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In my never-ending quest to make sense of a nonsensical world, this is the first post in what will be a series where I try to make logical and emotional sense of things that are viewed in myriad ways throughout the world.

The topic of beauty is a contentious one. It’s said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t go in for clichés, but I do happen to believe that particular cliché is reasonably bang on. How many times has a friend told you they’re attracted to someone only for you to pull that face? And vice versa? There’s always that little thing in mind where we wonder if those closest to us will see the same beauty in a person that we do.

What even is beauty though? I don’t think there’s a set answer to that question. In technical terms, the ‘Golden Ratio’ is what I’ve always understood to be beauty. The Golden Ratio is 1:1.6. The more that ratio appears across the human body the more beautiful that person is. In a beautiful leg, the lower part will be 1 to the upper part’s 1.6. Same with the arms. Same with the facial features. What a person looks like actually has little to do with it because it’s all about this ratio.

Of course, that’s just silly. It’s not unlikely that a person can be in perfect proportion according to the Golden Ratio yet look like the lovechild of Venus Williams and Iain Dowie. Beauty, in a non-technical sense, is very much about what we as individuals find visually, mentally, and emotionally appealing.

I’ve had my taste in women judged quite harshly by some down the years. I’ve never been one to feel drawn in by stereotypical beauty or by whatever FHM tells us are the best-looking women around. There’s always something more to it with me. Usually, one thing will draw me in about a woman. More often than not, it’s been her eyes and/or smile.

There have been those times, though, where I’m unsure myself what has captivated me about the person. In such circumstances, I assume it’s perhaps something in her personality or attitude that grips me. In a lot of cases, my attraction for them fades. In a few, it remains. It remains for years and years. There are one or two for whom the attraction hasn’t gone away at all since my youth.

Aesthetic beauty definitely does come in all forms for me. I’ve found myself physically drawn to a lot of women of varying shapes, sizes, and appearances. Some have been tall; some have been short; some have been slim; some have been large; some have been white; some have been black and all stops between; they have been blonde, brunette, redhead, even multicoloured. When I say I have no physical type I really do mean it. The only thing I really don’t find aesthetically pleasing is when a woman wears so much makeup that it dramatically alters her appearance. I find that deceptive and anything but beautiful.

Beauty, then, is something of a debatable subject for me. It would seem, by my yardstick, you’ve either got it or you haven’t and there’s no criteria for a person to meet. Luck of the draw I suppose (or unluck depending on which way you look at it).

Inner beauty is perhaps more contentious than physical beauty. Where does the line get drawn when it comes to that?

You could say that a person who possesses ‘good’ traits in abundance is a beautiful person. Someone who is kind, friendly, generous, selfless, empathetic, headstrong, independent, and so on. Even this comes down to personal perception though. Some may see a person as kind; others may see them as gullible or even guilty of buying people. Some may see a person as headstrong; others may see them as arrogant and stubborn. So, inner beauty is, again, something a person either sees in another or doesn’t. The same traits some might admire, others might loathe.

I’ve met people with similar characteristics and felt different things about them. I have a friend whose cousin is more or less the same as them in personality; I think my friend is ace, but I can’t really stand their cousin and it’s entirely to do with the delivery of the personality they each possess. You can have the same traits as other people and act them out in totally unique ways.

Couple the above with the aforementioned perception and we’re starting to get a handle on why people seem so different. When you think about it, there aren’t really that many character traits a person can have in comparison to the number of people there are on this planet, so how we all come to be so varied is actually astonishing. Variety in of itself is something pretty beautiful to me.

Beauty has no definite yardstick. It isn’t a thing in the physical sense; it’s more a thought process. It’s something you either see or you don’t. We all exude our beauty in an entirely original way and we all encounter beauty in a manner that is personal to us depending on our tastes. I’ve come across some truly beautiful people whilst blogging and I can say they’re beautiful in ways that no other person I’ve ever come across are. I’ve also come across some rather un-beautiful people and they never lasted too long as an entity in my blogging life. Luckily, they have been few.

My quest for beauty is endless. I think the quest for beauty is endless in all of us. We’re all looking for it in one form or another, whether it be in other people, fauna, flora, or objects. Beauty is everywhere because it’s an arbitrary thing that people either see or don’t see. I think that is pretty amazing. I think that is pretty beautiful!