Dear Dr. Happy,
I am a 22-year-old average-looking guy with champagne-tastes in women. What’s happening over and over is that the women attracted to me don’t physically appeal to me while the ones that do won’t give me the time of day. I’m a college graduate, have a career, and I’ve been told I’m a nice guy. Dr. Happy, what can I do to attract the beautiful women I am drawn to?
Frustrated
Dear Frustrated,
Physical appearance is a major attraction to people your age. Let me relate this to happiness. Hedonic happiness and romantic love are similar in that both create a powerful punch; however, neither lasts. Much more significant, and in the long-run, important for lasting happiness and enduring relationships are Eudaimonic (inner derived) happiness and mature (lasting) love. What you need now, Frustrated, is to begin paying less attention to the physical appearance of your potential partners and more to qualities like kindness, intelligence, depth, personality and compassion. In the long run, it is what’s inside a person that means much more to your life satisfaction than what’s on the outside; outer beauty fades but inner beauty lasts.