?