‘Men are attracted to beauty, women are attracted to power’

I’m dating again and re-learning what bragging rights look like for me and the chosen few who make it off the app and to a candle-lit dinner for two*

Nov 15, 2022

Despite Lauren Windle’s attempt to hook me up with Stormzy, I remain officially single and so when a friend told me she was going to sign me up to online dating on my behalf, I was only slightly perturbed. It will be “fun!” she assured me as she grabbed various photos of me taken in the last decade and wrote God knows what (I haven’t seen it so I literally mean “God knows” and I certainly do not) on my dating profile.

And before you LOL at this method it’s not like I haven’t tried myself. Despite my best efforts which include:

Messaging my cute health practitioner on LinkedIn
Googling (AKA stalking) someone I met at an event to find out their contact details
Asking someone I matched with on a dating app if the friend in his photo was available

it’s looking like I am about to enter the colder winter months without a committed partner in Netflix & Chill.

I gave my friend carte blanche to pick my prospective dates and she passed on mobile numbers for those she felt would be a good fit for me. We didn’t have a discussion about types or height or anything; she simply went by what she knows of me from our friendship and generic discussions about life and love. Having been married, then in a long term situationship followed by a longer spell of singleness, it has been a while since I was on a dating app and it was enlightening to discover what the men I matched with, were looking for.

Originating from a mix of Christian and mainstream apps, the men I’ve connected with have varied in their own height, age, looks, location and salary. And the snapshots my friend sent me of their profiles show claims for a partner who “laughs at my jokes”, “is independent” or “goes to church every week”. What’s amusing then, is when we start to speak and suddenly the most important factor becomes what I look like. One really lovely guy spent a lot of time telling me what he wanted in a partner, before saying that ultimately none of that really mattered because “you’re just so beautiful”. Another was keen for me to send him more photos of myself and when I didn’t reply immediately, he was quick to assure me that it wasn’t for anything sinister. Presumably he just wanted to spend the day or two before we met, staring into the soul of a 2D version of me to see if I matched up to the rest of his checklist.

Initially, I rebelled against this focus on so-called beauty and stopped wearing earrings as part of my protest that women don’t owe you [men] pretty (this also happens to be an unrelated book title). And yes I am vain and pay attention to my skincare and how I present myself to the world on the outside, but I am also in my 30s and no longer in blissful ignorance about ageing.

Proverbs 31:10 reads: ‘Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised’ and I want to age gracefully and not worry about what my supermodel-chasing husband thinks of me when he sees my face first thing in the morning.

HAVING SAID ALL THAT. I do think looks are important and I wish people would be more honest about that. At least then we all know where we stand, right? I’ve spoken before about not being seen as attractive by men of other skin colours [as a black woman] and part of that is just subjective attraction and some of that is conditional racism. Neither fun but both a stark reality for the world we live in. Every man that goes on Love Island and says his type is “blonde with banter” is probably being more honest than those who say it doesn’t matter what someone looks like because it’s what’s inside that counts. The latter is true but the former, IMHO, is not. Of COURSE it matters what someone looks like. We are aesthetically driven beings. Otherwise why do we love Canva so much?

The difference is that as a woman, I can eschew the way someone looks for something which holds greater gravitas in my heterosexual relationships. I definitely have a “type” but you couldn’t tell, judging by my exes. What has usually happened is that I’ve said, “I would like someone taller than me [I’m 5 '11], who can carry me back to our cave after a bear fight, clean shaven with curly dark hair and who can dance like Channing Tatum in Magic Mike”. But then I meet someone who is a head shorter than me but his eyes sparkle and his car is a Ferrari and suddenly I find myself reevaluating my preferences! I’m kidding, this has never happened but I’m making a wider point here so please just humour me.

For me, there’s always an exception. And speaking frankly, that could be about power, confidence or how he drives a stick. So it seems like there’s a trade-off and for some, that looks like men get beauty and women get power. Back at work today after a lovely week off, I am currently harbouring feelings of jealousy towards relationships anchored on this exchange of the relationship equivalent of goods and services. I know I’m going to get a clap back from all the feminists reading this who think I am letting the side down but sometimes if all I had to do was get out of bed and play pretty while my powerful husband rules and saves the world or whatever it is powerful men [pretend they] do, I might be in my happy place right now.

Then again it is only Tuesday, let’s see how I feel at the end of the week once I’ve been back at the helm of my own little Woman Alive empire for a few more days. In the meantime I might put my earrings back on. You know, just in case.

Tola x

*or equivalent dependent on my date and my mood

What do you lean towards? Beauty or power?

CHRIST COUTURE.

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