If you want to attract a mate, surround yourself with friends, research shows that people are more attractive when part of a group. Scientists at the University of California showed volunteers pictures of 100 men and women and asked them to rate their attractiveness. Sometimes the photograph was cropped to show the subject alone, but when they were pictured with two other people, or even in a collage of other portraits, they received higher scores. Scientists believe that when we see several faces at once, our brain “averages out” their features and in so doing softens any jarring individual traits. “Average faces are more attractive, likely due to the averaging out of unattractive idiosyncrasies,” said Dr Drew Walker. “Individuals with complementary facial features – one person with narrow eyes and one person with wide eyes, for example – would enjoy a greater boost in perceived attractiveness when seen together. (The Times, London)

So that’s where I went wrong in my youth! I never knew enough people to be photographed with. Oh, well, Epicurus seemed to get on perfectly well without being photographed amid a mass of people, and he liked one-on-one dialogues with serious ladies, for whom attraction and dating were not priorities. Sensible Epicureans don’t fall for these more silly scientific studies; they rely on sense of humor.