post hoc ergo propter hoc? or...

...don't you wish your boy/girlfriend was hot like me? or beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

so on saturday, watching some firemen do their stuff during a fire drill, a coworker asks me "why is it that all firemen are hot?"

i thought for a second, and my answer to her was that whether or not they are objectively hot they become hot by virtue of being firemen. that is, same guy, dressed the exact same way, talks to a girl in a bar. she asks what he does, he says "fireman". he's instantly hotter than an actuary (no offense to actuaries intended or implied, it's just that there's a reason the marlboro man doesn't wear a green eye shade and sit at a computer).

i've long had a corollary theory that women in new york are generally hotter by virtue of being new yorkers than if they look the same, are dressed the same and in d.c. or philly or boston. something about the way they carry themselves, the nyc style...that i'm starting to develop a similar thing about san fran women as well drives home the point that it's all context, the people we find attractive.

and this is a different thing than what makes a better long-term partner, explored by leah over at agirlandaboy. i'm talking feel it in your guts/loins hot.

there's a related thing having to do with bollywood romances, but this post is toolongalready and i'm too tired from a long 5 days of work and too little sleep, a soccer game in which i played crappy in net and sprained a finger.