Mr. Personality

A mate of mine is currently suffering from a terrible syndrome: HHE or Hugh Hefner envy. Despite the fact that he's a good looking gent to boot, there isn't a string of busty blondes in sight. "Is it because women go more for personality than looks? He wants to know. "Are modern women all about charm and bank balance? It's not fair!"

The battle of the sexes has never been fair. All the women have to do is shake their push-up bras and wiggle their butts to get the male attention. As for the gents? They have to work their butts off to show personality, charm, charisma and an actual sense of humour (or in Hef's case, a black Amex) before a woman will get into bed with them.

But reader T isn't so sure what makes a woman tick. Hence he emailed me with the following question: "Once and for all, how important are looks to women?"

He says that while men judge women 90 per cent based on their physical attractiveness, he wonders if women judge men the same way.

"It is a pretty bad thing to say but unfortunately it's true, it's just the way men are," he says defiantly. "The fact of the matter is, if a woman is unattractive, she will have a very hard time sadly. A man judges a woman within the first two seconds literally, and it would be difficult to change his mind, no matter what her personality is. If he's deemed her unattractive, it's an uphill battle. That's my opinion anyway."

Perhaps two seconds is also how long Hugh Hefner does take to decide whether to add another bunny to his collection. But T is wondering whether or not it works the other way around. "Do women look less at a man's face and more at his personality? Do women date men more for their charm than their handsomeness?"

"Of course, all women would prefer attractive men," says T, "but, to what extent? I always hear stuff like, 'girls aren't as shallow as guys' but is it all true? Would an attractive woman ever go out with an ugly guy who had a great personality? Or is this just for the movies?"

It's an interesting question given the recent hullabaloo over the phenomenon that women feel the need to spend time, money and effort into perfecting their appearance, just so they can get the man to take notice in those precious two seconds. But apparently, if science is anything to go by, then that's the way it's been for centuries.

When Peter M. Todd from the cognitive science program at Indiana University, Bloomington conducted a speed dating experiment to discover how men and women find a mate, he was surprised by his findings.

According to his research, (which was based on analysing the results from the speed dating session), the men were found to be far less picky than the women, despite basing their decisions mostly on the physical attractiveness of the women they met.

On the other hand, the femmes were (shock, horror) way more picky, yet in answer to T's quandary, looks weren't a priority. Instead they opted for blokes who they thought would stay with them for the long haul.

Yet in the report, (published in the journal titled Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,) Todd claimed that we've been dating this way for centuries: "women trading off their attractiveness for higher quality men and men looking for any attractive women who will accept them".

Reader P disagrees and says that if modern women think primping and preening will get them a man, they're wasting their time. "What tickles me is the attitude that high maintenance looks would impress them in the first place!" he writes. "Fact is that guys are after three things, in order of importance: 1/ Likes ME!! 2/ Likes guys, 3/ Likes sex.

"Beauty is never mentioned. So here's the idea. Try checking up on whether the expensive outfits do impress the guys or if they are a turn off. After all, high maintenance means high cost.

"On the other side of the gender divide, check out if the girls do go for the guys with flashy cars. Or if the attitude does hold true that the bigger the car the smaller the p*nis ..."