Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is an excellent post! I married someone who is far more educated and cultured than I am. I often refer to him as a walking encyclopedia. There have been times, I have felt a little inferior or insecure. He has told me he likes my wit, finds me intelligent and fun. One thing I have noticed over the years is that I definitely have more common sense! So I suppose we even out at some point!
Conversations are very important to me, so if I can't enjoy a good conversation with an open range of topics, we are dead in the water. I'm always curious, always out to learn new things, and very stimulated by the things I learn. I like to talk and share ideas about various topics. I've met less than a handful in my life. Really sad.
So yes, intelligence, with the love to learn new things is important to me. If your entire world is just sports and reality TV, we most likely will not get along.
Is that the purpose of your marriage? You got married to a genius to have profound intellectual conversations all the time? Is it all you and your husband do?
I am not looking for that in relationship. I have all the intellectual stimulation I need in college and at work.
The purpose of OUR marriage is to build a life with a compatible companion and partner. If I weren't intellectually stimulated by my partner, and vice versa, we wouldn't hold one another's interest for long. All marriages are different, as different as the people in them.
Kinda funny how everyone here fancies themselves as intelligent when we know that isn't the case. Fine, I'll be the first to step up to the plate and call myself a dumbass. At least I'm easy on the eyes and that's way more important!
Kinda funny how everyone here fancies themselves as intelligent when we know that isn't the case. Fine, I'll be the first to step up to the plate and call myself a dumbass. At least I'm easy on the eyes and that's way more important!
Hahaha... The first two pages were people blabbing about their IQs and degrees. The next two were people who seemed to think they were the less intelligent of the two. The rest has gone the typical CD way. Which is to say, the relationship forum is ruled by people who like to nitpick generalizations while they share some decrepit example of how they don't fit "the mold".
There are many annoying things about visiting the relationship forum and the people who incessantly post on it. But one thing I'll say is that so far, I haven't seen any genuine "dumbasses".
Hahaha... The first two pages were people blabbing about their IQs and degrees. The next two were people who seemed to think they were the less intelligent of the two. The rest has gone the typical CD way. Which is to say, the relationship forum is ruled by people who like to nitpick generalizations while they share some decrepit example of how they don't fit "the mold".
There are many annoying things about visiting the relationship forum and the people who incessantly post on it. But one thing I'll say is that so far, I haven't seen any genuine "dumbasses".
LOL... really.... this forum has a disproportion amount of dumbasses.... LOL..... I'm almost flabbergasted you said that....
Interestingly, over the decades (having lived and traveled all over the U.S. over the decades), I have, at varied times throughout the years, met persons who presently attended or already had degrees from some of the most prominent highly-selective name universities and colleges (e.g., Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pennsylvania. Cornell University, Harvard University, New York University, Boston University, and a host of others) and yet who impressed me as rather inarticulate less-than-capable communicators, lacking in intellectual rigor, rather unworldly, sometimes even ignorant or rather lacking in overall common sense and wisdom about dealing with life-at-large, quite lacking in good writing ability (i.e., their expressiveness, their grammar, their spelling), et al. And it used to really surprise me to encounter this phenomenon . . . as you’d think that, to get into such renowned institutions of higher learning, one must have a very well-developed mind and intellect and I thought it reasonable to think that one should be able to have this presumed intelligence manifest itself through one’s mouth (i.e., if you can’t express this presumed intelligence through words or in writing, then what is it worth to anyone else?).
Yet it has come to not surprise me anymore to encounter such persons from such prominent institutions of higher learning (or, for that matter, from any institution of higher learning of whatever ranking or level), for I have encountered it often enough through the decades. That is, I have encountered enough well-degreed persons who exhibit these characteristics to make me realize that there is apparently more to getting into and then acquiring degrees from such institutions than demonstrative intellectual merit and rigor (or at least being able to readily convey that presumed intellectual merit and rigor through one’s mouth . . . and, if you can speak it, it would seem that you should as well be able to write it or type it as well as you speak it).
The summary lesson(s) for this thread: Don’t assume that meeting a college-degreed person (and even one with a degree from a prominent name university) reflects that you have met someone who would always or even necessarily impress you as “intelligent”. It simply isn’t so. It is a hit-or-miss proposition.
To offer up a different angle (i.e., that not all persons you encounter without a post-secondary education or degrees are unintelligent or ignorant): I met a woman when I was 25 who I became friends with for a number of years. She was, when I met her, a graduate student in the humanities at a very prominent first-tier university and was highly intelligent, worldly and articulate herself. We were on the phone once (we used to sometimes talk for hours) and she said to me in the middle of a conversation:
“You know, you really amaze me! I mean no matter what I talk about, whatever subject area or matter I talk about or bring up, you always know exactly what I’m talking about! I mean, I never have to explain anything to you! You always know exactly what I’m talking about . . . and then some! And yet every day, I’m with professors, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and visiting scholars from my school and from other area universities and I so often draw blank stares from them when I talk about whatever is on my mind. And yet YOU understand absolutely everything I bring up . . . and you haven’t even been to college!!! How do you explain this? How is it that you’re this way?”
Note that, in the ensuing years since that conversation, I did pursue my own higher education and acquired a degree from a respectable-enough university (a bachelor’s degree). But the point is that I was a highly intelligent and worldly person who was widely read, widely traveled, who was on his own (independent of my parents) since I was 16, and who was very articulate and expressive. And my intellect spans a very broad range of areas (rather analogous to being what they call a “polymath”). And yet I was even this way before I even pursued any post-secondary matriculated (i.e., degree-pursuing) education at all. When I met her, I had a high school equivalency diploma, trade school training, and had taken some evening courses on a continuing ed basis at a local college. And yet even before I had any college degree or even took any college-level classes on a continuing ed basis, I had applied to and was hired to be an editorial assistant at a large publishing company based on how I came across in the interviews.
In summary: don’t assume that all college-degreed persons (and even those with degrees from prominent universities) would impress you or others as “intelligent”-- surprising as that is or may be --and likewise don’t assume that those without a college education/degree are obviously going to be lacking in “intelligence”. Either equation simply ain’t so predictable. Even before I even started pursuing my own degree later on and then also while pursuing my degree, I had been called upon varied times by college students on varied levels (undergraduate and graduate) to help them with their assignments or with writing their papers (with grammar and spelling, with organization of ideas, et al). Even a roommate I had in an apartment who attended a local prominent university asked me varied times to help him formulate his ideas or his terms papers or assignments. Can you believe that? I’m helping them and they are the advanced degree pursuers and enough times affiliated with a renowned university! And I didn’t even have a college degree at all yet (though I do now).
Do you think it's possible to be in a relationship with someone who isn't in par with you intellectually? Someone you couldn't have a profound intellectual conversation with? They are not book smart, they are not voracious bookworms. But they have a high level of common sense and they are emotionally/street smart. Would you be in a relationship with them/marry them?
Yes I would. She just can't be a total dumbass though. As long as her intelligence is at least average that is enough for me. I look for other things in a woman more important then intelligence.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
