> I have the (maybe romantic) theory, that attractivness is no universal scale, but a sign of individual fitting (filtered out deep inside, mainly via biochemic

> I have the (maybe romantic) theory, that attractivness is no universal scale, but a sign of individual fitting (filtered out deep inside, mainly via biochemical processing aka smell). Meaning a person you fell in love on first sight, is probably a good match. This seems like it must be at least partly true, but it's probably a complicated mix. We are genetically programmed (via evolution) to find certain things attractive. This could easily mean that somewhere in that genetic programming something "knows" that offspring with that person would do well (or it could mean that the genetic programming is broken because it was trained in a different environment than currently exists--we now have a larger pool of potential mates than previous generations did, for instance). There's also the possibility of green-beard type effects (eg a gene causes a perceptable trait and also a propensity to be attracted to that trait). That would mean that there's no real benefit to the organism to mating with someone attractive for that reason, there's only benefit to the gene that causes that. But yeah, if I were hypothetically looking for someone to procreate with, I'd certainly look for someone who looks and smells attractive to me (though that's also just going to make the process more fun). A lot of attractiveness is societal as well though, of course. We base what's attractive on what we see others attracted to, and on what we're sold. A lot of that is visual, so if you really want to trust your genes, smell might be the way to go.