This is obvious but I can’t help commenting.

1. If you don’t consider yourself attractive, you don’t post your photo on your profile. Instead you use some clever avatar.

2. If you think you are unattractive except in specific photos, you choose a photo that makes you look as attractive as possible. There are tons of people who are not hot who have profile photos that look hot.

3. If you consider yourself attractive, you always post your photo everywhere. Flickr, for example, is full of self-portraits by pretty people.

It’s #2 that I find most interesting. People want other people to think they are hot, even if they are not hot. I consider myself in this category too!

For many, many people seeming to be hot is the next best thing to actually being hot.

Let me add that I’m not a shallow, superficial person and I don’t really care if people are hot or not. It’s hardly a noble attribute. In fact, it confuses me how important it is to some people.

So here is my question to you: would you rather be ridiculously hot and of average intelligence or ridiculously intelligent and of average hotness?

An unrelated question: would you rather be rich and unhappy or poor and happy?