Too handsome to be a bad guy?

A young woman had been brutally murdered. Investigations ensued. Details emerged. A suspect was arrested and arraigned in court.

Social media went alight. Amidst the shock and horror of a woman’s throat being slit from ear to ear, another detail stood out in equal prominence: A lot of the comments pointed out that the suspect was extremely handsome.

“I remember pointing this out to my husband,” says Joanne Karimi, a systems administrator at an international firm.“ But in light of what he is being accused of, why on earth are we going on about how he looks? Why does it matter?

And then I was having a conversation with a female colleague and after we played jury for a few minutes she exclaimed, ‘Heh, but he is so hot!’ The tone in which she said it seemed to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, whether he did it or not, at least he has that one ‘good’ thing going for him.”

Angela Achola, an associate lawyer at a Nairobi firm, argues that in such instances, people are unknowingly responding to a subliminal image painted in their heads.

“We’ve been brought up to put people in boxes,” she says. “Even as children when we were reading fairy tales, the villain looked scruffy and mean and the hero was clean and kind. In this recent case, I don’t think people’s response meant that he is too handsome for the crime. It was more, ‘We are shocked because he doesn’t fit the profile. He looks like a decent guy. He doesn’t look mean. We are going to need some more convincing to believe these accusations’. Like it or not, people do make assumptions about someone depending on looks.”

A SOFT SPOT FOR ‘SHINY’ THINGS

Attractiveness bias is the tendency to assume that people who are physically attractive also possess socially desirable traits. According to this theory, we are subconsciously drawn to and have a preference for whatever society has determined to be pleasant, beautiful and fulfilling, be it babies, landscapes, jewellery, flowers, shiny gadgets, etc.

The same preference is extended to people who possess standards that are upheld by society such as wealth, class and beauty.

“The one way I can relate to this is by something I go through in my neighbourhood,” says Sharon W, a 28-year-old software developer.

“When the security guards say hey to me or want to chit chat, I get irritated or offended. I do this subconsciously, almost as a knee jerk reaction. It is only after I have cringed and walked away that I become aware of my reaction and I feel guilty. But when a good-looking guy drives by in a nice car and he smiles and he says hallo, I am receptive to that.”

Sharon says that a few days ago, a car pulled by her at the bus stage. It was early on a Sunday morning and she was the only passenger waiting for a matatu.

“This white Mercedes pulls over. I watch him as he buys a newspaper and notice he is really cute. I don’t think about it anymore. Then he jerks his head out of the window and asks me if I want a ride to town. I think about it for a split second – he has just driven out of my neighbourhood so he is technically a neighbour, so he is safe, I think. Besides he just looks like a nice guy. So I get in.”

Sharon admits that she get offered lifts on many occasions.

“But I just don’t get into any car. I usually get a sense of who ‘feels’ and ‘looks’ right and who doesn’t. My instincts have never failed me as nothing bad has ever happened to me. But my best friend is always telling me to stop doing that. In fact she flips on me.”

She however adds that she is aware that when you get to know them, the cute guy in the Mercedes is probably, in her words, ‘a douche’ and the guard at the gate is probably a really good man.

“But then again, let’s look at it this way; the security guard cat-calls me, but the guy in the car is courteous and refined. In all honesty, who do you think I am more likely to be receptive towards?”

ATTRACTIVENESS VS. REAL VALUE

When it comes to relationships, research shows that the attractiveness bias serves its purpose in two ways; one, it is the rationale that points us to people we are attracted to and two, being in a relationship with someone you are attracted to is beneficial.

However, just like in advertising, a product’s design and packaging only serves to pull your attention to it.

It takes using the product over a period of time to truly determine its value.

“Essentially, that’s why people go on dates, to get to determine the others real value,” Marceline Atieno, a 33-year-old business woman notes.

“I don’t think there is something wrong with wanting to be with someone who meets all the physical and material traits that I like – I have to sleep with this person and we have to eat,” she laughs.

“I suppose the problem would be not taking the time to find out what else they are about. He can tick all the right boxes in the beginning but you know, serial killers use their charm to lure their victims, eh?”

True to her word, Ted Bundy was one of the most prolific serial killers in American history; he confessed to 30 homicides but the true number of his victims is unknown and thought to be higher.

What shocked the public about him was not only did look like the ‘all-American-boy-next-door’, he was also an honours student in college. His surviving victims described him as handsome and charismatic, and a biography by a friend and former colleague (aptly titled ‘The Stranger Beside Me’) describes him as having been ‘kind, solicitous and empathetic’.

UNMASKING THE CHARMING STRANGER

Jules*, a 39-year-old foreign national who has lived in Kenya for 10 years says that the things he found strange about the dating scene in Kenya was that there was ‘no concept of dating’.

“I would take a girl out for coffee and then she would get angry that I went out on a date with another girl. I was 30. I was dating.

Just because we went out on a coffee date does not mean we are exclusive. I don’t know you well enough to be your boyfriend. You don’t know me

well enough either. We are just attracted to each other. Where is the part where we take time to know each other, to see what lurks underneath the

skin?”

To drive the point home, he reveals that one of the things that define his personality, but one that is not obvious at first glance, is the fact that he suffers from bipolar disorder.

“Obviously I don’t lead with this on dates. But I am not trying to hide it either. The revelation calls for a balance in timing and a certain sense of comfort with someone. Being with someone who has a chronic mental illness requires a certain level of commitment.

This is something I will have for the rest of my life and anyone who gets into a relationship with me has to be sure they are ready to deal with, quite literally, the highs and the lows.

Luckily, right now I have girlfriend who took the time to understand what being in a relationship with me might entail before we decided to give it a try.

Before I met her, I used to get the sense that some girls brushed this information aside. They weren’t really interested in knowing me like that. To them I was just this foreign dude they wanted to be in a relationship with.”

Karimi, the systems admin, admits that when it comes to relationships, we do have to tendency, as the cliché goes, “to judge the book by its cover and ignore the fine print.”

She says, “And I think this is why people get into relationships and they are like, oh, he has changed. Or you hear them say things like, how could he leave such a beautiful woman, or, they are such a beautiful couple, how could they have problems? Because at some point in the relationship, the chapters of the book unfold and all of a sudden you realise this outwardly beautiful person has unhealed emotional trauma; that he might have some abusive tendencies; that he might not be such as nice guy after all.”