“It’s what’s on the inside that matters”, you’ve probably heard that phrase so many times and it is true, to some extent. In the context of dating, what’s on the outside also counts significantly besides your personality.
Today, we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of the impact of physical appearance on relationships.
How much do looks really matter in a relationship? In our blog, we’ll discuss the role of looks in relationships; we’ll delve into societal influences, personal preferences, and deeper qualities that ultimately keep a relationship going. So, without further ado, let’s begin.
Table of Contents
The Science of Attraction
What prompts you to look at somebody once, twice, and thrice from across the room? 9 times out of 10, it is the physical attribute that demands your attention.
When you’re thinking about how to find a girlfriend, you’re most likely picturing a physically beautiful woman with a great body rather than an empty apparition.
Whether it’s their picturesque face, stunning smile, towering height, or an obvious sense of fine fashion and clothing, the exterior ultimately grabs your attention.
And that’s what’s supposed to happen! Evolutionary psychology suggests that humans are wired to find certain things attractive for biological and reproductive reasons. And all of those things are physical traits.
Features such as facial symmetry, clear skin, and a healthy physique point towards good genes and reproductive potential. These are the driving forces behind attraction, as “shallow” as you may perceive it today.
This instinctual appeal plays into the early stages of any relationship, sparking desire and interest.
However, as you may already understand, while physical attraction may draw two people close together, it’s merely one, albeit major, piece of the puzzle in building a lasting and meaningful relationship.
Beyond The Surface
While how pretty and handsome someone is sets the tone for a relationship, emotional and intellectual connection sustains and prolongs it.
You need to be compatible with each other, not just in what you think the other person looks best in, but also in values, morals, communication styles, and life goals.
Ideally, these emotional and intellectual traits become far more important and worth holding on to as a relationship progresses than their weight, what they look like after waking up, and how much makeup they wear.
As both of you become more comfortable and safe with each other, your abilities to trust and respect each other, value intimacy, and communicate clearly become far more significant than looks.
How you can converse with each other about anything, feeling completely secure and assured in your own spaces, completely eclipses the subject of looks.
Attraction Over Time
Attraction often progresses as a relationship deepens and matures. What initially brought two people closer, which is often physical appearance, can change as they bond emotionally and intellectually more.
Over time, partners will find that their attraction to each other increases, and it’s not because they’re 6 ‘5 or have ocean blue eyes, but because of the things they went through together, the shared trust, and the understanding they’ve developed.
The Influences of Society and Culture
You can’t underestimate how much society and culture have influenced how we view and perceive relationships and other people in general.
The mass media’s glorification of certain physical traits since the dawn of time, and now with social media’s constant shoving down of Instagram beauty standards, only exacerbates how we view and value physical appearance.
These standards can sometimes fog our ability to think logically. We expect people to show up on our dates looking just like their filtered photos, leading to misplaced priorities and supersizing insecurities.
We live in a digital world where looks are heavily overemphasized for both women and men, although the former has always taken the brunt of that pressure. This is where things that really matter, such as kindness, emotional intelligence, and shared values, take a backseat.
Personal Experiences
As you step out of the filter-ready facade of looks and the hysteria of the exterior, you finally realize how true love and affection trump and transcend physical aspects.
You probably know or have seen couples who prioritize their emotional connection and mutual respect over anything in their relationship, finding profound satisfaction.
These couples may not fit your or society’s ideals of physical attractiveness, which never seemed to get in the way of their love. You’ve also probably seen couples who fit all those ideals of great looks but fail to keep the love alive and go their separate ways.
This is not to say that good-looking couples are never happy. But just showing that while physical attraction plays a key role in the beginning, what’s on the inside feeds the fire.
Balancing the Two, Physical and Internal
We’re not diminishing the importance of physical attraction and aren’t asking you to forget about maintaining your looks. The best outcome in any single relationship is only achieved when you can balance the two, the exterior and the interior.
Working on your emotional and intellectual traits and not nurturing your physical attributes will be just as futile if you only care about your looks for your partner and nothing else.
Finding someone who’s physically appealing and emotionally and intellectually compatible is guaranteed to lead to a more successful and rewarding relationship.
Beauty fades, and we can’t stop that from happening unless you can afford expensive plastic surgery or freeze time. However, what remains are the qualities that truly matter and those that elevate the relationship with time.
Conclusion
We hope our guide was able to communicate how much looks really matter in relationships. Physical appearance is key in any relationship and can remain a key ingredient for how it progresses. But it’s the deeper and ardent qualities that are the embers to the flames of a lasting relationship.