Dating someone of a different intelligence level.

[ASensitiveSubject]

Does anyone have any experience of dating someone with a very different intelligence level to themselves?

I know there are different intelligences, but what I'm specifically talking about it intellectual intelligence. I'm going to use knowledge of respective IQs here. I know that IQ tests are a measure of ability to perform on an IQ test and, on here, they are largely (rightly) derided. But as they are, at least, a blunt tool, it'll have to do. In this case, the disparity appears very much a reflection of language and verbal reasoning and, probably, retention and processing speed too.

I'm talking of a difference of around 4 standard deviations. Where you just wouldn't put two people together at all, but where kindness, emotional intelligence, curiosity about the world and desire to learn, shared interests (e.g. creative pursuits, ways to spend free time) are compatible just at a different level.

The person with the lower IQ isn't 'stupid', just slower in processing and understanding sometimes.

Does this make sense?

ASensitiveSubject
But that’s the point I was making earlier in.
Being compatible and having a spark ime works well at the start but not in the long run.
You can be compatible at the start when all feels rosy under the sun. Move on a year or two and it’s very easily becoming a true hardship.
I think it’s because love is a word. And it’s nit just about loving gestures. It’s about communication and connexion. And it’s very hard to communicate and connect in. a LT basis when there is such big difference in each person understanding of the world.

"I had to make a conscious effort not to use "big words""

This is no way to live, is it?
The rest of your post is more about your husband's not valuing education rather than his level of intelligence.

I am more intelligent than my husband, I'm no genius just an average level of intelligence but my husband's grammar is appalling, our 5 year old corrects him all the time.
he doesn't have a learning disability, he's amazing at practical things but he never gets my jokes, or what people are talking about until I explain,
he can watch a whole movie and at the end still doesn't know the names of characters etc...
he's never passionate about anything in life, and yes it does get lonely when I'm so excited over something or something angers me, he can never understand why or every conversation he goes off on a tangent can't focus.

IQs at the very high and very low end are notoriously tricky to measure. So unless someone skilled in learning disabilities did the test for the person in the 80s it's unlikely to be accurate. Ditto the very high score.

I think like any major difference, it's as important as it is. Cultural, intellectual, political, religious, social differences can kill a relationship or they can be the differences that make life interesting.

" 'On paper' and if you were to IQ test him, DH might come out lower than me"

Daisychain - if he knows about marine biology and physics, it's likely he's pretty intelligent. Doesn't seem to be OP's situation at all.

80 isn't very low. It's about 1 in 10 of the population.

"IQs at the very high and very low end are notoriously tricky to measure. So unless someone skilled in learning disabilities did the test for the person in the 80s it's unlikely to be accurate. Ditto the very high score."

Yes, but it's unlikely that the test is so wrong that OP and her boyfriend are actually of a similar intelligence level, isn't it? They're still poles apart.

I scored incredibly highly on an IQ test years ago, genius level, but that's made me question them as measures of "intelligence" even more - I'm not intelligent at most stuff. I'm absolutely shit at things like planning, cooking, guessing other people's emotions, or even knowing what my body is up to (hungry? Sad? Cross? God knows) due to ASD

Haha, yes. The higher IQ person very much feels this for the same reasons.

There have been some valid points made about shared approaches and differences in attitudes. It seems that most of the issues that have arisen have come about from arrogance or one person assuming that their higher intelligence makes them more important. Or from the other person perceiving this to be the case, insecurity or lack of interest

I don't think any of these apply.

In terms of love, there is a great deal of love and affection. Communication goes a bit awry at times and that has caused problems. But there is integrity, respect, kindness, loyalty, compassion and trust.

As for the specifics of the scores and tests, etc. I don't really think those are all that important. I think the issue is more the fact that there is a significant difference between the two in that respect. And I just wondered what other people's experience of this was. It's been useful and interesting to read. Thank you.

Exactly Gwen.

This isn't about whether one person went to university and the other didn't because they're intelligent but not interested in writing essays and academic pursuits.

80 isn't very low. It's about 1 in 10 of the population.

Yes, very true. Perhaps it just seems low when other people in a person's social group are all PG qualified engineers, coders, GPs etc.

Well I’ve certainly read before that an IQ test measures how well you can take an IQ test and not much else.

While I would disagree with the above I do think there will be people who are intelligent but just don’t have the sort of logic needed for IQ tests and will therefore get a lower score which doesn’t necessarily reflect their intelligence.

If the two people involved are happy then my advice would be enjoy the moment and see where it goes. Not everyone needs a partner where they can discuss currrent affairs, high brow stuff, etc. I don’t have that sort of discussion with dh. We’re both intelligent but have polar interests. So I’m interested in politics and current affairs and he’s interested in space exploration and nuclear physics. We would both bore each other senseless if we ever tried having a deep conversation so we keep conversations about the dog and the weather!

Fair point, Viva!

Gwenhwyfar my point about DHs knowledge was that he has learnt those topics through his own inquisitive nature. Probably none of the stuff he knows would ever come up on an IQ test, it's that bloody obscure . (he is a mine of useless information lol). IQ tests are too narrow an indicator of intelligence, they are a blunt instrument, and my point to ASensitiveSubject is that using IQ scores to decide on a relationship is ill-founded and I believe unreliable.

Hey Viva sounds just like me and DH - although I have to say in the past two years he has taken a genuine interest in politics (which he used to hate, but I find interesting) and I've gained some affection for partial pressures of oxygen at depth (so passing, Ive forgotten what he's said 5 minutes later, but I am trying!!).

daisychain IQ tests don't test any subject knowledge. They test at ability to see patterns and make connections.

"Not everyone needs a partner where they can discuss currrent affairs, high brow stuff, etc. "

No, but if you DO need it, you need it and you can't get around that.

Gwen I was a firm believer in IQ testing until my son - who is also autistic and has social anxiety - was assessed. He is very oversensitive to "bring wrong" and ambiguity and so only verbally answered if he was 100 percent certain his answer was fully accurate. This resulted in a score in verbal understanding at the first percentile. His verbal iq was assessed as 63. He is looking to fail his English GCSEs. So maybe I am deluded and he really is learning disabled?

Except, at the same time he had a non verbal assessment of his vocabulary which he scored at 99th percentile. He also had an IQ test at 3 1/2 before his social anxiety started (administered by a colleague learning a new test under test conditions) which measured his verbal IQ at 130. How can his IQ drop from 130 to 63 in the absence of a brain injury, over the space of 8 years? Anxiety did it. IQ testing of autistic socially anxious people is very difficult indeed. What it measured was his functional communication, severely impaired by autism, not his cognitive capacity.

'being wrong' not bring wrong

"even knowing what my body is up to (hungry? Sad? Cross? God knows) due to ASD"

I'm average intelligence and have no ASD and have problems with this as well. I can feel very down for two days and only realise afterwards that it was because I was tired.

I think if the couple have enough else in common then maybe fine.
but it might make social situations difficult as the one half may feel very out of sync with the friends of the other half.

Ultimately the being a couple might work OK, but they might end up with no joint social life, which could fracture them apart.

But then, lots of things fracture couples, e.g. one being adventurous go-getting, and the other being a more careful home-body sort. Whereas similar couples find compromises.

So if people are raising this, then it is worth considering, and maybe not jumping into anything too quickly, but if the couple are happy, that's the most important thing, not others' views.

My point being that I agree, IQ tests are a blunt tool and I used that exact expression in mu opening post, so didn't need it illustrating, but that they do reflect processing speed and ability and the ability to see patterns and make connections that are present in higher level thinking.

Another thing you might want to consider, is that society may have views about how people should have similar levels (of I tellect, attractiveness, wealth, all sorts of things) at the start of a relationship, but...
The general view is that, once you're committed to one another, its OK if one person experiences a change in any of these levels, so that the pair become unequal - the general view then is that the quality of the relationship will allow them to adapt and be happy. (E.g. no one thinks the onset of mild Alzheimer's is a cause to end things if the other person is bright..).

I don't think there's a very big difference between the two stages above - if you feel you're meant to be together, I think you can make the decision at the start that those differences are not a problem. The only problem would be if the more able person didn't accept the situation, and had the intentions of 'fixing' the other (which doesn't sound like its the case here).

oldbirdy, it doesn't really matter how accurate the IQ tests are. We know that in this case, the couple are at opposite ends of the scale.

What it measured was his functional communication, severely impaired by autism, not his cognitive capacity

I think this was a factor.

Sorry, not a factor, I think it was probably a significant contributing factor.

"(E.g. no one thinks the onset of mild Alzheimer's is a cause to end things if the other person is bright..)."

I think there would be a certain understanding if someone did end things though, particularly if they were not married or otherwise committed.

I know of someone who cheats on a partner in that situation and many people would say that's better than leaving her.

We do tend to encourage people to be with someone of a similar age, but it can't be helped if one person's health deteriorates before the other's.