Yesterday I watched one of my favorite Disney movies beauty and the beast. I found myself questioning physical attraction .I mean in the beginning the beast is a literal beast not only in looks but also in behavior.Bella is able to overlook his aapperance and fall in love even before he tranforms into a prince.This tale is especially relevant today.Reserch conducted by Luo and Zhang in 2009 continues to reaffirm the notion that we seek love with those we find attractive. So why exactly are we so attracted to ‘shiny things’ is it the vanity in most of us?
Surprisingly this trait occurs in both men and women and in most cultures. We want to be associated with attractive things. What makes us pause to swipe right instead of left? I remember once hearing a group of friends talking about only wanting to be seen out in the open with attractive dates. They went as far as admitting to having dated women for as long as six months and not introduced them to their friends because they did not think they would be considered ‘hot’. So why date them in the first place? The Kenyan social media was once full of disgruntled men demanding natural beauty. “We get cheated by all this makeup, “they said .They forget that that was what attracted them to the person in the first place. What necessarily dictates hotness? Do we even have a say in it or do we conform to societies expectations?
We can blame changing fashion trends, the beauty industry or even Hollywood for our changing perceptions of beauty but most of us play an important role in propagating these norms. One interesting example that has been brought up hundreds of times is our addiction to fashion labels. Last year I bought a pair of second hand Gucci shoes at an awesome bargain, at the time I was more interested in their color than the brand name. That however quickly changed the first time I went into a room and they recognized the brand . What was supposed to be a fifteen minute discussion ended up being a thirty-five minute one? I had to answer questions I was unprepared for. How much were they? Were they as expensive as people claim? There I was, surrounded by a group of 10 year olds with more appreciation for brand names than I did. Why do people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on designer undergarments no one can see?
When does it all stop? My friends and I keep joking about the fact that all of us look so similar these days. In our rush to embrace the trends and beauty products, we are becoming carbon copies of each other. It is considered more attractive to speak, walk, or dress in a particular fashion. Those that refuse to do so end up clustered in to groups of outsiders. Just how long can our bodies keep up with our vanity? With research continuously, finding links between beauty products and poisonous metals like mercury and lead .We are all slowly creating modern day beasts.
Physical attraction no matter how great does not last forever. Let us face it people, we do not all age attractively. Moreover, research conducted by Kniffin and Wilson in 2004 shows that our love, attraction and appreciation of our partners continues to grow the more time we spent with each other. Therefore, we should all take a page out of Bella and Beast’s book .There is a prince and princess in each of us and all we need is patience and understanding to bring it out.
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