If your partner is lovely but thick as mince, how’s it going?

[Shan5474]

The list of attributes I look for in a partner includes things like being warm, kind, caring etc. Intelligence has never actually really featured very high on the list. I’d choose someone lovely but dim over someone OK but clever every time. Obviously the whole package is preferable but no one’s truly perfect.

If you love someone who’s great but silly, naive or downright daft, how’s it going? Do you get frustrated or is it easy to overlook because they’re such a great person?

Not bothered about book smart. I read way more than DH but he knows way more than me about other stuff that I find boring. Hes prepared to discuss stuff he doesn’t know about as am I. to a point

What I can’t bear are pseuds. Those namby pamby pseudo intellectuals who think they are smart. For some reason it’s always men, and I find them deeply unattractive. In fact they are the reason I moved from the area I lived in as there was an overabundance of them so dating was slim pickings.

My DH is very intelligent, well-read, interested in life, has loads of friends & is funny. But he lacks emotional intelligence, has issues from a bad childhood & is a disaster with money. I’ve gone out with “safe” guys, both stupid & boring…

Nice and good looking is a good combo - don't get me wrong, but I'm not attracted to it if the person is a bit dim.

I'm not Einstein, by any means, but I need someone who is bright, quick-witted and doesn't take themselves too seriously. I just find lack of intelligence - both intellectual and emotional - a huge turn-off. So for your example we'd never have got together in the first place.

We should be careful in dismissing someone based on them not being as intelligent as ourselves as they may bring many other qualities to a relationship that we are lacking.

I disagree. What's the downside of being over-picky? Judging by the Relationships board, a lot of people aren't picky enough about all sorts of attributes when it cones to choosinga partner! If having a partner who is your intellectual equal is important to you, why on earth would you need to be careful about dismissing ones who aren't? Why wouldn't you hold out for a partner who is intelligent and brings qualities to a relationship that you're lacking?

Agreed.
I just couldn't partner with a thicko.

I validated myself through my intelligence all the way through school and into Oxford. But it takes about three minutes of adult life to realise that being book-smart is only one type of intelligence, and it's not actually a very useful one unless it's allied with other types.

DP and I are both book-smart with Oxbridge degrees but in completely different ways. I suppose I'm thick as mince when it comes to physics and he's thick as mince when it comes to literary analysis, but our respective lack of knowledge is more due to lack of interest.

A good friend of mine is one of the sharpest people I know when it comes to social trends and social analysis. She doesn't have a degree.

I know a lot of people who sailed from first-class Oxbridge degrees into high-earning jobs, but who are profoundly incurious about the world outside their bubble and who haven't updated their fundamental world view since they were 21. I consider that to be thick as mince.

And while I might say I'd draw the line at someone who was stupid enough to be an anti-vaxxer or conspiracy theorist, unfortunately I know people with high education levels who've gone down that path.

So intelligence per se doesn't matter. I would say incuriosity and disinterest in learning new things is the real deal-breaker for me.

Oh, and I'll always remember bumping into a girl I went to school with about six years later. She'd been in the bottom set for everything and I didn't remember her saying anything interesting at school. We hadn't been friends. Turns out, outside the school environment - which she'd hated for a lot of other reasons - and six years on, despite being unable to translate Latin on the spot she was a great conversationalist and very sharp about the industry she'd gone into.

These threads always attract eccentric professors who claim not to be able to change a lightbulb. The OP didn't once mention academic qualifications, she said intelligence.

Intelligence presents in myriad ways but the most obvious to me and to others who have commented is a genuine curiosity about the world around us. Engaging, observing, asking questions. It's not about qualifications and no thread about intelligent partners has ever claimed otherwise.

Intelligence is actually a prerequisite for me

DP ( been together over 20 years now), is the loveliest man I know. He's kind, thoughtful, funny and I find him very attractive. Years of epilepsy, however, has taken it's toll and he is forgetful and a bit of a ditherer. Do I get frustrated at times...yes I do but I wouldn't swap him for anyone else.

Edited because I realise I didn't answer your question OP. DP isn't and never will be someone anyone could have an intellectual debate with but he does try and that's all he can do.

And that's a comedy type, rather than anything that exists in the real world, in my experience of universities in several countries as a undergraduate, postgraduate and academic. Quite apart from anything else, these days you're competing for funding, managing projects, budgets, and potentially large numbers of people, disseminating knowledge, doing public engagement stuff etc etc as well as teaching and admin.

Professor Snoozy who is reputedly brilliant, but who has been working on the same unseen Great Book for the last forty years, occasionally crashing into lecture theatres in his pyjamas to deliver a brilliant lecture with no notes other than what is scrawled on his cuff, is a figment of the past, if he ever existed.

I think it's important to accept different things matter to different people... it is not snobbish to find education attractive

I was set up with a couple of men who were thick through a friend and her DP, they were friends of his. One man I actually ended up walking away from in a bar saying rudely to him, "you're stupid and boring" (he was!).

And the amount of men when I was younger who were drop dead gorgeous but couldn't string a sentence together or, quite literally, were stupid. A bit like David Beckham. I did like good looking men though so I should've learned to compromise. My fiance when I was 21 was gorgeous but only so far intelligent (army based), he wasn't totally stupid but wasn't the brightest spark in the box either, I broke off that engagement.

My DP is smarter than me in most ways. I sometimes feel a bit frustrated/dim, but largely I like it; it makes me motivated to read/think more, and I enjoy the exercise of engaging with him. And I'm smarter than him in a few ways, so there's a balance.

It's interesting about sense of humour. Some posters are talking about it like it's separate from intelligence/brain engagement, but for me (and as a pp has said) you can't really be funny if you're not also bright.
Unless you're just really into pranking/physical humour/Michael MacIntyre-type 'humour', I guess. Which neither my DP nor I are.

This is an important distinction, I think.

Education is great, I have several degrees, but I know shit about DYI, for example.

I do think intelligence is a pre requisite for me but that doesn’t mean academic qualifications necessarily. I think I need a bit more thought so intelligence with arrogance would be a turn off. I think there are smart men in the military or emergency services for example who are capable and experts at what they do. One of the nicest men I know is clever, funny, charming and can shoot and drive fast. If the shit went down he’d be able to take control of the situation. I’d choose those qualities over a pretty boy any day of the week.

I was with not one, but two guys like that. Good looking, nice but, lets be honest, not that bright. I would say after the initial loved up phase the stupidity was starting to get annoying and, in both cases, one day I looked at my partner and thought - my god, you are an idiot. First guy was a sweetheart so I tolerated it for a long time, and tbh he wasn't that bad - just very childish and shallow, never read anything serious or challenging, only watched stupid shows, like fart jokes and could laugh for hours if someone said "penis". Second one was very good looking but I doubt he ever read a book, and I felt like I had enough after he told me in all seriousness that woman's breasts expand when she is aroused. I felt like there are no looks good enough to compensate for idiocy. He also used to tell me that he has a "depress", which used to really annoy me.

I would always have gone for a looker in the past but now I want to be on an equal footing when it comes to watching Quiz shows 😂
Give me Brian Cox or Chris Packham any day.

I would possibly still thrash them watching The Chase, but the pillow talk about their passions would have me enraptured 😍

Dh isn't daft or thick.Id find it a massive turnoff tbh

I've dated very intelligent people and a few not so - was more about the looks really, and wanting to have a change from intelligent but dull. Different ends of the spectrum, handsome but thick, is as dull as intellectually intelligent but socially and emotionally inept - a lot of intelligent men just aren't very good at talking either.
Intelligent on paper can be just as disappointing as good-looking but dim. Some clever people are just too introverted.
I'm a bit of a music snob though these days and find that I can't relate to people who have no interest in it themselves, or list their music taste as everything from a particular decade in their youth. That screams to me that they stopped noticing in following years, so aren't really interested, which somehow is an instant turnoff for me. It's all compromise though, if interested in science and polititically alligned and open to things then I could work with that.
Used to have a minimum word limit set to be able to contact me OLD, weeded out the "Hi, how's you" brigade. Lol, didn't stop the ones, who once realised they'd have to say a bit more, from repeating their line instead, or bemoaning that they've had to give it another go and were struggling how to fill it despite my longish profile giving lots to go off. Also ment I got a lot less contact, but then quality over quantity is what counts.

The best relationship I've had has been with kind, caring DP. It's calm and mutually respectful. However, he's not very curious about the world and I do sometimes find myself getting bored when talking to him. He's not unintelligent by any means, very sharp and funny in conversation, but it's always superficial and he doesn't question things and delve into the nitty gritty of a subject.

The worst relationship was with someone incredibly handsome and fiercely intelligent. Conversation with him exhilarating and he was lovely to look at. Unfortunately, he was terrible in bed and a sexually incontinent, conceited arsehole.

Something in between these two extremes, the best bits of the two relationships, would be nice if ever I was to find myself single again.

I had a boyfriend once who was heart meltingly attractive, utterly hilarious and extremely intelligent and cultured. We shared so many references and would finish each others sentences.

We fell madly in love, and planned for a future together but it basically burned itself out. Having so much in common made us feel more like siblings. It was gutting but when we finally broke up after flogging a dead horse for years it was a huge relief to both of us.

So everyone on here dates someone who has been to uni and has amazing jobs?.

Hmmm
My first husband bio med degrees clever but boring and didn't seem to understand things but clever in science.

Current bf flunked gcses and works in construction. Listens to me we get on great. He doesn't like the big words though haha I think I said yesterday we are parked in a precarious spot here and he didn't understand etc. But no issues here. Working class background middle class lifestyle all my family are working class so never had an issue.

"So everyone on here dates someone who has been to uni and has amazing jobs?."

No. Isn't it more about being with someone on your own level?

Being intellectual equals isn't the same as being geniuses in high flying careers.

You're on the same level if you're both as thick as pigshit.

@Treeinthesky
So everyone on here dates someone who has been to uni and has amazing jobs?.

Definitely not, and I don't think having been to Uni necessarily means intelligent.