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[...] but back in grad school Annie told me that there are three types of attractive men. I don’t know if she came up with this taxonomy herself, if Aphrodite announced it to her in a dream, or if she stole it from Teen Vogue, but here they are:
There is the cute type, which consists of guys who are attractive in a nonthreatening, accessible way, as a combination of their nice looks and captivating personalities. Tim falls into this group, just like Guy and most male scientists—including, I suspect, Pierre Curie. Come to think of it, all the guys who ever hit on me do, perhaps because I’m small, and dress quirky, and try to be friendly. If I were a dude, I’d be a Cute Guy™; Cute Guys™ recognize that at some elemental level, and they make passes at me.
Then there’s the handsome type. According to Annie, this category is a bit of a waste. The Handsome Guy™ has the kind of face you see in movie trailers and perfume ads, geometrically perfect and objectively amazing, but there’s something inaccessible about him. Those guys are so dreamy, they’re almost abstract. They need something to anchor them to reality—a personality quirk, a flaw, a circumscribed interest—otherwise they’ll float away in a bubble of boredom. Of course, society doesn’t exactly encourage Handsome Guys™ to develop brilliant personalities, so I tend to concur with Annie: they’re useless.
Last but not least, the Sexy Guys™. Annie would go on and on about how Levi is the epitome of the Sexy Guy™, but I’d like to formally object. In fact, I don’t even acknowledge the existence of this category. It’s preposterous, the idea that there are men you can’t help yourself from being attracted to. Men who give you the tingles, men you can’t stop thinking about, men who pop up in your brain like flashes of light after stimulation of the occipital cortex. Men who are physical, elemental, primordial. Masculine. Present. Solid. Sounds fake, right?
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