My friend Kristen called me earlier this week to tell me the news. She was right to tell me. I needed to know even though it pained me to hear it! But the word is out now...We both know why neither one of us are married. We've got yet another "strike" against us if you will. We're too intelligent.
Not too intelligent for marriage itself, per se. Fact is, we both want it. We're not avoiding it because we're against it or running madly from it. We're not ultra-feminists here campaigning against marriage. The opposite is true. We're fans of the GOD-inspired union of marriage. Longingly, both of us carry torches of hope to one day find a match of our own. So, it's not for a lack of desire for it...BRING IT!
The most recent revelation in a British study is that women prefer brains over brawn. I guess I’d have to agree with that. I mean it's not true of all women, but for most of us, it's true! We like to be stimulated mentally. Physically you can captivate us with your fine physique, but if you don’t get inside our heads, it’s not going to last. So I don’t necessarily disagree with the study. But what caught me as a sad comment about our society was that the study indicated that while women with higher IQs struggled to find a prospective mate, men of equal rank in IQ didn't have the same struggle to find a bride. It makes me wonder...
I could blame it all on the men. I mean we all know that men will settle for any girl that looks good in a bikini regardless of her IQ, and so no wonder men with higher IQs have no trouble marrying. They aren’t looking for intelligence when they look for a mate. Right? Hmmmm….OK, so while that's true of some men, I KNOW it isn't true about all men--intelligent or not. There are decent guys out there who are very much into intelligent women. My sister married one! And so maybe we can't blame it all on the men...
I don't know what my IQ is, and I don't care to know. [Frankly, I've never liked those tests anyway. Who cares which circle comes next in the series? I mean does anybody really use that information in the real world? I've never had it come up on the job...Hey, Mel, which circle formation would follow these three? We've got a client on the phone and he needs to know for that TPS report... YAH! Like that's gonna happen!] But I am a college graduate. [As if that really means anything here. It just means that I managed to pass enough classes to get a piece of paper that declares me educated on some subject matters.]
I read a lot (not as much as I should). I love to write. I enjoy intelligent conversations and discussions. All these things are true about me, but I've never really considered myself brilliant or super smart really. I'm just educated, and I have a thirst for knowledge and not all of that is useful either. For example, I hate the news. I realize that a journalist should enjoy keeping up on current events and like to stay aware of what is happening in the world around her, but I'm not all that great with current topics. I'm better with history. I get mesmerized by any program on ancient Egypt, the kings and queens of Europe or architecture. But ask me for an opinion on current politics, and this girl (who graduated with a political science minor) has eyes that start to glaze over.
All in all, I consider myself to have an average amount of intelligence. I'm not ready for a round of Jeopardy here, and I fail consistently at Trivial Pursuit, but I can recount lines of The Princess Bride like it was my mantra. I'm not a genius by any means, but I do like to keep on learning more.
And as far as what I am looking for in a potential mate...I'm NOT looking for an exact copy of me, that’s for sure. I don't need a man that is exactly like me in intelligence or otherwise. Yes, there are important things that we need to agree on or have a distinct interest in, but I don't want him to only know what I know. What's the point in marring a man that is my clone? I mean, I already talk to myself plenty. My conversations wouldn't differ all that much if I married someone who is a replica of my self! How boring is that?
So I'm not so sure that I'm being an intelligence snob on my journey. At least I hope I'm not. But I did really have to contemplate this subject once before in college…I had a great friend named Carl. He was a special guy that was originally dating my friend Theresa, and then they parted, and I managed to keep both friendships. Carl was sweet, thoughtful and very caring, and I could soon tell that our friendship was blossoming into something more, at least for Carl. But I really fought it. I just didn’t think we had enough in common.
He was a carpentry major, and I was a journalism major. He liked to work with his hands. I liked the rhythm of vivid language. Carl would write me long heartfelt letters and even included a poem or two. I would read his letters, and while I found them sweet and charming, I confess that I cringed at his lyrics and his misspellings just as I cringe at the thought of fingernails on a chalkboard.
I was honest with Carl and told him that I really just wanted things to stay as they were. I was content with our friendship. He was a brother to me, and while I loved and respected him, I wanted something more. Over a summer though, Carl asked me to think about it, and I really did. I spent hours rehashing the subject in my head and talked of nothing else to my sister. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t throwing something special away by not dating him. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just being unwilling to date Carl because of our different interests or because of a perceived intelligence barrier. But I came to the same conclusion I have kept through the years, Carl was not the man for me. Truth is though that there were other things that kept Carl and I apart, and it wasn’t because I was smarter than he. It just wasn’t meant to be. I have no regrets on the subject.
And so while I’ve been told that differences in intelligence can be hindering in a relationship, I’m not sure it’s always the case or not at least entirely to blame.
Another thought is that a women’s intelligence can be intimidating to men. Now why is that? Why should my knowledge on a topic keep someone from approaching me? Just because I know a bit about a subject doesn't mean that anyone who isn't skilled in that subject is less than myself. I don't think that at all. I mean every person has some skill or field that they know something about.
So now I'm wondering if maybe it's not necessarily that women WON'T date or marry men that are of less intelligence, but perhaps men of “lesser intelligence” aren’t asking out women they perceive to be intelligent because these men are intimidated by it. I don't quite understand the whole concept myself. Why would a man feel that he HAD to be more intelligent than his wife in the first place? Is there some rule about that, a rule that I don't know about? And how do you accurately gauge intelligence in the first place? You can't, in my opinion. Intelligence is all relative!
For example, Carl knew tons about carpentry and could make beautiful useful and ornamental things from a piece of wood. I have a jewelry box that he made me that I still marvel at. The craftsmanship and expertise that it took to fasten simple scraps of wood into a work of art is beyond me. I knew nothing about what it took to form that wood into an attractive jewelry box just as Carl didn’t know all that much about poetry. We each were skilled in an art of our own choosing, but those differences weren’t what kept us apart.
So now I’m a bit perplexed…I don’t know quite what to think about the whole subject. Who is to blame anyway? Men? Or is it the women? Or perhaps like just about everything else, it’s a bit of both? Hmmmm…life sure keeps us guessing. But at least it's never boring...
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