Study asks: Where are the hottest guys in the USA? If I told you the answer, you wouldn’t believe me.

When the American singer Connie Francis sang the popular song “Where The Boys Are”  way back in 1961, she was singing about her special Spring Break in a wild Florida town called Fort Lauderdale, but here we are, over 50 years later, and while there are still plenty of beautiful young college guys and girls who hit the Florida coast in early spring, the truth is that the guys — the sexy really good-looking ones ages 18 through 24 — are actually about 1200 miles north in a small New Jersey town called South Plainfield — and they all work in the same supermarket.  

The results of a poll taken by volunteer graduate students — young women and college-age gay men throughout the state of New Jersey determined beyond the shadow of a doubt that the one place in the New Jersey — or perhaps the entire USA — with the “hottest guys per square foot” — no I am not joking — is an A&P (now ACME) supermarket in South Plainfield and one small wine shop in the seaside town of Avalon, New Jersey. (See last two paragraphs)

According to a poll taken by Dr. Helen LaVista — a  relatively unknown research physician in the field of Facial Aesthetics and Perceived Male Beauty – a very average supermarket in a very average American city is the home to the most attractive young college-age men in the State of New Jersey.

Dr. LaVista’s study started out as a bit of whimsy on the part of some of some young women who asked if there were concentrations of attractive men in the USA.  That was then and this is now,and after three years a simple question it has morphed into a full blown investigation which initailly involved as many as 1400 volunteers — 700 young women  and 700 gay men, all ages 21-24.  And what started out as a search for male beauty led straight to an A&P supermarket in a town that is essentially known for nothing in particular.

“I went over the data which was purely subjective at the time,” said Dr. LaVista.  I had 1400 reports before me and I assumed that I would get reports where male beauty was found in college towns or at beaches where the young men are historically known to be attractive — at least that’s the way I saw things when I was a young girl. 

“What we found, however, was that a supermarket in South Plainfield, New Jersey had over 70 mentions as having the most physically attractive college-age young men. 

“This seemed rather strange to me because New Jersey has plenty of places where a young lady or a young man can find male beauty, but to see the same A&P supermarket listed by 70 of my volunteers seemed terribly out of proportion.  This led us to step up the study a notch and we chose 22 specific locations  throughout New Jersey where we had 3,000 volunteers make a more intimate determination. 

“One of the locations that was assigned was the A&P in question but none of the new volunteers knew that the A&P was the place we were actually targeting.

“The results, seven months later, were astounding.  From 3,000 volunteers — a mixture of gay men and young women — that same A&P supermarket received 1300 notations as having the most attractive guys.  The odds against that were astronomical.  How could one small spot attract so many young men who were so physically attractive?”

Dr. LaVista was further surprised when she learned that the supermarket was not simply a place where attractive young men lived and shopped — it had nothing to do with that.  The A&P was where the best looking young men in New Jersey worked!   They were not shoppers.  They were employees.

So, after careful analysis, Dr. LaVista determined that the area in New Jersey with the best looking college guys per square foot was an ordinary A&P supermarket in New Jersey.  Dr. LaVista compared her work to the work of others in her field and she determined further that this A&P might be the place with the best looking young men per square foot in the entire USA.  That fact is awaiting further investigation.

“South Plainfield is about as ordinary a town as you can get but I soon realized that what I was dealing with here is something called the ‘Gilchrist Phenomenon’ because had the young men simply been shoppers or customers, one could easily make the mistake in that this store had been built in an  area where the young men were very attractive, but when we saw that they were all employed in the store, we knew we were staring in the face of a known situation where managment  in charge of hiring were indeed hiring only beautiful young men. 

“This kind of thing happens all the time and is a subject of much controversy at stores like Abercrombie and Fitch and Gap.  They want attractive men around their attractive products and I assume that is a totally natural marketing gimmick, but what good could come from hiring young men with male-model good looks for work in a supermarket ? Well,  that’s where the very reliable Gilchrist Phenomenon takes center stage. 

“We did not pry any deeper into this other than to note that whomever it is that does the hiring at this location is either a good judge of male beauty or an admirer of male beauty or someone who is unaware that they are doing this — a subconscious lover of male beauty.

A subsequent and very thorough investigation of the store by ten of our volunteers ( 6 women and 4 men) determined that from 20 male employees of college age or assumed to be of college age, 16 were determined by our volunteers to be ‘hotties.’   Please note that hotties was the choice word of the volunteer’s.  It’s their word, not mine, but if the word for a college age young man who draws the physical admiration of a few thousand researchers is ‘hottie’ then that’s the word we will use. 

“So with that I can say that the single place in New Jersey with the most ‘hotties” is the A&P supermarket in South Plainfield, New Jersey.  I would be very interested to know who actually hires these handsome guys but we did not pry into any of that information and we did not take any photographs of anyone.  This was all done by sight and by note taking. 

” We are not accusing any man or women of using sexual attraction as means by which a young man is hired for a job, but it’s a very interesting case of the Gilchrist Phenomenon and certainly worthy of more study.”

If anyone is interested, second place in Dr. LaVista’s study was awarded to a small wine shop in Avalon, New Jersey where over 90 volunteers listed an employee named Chris — a cashier or perhaps store manager — to be the second “hottest” guy in all of New Jersey.

“We did indeed get a lot of votes for a young man who works at Fred’s Liquors in Avalon, NJ,” said Dr. LaVista.  “We only know that his name is Chris Romos or Christopher Romo, and that he is a painter and sketch artist.  According to one of our spotters, ‘He’s tall and that he has dark hair and striking blue eyes and he speaks with a deep, manly voice.’ 

Originally our volunteers had misinformation and it was wrongly determined that Avalon, New Jersey itself was a hot spot — so to speak — but in reality the votes went to this one employee who works behind the register.  Imagine that!  One entire posh seaside resort and most of the volunteers honed in on one young man — a guy who works in a liquor store —  and anointed him to be the most attractive in a study that included THOUSANDS of young men.  It’s very odd…very odd.”

Dr. LaVista will be publishing more results in late September 2013.  If anyone who participated in this study would like to talk to TheDamienZone.com, we’d like to hear from you — and tells us which supermarket has the best looking women — just kidding.  But we would like to hear from folks who participated in the study.