Beauty or brains?

My best male friend — let’s call him Mischief — called me yesterday in stitches over his just-ended phone conversation with another close friend of ours — let’s call him Wacko. Both men are middle-aged, single and dating.  Here, as relayed to me, is how the dialogue went.

Wacko: “Buddy, I’m taking this new girl out.” 

Mischief: “Okay!”

W: “She’s from Pampanga — Kapampangan.”

M: “Okay?”

W: “She’s pretty!”

M: “Really? Okay! So, is everything okay already? I mean, it’s all good?”

W: “Of course! And you know what the best part is?”

M: “What?”

W: “She’s bobo!”

For any non-Tagalog speakers out there, bobo means “stupid.”

At first this anecdote seemed thigh-slapping hilarious, especially accompanied by the animated delivery of my friend. But come on, there isn’t anything remotely funny about a girl whose head is just empty space. “Tragic” might be the more appropriate word. 

I can understand, though, how it could count as a positive female attribute on Planet Male, specifically with the unattached species. Wacko is a career bachelor with a heart of gold — a solid, lean-on-me type of friend. He has relationships that are always intense but “quick and painless” and “short and sweet,” as he likes to describe them. I remember him telling me sundry reasons for breaking it off with various girls — the most memorable of which was, “She’s too demanding. She wants me to accompany her even to see her doctor.” Another one was, “She’s too clingy.” And yet another was, “Her shelf life expired.” The best one yet was, “I think I scared her off.”

But this elation over the girl’s being none-too-smart was new to me and of course I wondered why. In defense of Wacko, I can imagine that if the girl is bobo he would be able to run circles around her. There wouldn’t be any third degrees, no interrogations on whereabouts, no questions of the what-are-we and where-are-we-in-time-and-place sort, no explanations and no appeasing necessary, no expectations, and therefore, no letdowns. In short, no complications — just fun. Of various kinds.

But wait! Who says brainy girls aren’t fun? Hmmm…

I didn’t necessarily agree with Wacko but I could see his point. If one doesn’t have brains then there’s no analyzing, no rationalizing, no intellectualizing, no discussing, no arguing, so all of that time saved not verbally sparring can be spent on something else — something more primal, perhaps. Hmmm… it does make some sense — to men, I’m sure. 

I know that among many men the attributes most desirable in a woman are the three “B”s — namely, beauty, boobs and bucks. The fourth “B” — brains — is optional, depending entirely on the tastes of the man involved. I can imagine that boobs and beauty may be interchangeable in the hierarchy of male priorities. As in everything, it depends on personal taste. Bucks, too, can be done without, especially if the man already has big bucks and isn’t the miserly sort.  And if popular opinion would be factored in, at least in the no-strings romantic department, hot women with no brains can be prime commodities. But for argument’s sake, wouldn’t a brainy woman go for a brainy man, thereby diminishing the chances for the less mentally endowed dudes to score girls of their caliber? Meaning, an Average Joe may be lionized as an Einstein by a dumb blonde stereotype, right? Does it follow then that only Average Joes opt for the Dumb Doras of the world?

“You’d be surprised.” I remember one female professor telling me this in answer to this very question years ago. According to her it’s the smartest men who prefer “unintimidating” women. I asked her why and she said, “Because it’s tiring for men who have to engage in mental fencing with colleagues all day at work and come home to more mental fencing with smart spouses. I can imagine they would want to simply come home to a well-kept home where their great-looking partners are waiting with a smile and call it a day. Who would want to discuss the state of the nation after a hard day’s toil? And worse,” she continued, “can you imagine a man living in fear of being ‘found out’ day in and day out? That’s just stressful!”

“Found out in what way?” I asked her.

“Of his wife being smarter than him, after all. That’s the ultimate blow to the male ego.” 

It got me thinking: What about women? Do we want a man who isn’t all there mentally? Would it make life easier since we can manipulate him into doing what we want? But isn’t the ultimate aphrodisiac for a woman a man of power, someone engaging, someone fascinating, someone who can blow our minds, someone we can look up to and admire?

For women, the three counterpart “B” attributes most desirable in men are: bucks, brains and brawn. The order, predictably, can be switched around, again, depending on personal taste. In fact, we can dispense with brawn altogether. I mean, if a man has got brains and bucks, does he really have to have that six-pack too? I think that’s asking for the moon already. Let’s not be greedy. The fourth “B” (optional as well) is balls — because as long as a man has big bucks and brains with which to sustain the bucks and the brawn to keep a woman interested, balls aren’t all that necessary. He can be a coward for all she cares; he can always just hire bodyguards to protect them with all his bucks anyway. Also, when balls refers to one’s courage with respect to scoring women, that quality isn’t really necessary once a man has racked up the first two “B”s. With the brains to make megabucks, the ladies will do all the fishing so all he has to do is sit back, relax and bite whichever hook he wants.

My friend, Mischief, always jokes that women like him because of his pleasing personality. Just what the hell does he mean by that, and how important is it in the grand scheme of things? First of all, it doesn’t start with the letter “B,” which automatically disqualifies it from the list. Second, how do we define “pleasing”? Agreeable, conformist, solicitous, boring, or maybe even not-so-smart as to be argumentative? Therefore, we’re back to the issue of brains — to have or not to have?

Let’s face it: personality is not the first thing we see in a person. It is probably the last. What interests us at first are those front-and-center “B”s: bucks, brawn, beauty, and boobs. Brains remain optional. But what keeps us engaged, whether we admit it or not is, ultimately, personality — the need for it being inversely proportional to the “B”s. The more “B”s you have, the more accommodating your partner may be to your lack of personality; the less of them you have, the more pleasing your personality must be to compensate. As with everything, the most important “B” — balance — is key.

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 Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com.