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?

I know there isn't. But equally, you'd have to be pretty stupid yourself to go for someone who was both stupid and nasty with it.

I actually think it depends on type of intelligence. In some ways (I like to think) I'm pretty intelligent. I have a PhD and an "intellectual" job in my field, I quite easily see through the flaws in someone's arguement, if I'm interested in something I do a good job of researching it and forming an opinion. But I am also quite gullible and lack "smarts" or whatever you call practical intelligence. I can't do many practical things, I fall for scams, I struggle to retain day to day information. Me and my DH have the unfortunate situation where we each think the other is stupid. He thinks I'm moronic because I can't follow a cooking recipe and don't know who the local MP is, I think he's daft for falling for conspiracy theories. I don't think either of us has chosen our partner well. It's better to go for someone evenly matched in the specific type of intelligence that you value, or you're in for a lifetime of frustration and hurt.

😂

I couldn’t be with someone who was as thick as mince as you call it. I don’t think I’m some kind of brain box but I think to be mentally compatible you need to be on a similar level of basic intelligence.

Theres nothing more awful than a man who thinks he is really clever and treats every convo like he is in the Oxford debating team.

It can seem fun at first with someone less intelligent than you, but it becomes an issue eventually. A great partner needs to elevate you, not dumb you down. Imagine having to reserve certain conversations or complicated issues for other friends because your partner is too stupid to talk to about something. I've been there and it's horrendous. You inevitably start treating the other person like a child and being condescending. Not a good look in a relationship!

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

You don't have to have an 'amazing job' to be intelligent. There are plenty of very intelligent people (including ones with good degrees) in very ordinary jobs. As for having been to university, I don't know many people socially who didn't tbh. Dh snd I both went to good universities and have non-amazing jobs!

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain what has "army based" got to do with intelligence?

I went out with a guy a couple of times, who was easy on the eye but not bright and rather dull really when I was about 17, we didn’t click. When I was 18 I did date a guy for a few months, who told me he was a ‘model’, who wasn’t terribly clever, lacked aspiration but we seemed to get on ok. It didn’t last. He finished with me… it was a ldr as I was at university and he was from back home. Looking back, it would have been a disaster really.

you can’t really be funny if you’re not also bright

There is some truth in this. However, some people are funny and not in a ‘basic’ or bawdy way. My teen dd has a whole array of friends. Her friend with learning difficulties is funny, sometimes because of the mistakes she makes, but also has a great sense of humour. And another, who really isn’t that smart, failed a few GCSES, scraped others but in a conversation is sarcastic and quick witted with a good sense of humour etc. Both these people have a spark.

In contrast, my cousin’s husband is very intelligent but also a natural clown, clearly on the spectrum and in an odd way, has a lot in common with dd’s friend with learning difficulties. He can be a bit Frank Spenceresque, not to the extreme or quite so cringey and has a great ability to laugh at himself.

In sum, I think it is important to be on a similar wave length with intelligence being one component and now that I’m older I wonder whether it is the most important. I have an inquisitive mind. I want a partner to have the same, perhaps in a different way. But inquisitive all the same. And to be interested in current affairs, the world etc. It may take longer to explain certain things to someone with a lower IQ than me. But if a physicist can calmly explain quantum physics to me, I can do the same with a pertinent piece of news.

I am married btw. Dh is of a similar intelligence to me.

It's interesting how many people link intelligence to knowledge. Knowledge is knowledge. To me, intelligence is more about being able to apply knowledge.

I work in a field where everyone has to have a degree in this area. But, believe me, after sitting at the table with them for lunch, the lack of intelligence in some of them is very apparent. Some people are even proud of their ignorance of the world around them.

Are people equating intelligence to being well educated? Having a degree? Being interested in current affairs? Life skills?

Dh doesn't have a degree and neither do I, but I wouldn't describe either of us as thick as mince.

You wouldn't get a highly stimulating conversation out of dh, he's a doer not a talker, he doesn't have an awful lot to say but he does have a lot of very useful skills.

I’m working class. I’m still capable of understanding the term ‘precarious’. If someone uses a term I don’t know, I ask or look it up. I don’t dislike it when someone uses ‘big words’ — why would you resist learning a new word?

Class status has zero correlation to either vocabulary or education.

My partner hasn't got a GCSE to his name but he plays football semi professionally and works with his hands. He's also very streetwise. He extremely emotionally intelligent and is THE BEST dad and partner to us all, he always says that he wants the girls to think 'I want my partner to love me as much as Dad loves Mum' and he puts those words into action every, single day. On the other hand, his WhatsApp's are awful, he relies on me to make doctors appts etc.

For me I think there's different ways to be intelligent and personally, I place more value on emotional intelligence than any other sort. But, it's a thought of how do you define it, anyway? And aren't we all in our own unique way even if it's not in a conventional way? I find defining people as "intelligent" more of a loose term as it can mean so many different things. As a neurodiverse person I've always felt less intelligent because of specific struggles I have connected and don't really fall into "intelligent yardsticks" that are recognised as measures of success.

I was once dumped from a relationship partly for not having a degree education as I work in a low wage job. Whilst I don't have a degree, I couldn't really grasp what it meant for him or exactly how I was lacking and actually asked what it meant for him and how I could bring more intellect to the relationship? I couldn't get any answer, really other than he'd been socially conditioned to date another person with a degree so even over separate degree subjects, me having A levels in similar shared areas of interest simply wasn't enough and it had to be any degree even if subjects vastly different. He was also neurodiverse, by the way. You see, I would see his lack of thoughts over MY lacking less intelligent lol. Or not very "free thinking"?

We live in a society that seems to enjoy celebrating feeling superior over intellect and mocking people who aren't as seen as what is recognised as "bright" when people don't always have control over it, anyway. It's an unfair and unequal society. People are entitled to date who they want, though, of course.

If I cannot have a decent conversation with you then I really don’t know where the relationship is heading. I think being intelligent is important - not a smarty pants but a good mix of common sense, emotional intelligence, thoughtful, good sense of humour, decent decision making abilities and can hold a conversation with both me and my friends and family. That’s the kind of intelligence I’d look for. I’m not in a relationship to carry a man.

I would never go for someone that treated Me “OK” and wouldn’t go for anyone that has air between their ears. Imagine years of that - isn’t it awkward.

That’s just me anyway,’it also really depends on personality - some people like to dominate and so will take a nice guy that questions nothing.

Intelligence is a tricky thing to pin down, actually. There are plenty of people out there with PhDs in physics or computer science who feel nothing when they visit an art gallery or read a poem. Humour and empathy are forms of intelligence, and so is aesthetic sensitivity (finding sunsets and snowfall beautiful, etc). Self-awareness and irony are also signs of intelligence.

Personally, I make a distinction between cleverness and intelligence. I think of cleverness as more narrow and limited. To obtain a masters degree in engineering, for example, requires cleverness, but you don’t need to be intelligent. Intelligence is broader and deeper and includes everything from empathy and self-awareness to humour and a love of beauty. That’s probably not how the dictionary defines them, but that’s how I think of them.

That’s so lovely, what a great attitude to have.

@violetcuriosity how on earth are you going to stick him when the kids are grown up and you are looking for some adult conversation? Just gazing adoringly at each other isn't going to cut it when it's just the two of you.

There's a lot of superior sounding ladies on this thread, get over yourselves

She says he is emotionally intelligent, street wise, and good with his hands. He may be very clever, and capable of great complexity. My guess would be that this chap is very clever, but not academic.

What is intelligence/
We have a friend who describes the milk run graduates they look at as some of the most naïve simpleminded people they ever meet. That includes those from Oxford and Cambridge.
Dp and I are well matched we both have academic qualifications although he also has musical and practical skills. We often have hot debates, he has some very contentious opinions around feminism.

What is ‘superior’ about valuing intelligence? I wouldn’t choose to be in a relationship with a man who ‘doesn’t like big words’, didn't understand the word ‘precarious’ and got hostile when his spouse/partner used it. His other qualities clearly outweigh his small vocabulary and chippiness about it for the poster who described her boyfriend/DH, but they wouldn’t for me.

Because they’re very young recent graduates transplanted to their first professional workplace?

My first long term boyfriend was lovely but dim. Honestly it was fine for the first couple of years but then it just got a bit irritating. I was getting frustrated at him telling me things that clearly couldn’t be true as absolute fact, and he wouldn’t accept my logical reasons as to why it couldn’t be true. In the end I guess we just ran out of things to talk about.

Those aren't the only two choices though
I want nice AND roughly equivalent intellectually.