Dating someone who is not very smart

Who cares if it's a troll?

We'll never know if it's true. That doesn't mean that the discussion isn't worthwhile.

I meant to write "if I were."

Disclaimer, English is not my native language so perhaps Spelling and Grammer will cut me some slack, arigato beaucoup.

800 dude wrote:

The reason I asked about HLS was because I find it frustrating that it's so hard to know who's smart and who isn't. If you look around a crowded room at a bar or party, the only way you can discriminate is by looks. I think it would be very appealing to be in a dating pool in which every woman is intelligent and educated.

In light of your follow-up: I once went to an "All-Ivy" speed-dating event. (For those who don't know, you meet with about ten individuals for a few minutes each, and then submit a secret ballot about which ones you would like to meet again. If both of you pick each other, you're notified and given contact information. Invitations to this particular event went out only to graduates of a few universities, so you could assume a certain level of formal education and certain background commonalities.) During a break in the proceedings, as we were standing around chatting, one woman with a master's degree from Harvard said that she had participated in one of these speed-dating things, but "some of the men didn't even have college degrees." I thought for a few seconds, and then said, "I don't think I've ever dated a woman with a college degree." She was a bit taken aback, and then stated somewhat icily, "Well, I guess men and women are just looking for different things." We weren't a match.

Thinking back, I realize that my statement to her wasn't quite accurate. But it did reflect my general belief -- which may be absolutely, totally, completely incorrect, and cannot possibly compete with the collective experiences of others with different views -- that a shared level of formal education isn't particularly important.

As I see it, you know that the relationship isn't going anywhere, but you enjoy it. She, on the other hand, might be falling in love with you. So, to avoid possibly causing a lot of pain, you have an obligation to let her know that you don't see the relationship as one that for the really long term. She might break up with you (perhaps what you're after), or she might take the "it's fine while it lasts" approach (in which case she might be around at other times in the future when you're not in a relationship). But, I feel not letting her know is stringing her along.

For the last sixty posts or so, I've been assuming that original poster is female, and is pondering her relationship with a male. If my assumption is correct, does that cause you to view the situation a little differently, even if your bottom line might remain unchanged?

Not really - it likely changes the math a bit, but the morality of stringing someone along is no different.

800 dude wrote:

The reason I asked about HLS was because I find it frustrating that it's so hard to know who's smart and who isn't. If you look around a crowded room at a bar or party, the only way you can discriminate is by looks. I think it would be very appealing to be in a dating pool in which every woman is intelligent and educated.

Here's a question for the other "snobs" like me: how would you feel about dating someone significantly more intelligent than you? (I suppose this isn't exactly the inverse situation, because if you're already pretty smart/educated, anyone who CLEARLY has a leg up on you would be in extremely rare company.)

As a former PhD candidate in engineering at the top school in my field, I would wager that there are plenty of people that are significantly more intelligent than you within a one mile radius of you right now. Your attitude, like that of many 'smart' people, fails to acknowledge that social skills and emotional intelligence are very real. Plenty of those girls you believe to be stupid won't date a bookworm with the undeserved superiority complex. They want a guy with much greater social intelligence than you. Don't believe me? Walk into that bar or party and tell every girl there your SAT score.

Go hang out at Harvard Law School and you'll see that LSAT scores and social skills aren't correlated to each other. Plenty of gifted scholars are downright unbearable. If that isn't immediately apparent to you, then you're probably on the wrong side of the social skills bell curve, and you aren't smart enough (emotionally or socially) to get the attractive women with high IQs let alone middling IQ's that know how to treat their men right.

That said, no one should ever marry someone they consider stupid. That's a recipe for disaster.

800 dude: The reason I asked about HLS was because I find it frustrating that it's so hard to know who's smart and who isn't. If you look around a crowded room at a bar or party, the only way you can discriminate is by looks.

Or by talking with them, or even overhearing a minute of conversation, no? You also can't tell who smells good or cooks well or shares your cultural likes and dislikes from just looking at 'em.

I think it would be very appealing to be in a dating pool in which every woman is intelligent and educated.

I won't disagree there. Though my own preferred crowd of smart, cultured chicks would be comprised of more lit professors and artists than law students.

nsmb wrote:

800 dude: The reason I asked about HLS was because I find it frustrating that it's so hard to know who's smart and who isn't. If you look around a crowded room at a bar or party, the only way you can discriminate is by looks.

Or by talking with them, or even overhearing a minute of conversation, no? You also can't tell who smells good or cooks well or shares your cultural likes and dislikes from just looking at 'em.

I think it would be very appealing to be in a dating pool in which every woman is intelligent and educated.

I won't disagree there. Though my own preferred crowd of smart, cultured chicks would be comprised of more lit professors and artists than law students.

Yeah, I guess my point is that because intelligence is the trait that interests me more than any other, I wish I could identify it easily, and then spend some time in conversation learning more about the person. "Frustrating" was bad word choice. Not really what I meant.

The reason I asked about law students was out of self-interest. I'm going to law school next year.

I'm more interested in having a conversation about a topic that interests me than in arguing about my social skills. Go ahead and play internet psychologist if you want.

I'm also not sure why your educational background would give you the confidence to tell me how smart I am (and how densely populated my neighborhood is). If you want to drop credentials, I scored 180 on my LSAT. All the same, I know that doesn't make me a genius. I've met people with intellectual capabilities that make me dizzy, and I know there's a difference between them and me. There aren't a lot of them out there, though.

Voice of reason.... wrote:

[quote]Not a bad person but... wrote:

When we talk, at first it was cute to hear the mispronounced words, now it annoys me.

...

We get along well, don't fight, have this amazing physical connection but mentally are in a different world.

It will not work out long term.

quote]

_______________________________________________________

Exactly. Get laid. Have fun, and know that you can not be long term with this person. It will never work.

Trust me on this one.

Avacadoes Number, you enjoy feeling superior intellectually. This is why you subconsciously prefer simple minds in your women, and also partially explains why you hang around this message board.

Avocados Number wrote:

nsmb wrote:

Because most younger female posters go to so much trouble to hide their own gender.

Good point.

I'm actually very interested in this subject. I tend to be attracted to gorgeous but not very bright women. I also find that many smarter but not flat-out brilliant women (and men) aren't as bright as they think they are, whereas less intelligent women and -- especially -- those with less formal education and who come from families with less formal education are often charmingly humble.

You, on the other hand, Avacados Number, are not charmingly humble.

"Dating someone who is not very smart"

So you're dating a woman?

Rak wrote:

"Dating someone who is not very smart"

So you're dating a woman?

Boom!

whodat wrote:

You, on the other hand, Avacados Number, are not charmingly humble.

1. Did he say he was?

2. Is humility a virtue?

3. Why don't you try to be uncomfortably honest with us?

Someone said they can't tell who bright people are by looking at them. That's surprising, I can usually tell how smart people are just by watching them talk for a bit (it can be about anything). I think it has to do with how their eyes move, I'm not sure.

Someone else asked how you'd feel about dating someone smarter than you. One of the nice things about life is that you can usually find something that someone else is smarter than you at. In high school (a long time ago at this point) I dated a girl who was spectacular at writing and understanding poetry, but calculus sometimes frustrated her to tears. I didn't think she was dumb for being mediocre at calculus, and she didn't think I was dumb for being mediocre at writing. I mean, she definitely thought I was dumb, but for other reasons. :)

wepmad wrote:

whodat wrote:

You, on the other hand, Avacados Number, are not charmingly humble.

1. Did he say he was?

2. Is humility a virtue?

3. Why don't you try to be uncomfortably honest with us?

1. No, he did not, nor did I assert that he said he was.

2. That is a matter of opinion, but I guess one could glean that Avacados Number finds humility to be charming at times, whether virtuous or not.

3. Why would being honest be uncomfortable? I would be more likely to be uncomfortable if I were engaging in deception.