Face or Body?

I'll wax wise for just a moment here and say that the face IS part of the body. I don't see that the two can be separated. This isn't the French Revolution.

I'll cite Natalie Portman as a case study of my ideal. Dark hair, petite body, great smile. And then she shaved her head and suddenly became very unattractive to me.

Short boyish hair is an extreme negative that totally kills attraction for me. But on the other hand there's no attraction to an obese girl with long beautiful hair either. So I guess there's just a range of attraction, and any extreme negatives in the beholder's eyes can kill it.

But this really is all moot. When it comes to being attracted to a REAL person in the real world there are an infinite number of factors and attributes, positive and negative, both physical and intangible that all matter to a greater or lesser extent whether you can delineate them on a cookie cutter bulleted list or not. You can't build yourself the perfect partner. You find someone with enough positives that matter to you and accept the whole package.

I can't say with certainty "This I'm attracted to. That I'm not." except in certain extremes and generalities. For me, there's a range of physical attraction and it really is personality, intelligence, honesty, maturity etc. that make or break a relationship and attraction. *

But if I have to answer the original topic's dichotomy, a pretty face counts the most. I can be melted by a great smile. And pony tails are nice.

* Of course, if your life's mission is to get as much tail as possible please disregard the previous.

Jam it back in, in the dark.