The Attractives and Everyone Else

If given the choice, would you prefer to be well loved and respected by only members of the opposite sex that you find physically attractive, but loathed by everyone else including your current friends, family and co-workers (unless you find any of them attractive), or would you rather be loved by a great many people around the globe... just no one you'd ever want to sleep with?

I've asked this question to a growing number of people and I'm getting nearly the same reaction each time. Each person I ask says something like, "Ooo, that's a goooood question." They hem and haw and ask for clarifications that don't matter. After a few moments each person I ask decide they would rather be loved and respected by everyone else on Earth except for attractive people.

Many people, it seems, believe that caring only if attractive people love and respect them is the shallow answer and taking the favor of "everyone else" is the virtuous answer.

Is taking "the field" really all that virtuous or just superficially virtuous? Why would anyone choose to be loved by everyone except the attractives? There are numbers in it, of course. Lots more people will like you. I have a friend that used to throw parties and invite as many people as he knew. When they all arrived, he ended up ignoring most of them opting instead to be with the small group that he really wanted to be with. My friend nevertheless considered these parties a success despite his ignoring nearly everyone based on their having showed up in the first place.

Quantity over quality.

When has choosing quantity over quality ever been seen a virtuous. Gluttonous perhaps, but not virtuous. Most of us would love to be loved by only those we found attractive, but we also know that we're excluding a large percentage of people by choosing that way. If I choose "the field," everyone else except attractive people, I imagine intelligence, happiness, simplicity, safety and familiarity. I imagine my family, great thinkers, fatsos with dynamite personalities and all my ugly friends who make me laugh. I am not, however, thinking more specifically than that. When I think of attractive people that would suddenly love me, my girlfriend, that one coffee shop barista and Mandy Moore all snap into focus, I grab onto specific people. We know what we're getting with the attractives, but not with the other. Is that virtuous?

Does virtue lie in the way we see things or in the number of things we see?