Love and Cleopatra’s Nose

The French seventeenth-century philosopher Pascal once observed that, had Cleopatra’s nose been just a few millimetres shorter, the history of the world would have been very different. By which he meant that, had the Egyptian queen been a bit less physically attractive, she wouldn’t have been able to charm both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony as she did – and Roman (and world) history would have taken another course.

The remark highlights something central to the psychology of attraction: the extraordinary and absurdly large role that physical appearances can play in our decisions – how much of our proclivity for certain people is founded not on considerations of reason or logic but on the call of aesthetic urges; on how prone we are to saddle ourselves with certain hugely perplexing candidates simply because we cannot, in the end, quite resist the way they look.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves About Desire

It’s understandable if we might protest at the humiliation and silliness involved – and lie a little as a result. We may insist, as much to ourselves as to others, that it isn’t remotely Cleopatra’s profile that interests us; we are serious people, after all. We have deep motives at play: we’re fascinated by the queen’s interest in Nubian music, her mastery of multiple languages (Plutarch said she spoke nine) and respectful of her excellence at calligraphy. In explaining why we have begun or ended a relationship, we reach for noble-sounding explanations: we frame our choice with reference to political tastes, career goals or artistic sensibilities. What we may not be able to bear is the extent to which it is ultimately their grey-green eyes that powers our interest – how we might spend ten years with an otherwise maddening person because of their charming jawline, their sweetly crooked teeth or intriguing trace of down on their upper lip. Just as it might be a pair of curious ears, an overly long nose or a set of drooping shoulders that came between us and an otherwise extremely fitting candidate.

The Unruly Logic of the Psychology of Attraction

We know only too well – rationally – how sensible it would be to get together with certain people who promise us, on paper, a life of serenity and tenderness. We know that this or that suitor is extremely intelligent; we would like nothing more than to reciprocate their interest; we are profoundly touched by their messages; we appreciate how convenient their backgrounds are and how useful it is that they have elegant apartments and fascinating friends. But we also know, deep down, that we simply cannot look past their forehead or frame, eyebrows or legs. We might try to convince ourselves otherwise across a succession of dinner dates before, finally, giving up after another strained kiss in the hallway. Just as we may be unable to keep away from the person we met at the nightclub who has none of the qualities we would ever need but whose hips we cannot get out of our minds.

Kingsley Amis compared a lifetime of having a libido to being ‘chained to an idiot’. We might add that the best way to cope with this knucklehead – who drags us to parts of town we shouldn’t be in, who sets up marriages that torment us and who makes us shed tears over ingrates we should have forgotten instantly – is to accept their dominion with grace.

We should, with Cleopatra’s Roman suitors in mind, be a little less ashamed of our buffoonery. Love is – despite our sensible hopes – an incontrovertibly daft enterprise that pushes us towards people and situations we would never have given time to, were it not for drives and motives that lie far outside our conscious control. The psychology of attraction ensures that we have no option but to do a succession of mad things in the name of noses that secretly charm us; we shouldn’t add to our follies by pretending that we could ever conclusively escape them.