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Diva
updated 4 Oct 2011, 00:09
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Mon, May 03, 2010
The New Paper
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Know what's shallow? Judging others
by Hedy Khoo

IF MEN are really wired to zoom in on looks and women on the wallet, I guess I must be a hermaphrodite.

Not only do I get a little dizzy, feel the blood draining from my brain and my loins stirring when I see an exceedingly attractive man, I start to size him up and do my sums on whether he can afford my penchant for the material pleasures life can offer.

Then again, I must confess, my testosterone levels must have been raging some years back because I distinctly remember falling for a mortal Adonis who was so poor in earthly riches that even a church mouse ranked higher on the pay cheque scale.

This despite all my womanly instincts screaming out at me to calculate our future progeny’s chances of survival.

I did my sums. But the love for beauty overcame logic.

Was it shallow? Not really, the man charmed me off my feet with qualities like intellect and a talent for art and music.

A stupid choice? Perhaps.

So is it shallow for a woman to consider a man’s money-making capacity when looking for a potential mate and for men to look at physical attributes first?

Not if you ask me. What is shallow is failing to realise that every individual has his or her own reasons for being attracted to someone. So who are we to judge?

Aren’t we also guilty of being shallow when we judge others based on first impressions? Don’t we tend to sum people up based on the way they look?

Making assumptions

When we see a gorgeous woman on the arm of an older or less-than-handsome man, do we not tend to automatically assume that she is a gold digger and the man is her sugar daddy?

It is all a matter of labels. A woman who pursues a man based on his level of income can be seen as materialistic and calculating.

We could also be politically correct by saying she is practical-minded. It is all semantics, but yes, money is a big factor here when it comes to a woman’s choice of men.

Whether evolutionary psychology is at work is also irrelevant. We do not even need to understand the thinking processes of a cave woman’s brain.

Maybe that woman had a deprived childhood and wants security in her adult life. Maybe she really simply loves money. Who knows?

Why do we even bother to judge?

Why do we like labelling people and creating stereotypes? Because we are jealous and insecure creatures at heart.

It is a convenient reason to give when someone asks why you are still single. Oh, it is because men are too shallow to look beyond physical beauty and women only want rich men.

Life is simpler when we pigeon-hole people and things. Call me shallow, but I do that all the time. It requires far less thinking and effort to make sense of a complicated world.

Wait, perhaps I am a man after all.

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