“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
(Miss Piggy, The Muppets)

Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships; Cleopatra held Mark Anthony in her thrall; they were, by all accounts beautiful women.

But what is Beauty? Is it only skin deep?

There are hundreds of internet dating sites, and hundreds and thousands of people using them. Everything from specific religion dating sites, gays, lesbians, and men (and women) in uniform sites!

But now, recently launched is an online dating site only for beautiful people.  Beautifulpeople.com was created several years ago in Denmark, and has expanded to include several other countries – USA, UK and Japan to name a few.

Only about one in five applicants to join the site are successful; new applicants must submit a photo of themselves and the existing members decide, on a rating basis (yes, no or maybe) whether or not they can join.

Is this shallow?

You cannot deny that the initial attraction to someone, whether you meet them in a pub, club or at work, is based on how they look.  So why not use that as a method to weed out the unwanted types online?

Because, beauty is subjective; my best friend loves men with hooked noses!!! I don’t, so if a hooked nosed man wanted to join a ‘beautiful people’ site, I would give him a thumbs down and she would do the opposite!

Not everyone is photogenic.  Some people look awful in photographs how ever attractive they are in the flesh.  I have a very good friend…we spent many weekends together over the years; but I did not meet her family until the day she got married. Undoubtedly photographs had been handed around, and believe me I am the most un-photogenic person in the world. When introduced to my friend’s father his first words were “Oh, you are better looking than I thought you were.” Now there’s a backhanded compliment if ever I heard one!

Conversely, a member might post a beautiful photograph, but when you meet him/her in the flesh, you find they are not as attractive as you expected....they just look better in the air-brushed photo version.

And you do have to have an ego; to sign on to a site like that, you have to really believe you are beautiful.  In my experience, the most beautiful people I have ever met, male or female, have been totally unaware of this – largely because beauty is the surface manifestation of your soul.

But the website directors believe that the site saves time…if you want a beautiful date, why waste time trolling through lots of ugly people profiles.

“Beautifulpeople.com simply removes the 'first hurdle' as every member is exactly that; 'Beautiful' as deemed so by their peers”.

However, being accepted to the site and having your beauty confirmed is not enough – you have to stay beautiful.  The website, which boasts over 550,000 members worldwide recently ‘kicked off’ some 5,000 members when it became apparent from their profiles, that they had put on weight over the festive period.  They were moved back to the rating stage and asked to re-apply…. only a few hundred passed the test.  The others were sent details of dieting and fitness clubs.
They have all been encouraged to apply again once they have their looks back!

Is there a moral to this story? Not really, just that maybe we all place too much importance on looks.

_{photo by Sabina Rich}