It can't be
too silly of a thread, or else I wouldn't be writing my 500th post here.
I think the simplest answer to your question is that there isn't really one answer. Guys are all the same in a lot of ways, but what they look for in a girl isn't one of them.
The best "guy insight" I can give is that there are many different "types" of attraction. You mentioned many of them. Appearence, character, and personality are all factors. The tricky part is that guys can put radically different weights on each factor. It's difficult to rate one's self on these types of things, but I think I weight the three about the same.
As far as the smarts question, I don't really know the answer. I wouldn't look for someone smarter than myself because I want to actually find someone. (That's a joke
)
If what you say is true, it's probably because even though chivalry is dead, as they say, a lot of guys still want to feel like they are there to help, protect, lead and generally be an Aragorn kind of character. It is their (or our - I'm not quite sure which camp I'm in) version of the universal desire to feel needed. If a girl is always doing things that remind this sort of guy that she is the smarter of the two, it could make him feel that he is not really worth much after all. Guys tend to have large but easily deflated egos.
So after all that rambling, here are the things that attract me, based on the most attractive girls I've met. Maybe at the end you can do a statistical analysis of all the answers you get and write a book and become rich. (I have to make this long in celebration of 500 posts. Did I mention that already?):
Appearance:
Blond, reddish-brown, brown, or black hair.
Blue, green, brown, or black eyes.
Between 4' 8" and 6'
Nice smile.
Character:
Comitted Christian
Confident
Honest
Humility is a big one for me. It shouldn't be an attitude of "everyone is better than I am," but "I shouldn't treat anyone as if they are lower than I am."
Personality:
Quiet to moderately talkative.
Likes: Outdoors activities, music, arts, kids.
Optimist
Two final thoughts: I know you can find similar threads from months past, because this is an issue that never dies. So you might be able to get some insight there. Second, this has taken me such a long time to write that I'm sure there have been other posts by now, but when I started there were none. So if this post seems out of place or order, that is the reason.
There, I'm done.
