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?

Exactly! I went from nice but dim to lovely and not dim.

Because, from my experience with my ex fiance and his army friends - some of them can be very 'beef head/bone head' - they're strictly there as fighting, killing (they don't mention this!) machines and some of them even said to me "we're not intelligent, we're just there to fight". I wouldn't say they're necessarily stupid but that was how some of them came off, to me. But it was a long time ago.

I was listening to a guy on Insta explain why he wouldn't date a fat woman and it's comparable. It isn't about aesthetics - some slim women are less attractive than some larger women - but about lifestyle, attitude, interests etc.
A person with the same interests as him - hiking, healthy living, living a disciplined life etc is someone likely to have a similarly fit physique (not just skinny) and that's initially what he finds attractive.
If I'm getting to know someone, I want to know what thier political leanings are, I want to hear about what kind of books or movies or music they like, I want to be able to talk about space travel and evolution and walk through an art gallery and have an informed conversation. So it isn't about how big their PhD is, but that spark of wanting to acquire knowledge, of having something that ignites their passion, bring engaged in the world around them.

Agreed, it's nothing to do with formal education level. It's having that spark of curiosity, being excited by learning, open to new ideas and experiences, being able to express themselves, grasp new concepts.

I'm the less intelligent one of the pair and let me tell you, she relishes being the boss and knowing what's what while I'm stumped. I'm still educated with degrees and relatively pretty smart but compared to her, I'm thick as anything. So I leave the smart stuff to her and I get on with the rest. Works well for us, i think? Maybe I should check and see if it really does ha!

I think intelligence and inquisitiveness is very important to me - it's the basis of my conversation, interests and humour. So I'm not sure how well I'd connect with someone who wasn't very smart or quite naive. But that doesn't mean I'm snobby about academic achievement - and I certainly hate anyone who bases superiority or snobbery on it.

Yes this!

Apart from not really buying the Insta guys rationale. A fat guy wouldn't say 'I only date fat women because they share my lifestyle'. Men want to date thin women regardless of how they justify it. It's about ego and instincts around youth.

But I do agree partners need to match their intellect and interests. Sexual attraction only lasts so long as glue. And unfortunately it simultaneously blinds us to the absence of other, longer term compatibility factors.

They won't say it, due to fashion, but I have an older athletic friend who has had several relationships end because her partners get tired of trying to keep up with her. They think that they want the sporty girlfriend, but rapidly get tired of spending most weekends hiking.

I’d be very cautious of being with a man who isn’t very bright and has poor emotional intelligence.
I’ve been supporting a friend whose ex is like this. He’s cheated on her and was very brazen about it, almost like he isn’t smart enough to cover his tracks. Of course he got caught but the way he has been acting is so cold. He doesn’t seem to have any empathy or depth to understand how heartbroken she is.
He can’t seem to grasp the complexity of the situation and how to make the split, sell the house etc.. Usually she would have sorted everything out and he wouldn’t have to worry about actually managing things on his own. He’s totally lost now.

Exactly. You put it perfectly.

My favourite writers are all polymaths. I love Aldous Huxley, Robert Graves, Carl Sagan, Primo Levi, Bertrand Russell, etc because their minds are zipping about in all directions. They're interested in everything. Huxley is especially good. One minute he's talking about Shakespeare, then physics or astronomy, then psychedelic drugs or the novels of D H Lawrence. He's thrilling.

There is so much more to intelligence than qualifications or the ability to solve equations. Humour, empathy, curiosity, etc, mean just as much. I'd rather talk to someone who left school at 14 but is genuinely interested in the world than someone with a PhD who isn't.

I think intellectual compatibility is critical. I think educational parity is less so because you don't need to be highly educated to be intelligent and well informed and even those with a higher level of education will sometimes surprise you with their stupidity and lack of basic knowledge.

Curiosity and flexible thinking is important.

There is definitely a difference between intelligence and being academic or materially successful (though obviously theres an overlap). One of the smartest people I ever met was a functioning alcoholic who struggled with communicating, partly because his thoughts ran faster than he could get them out. He never earned a lot of money and ended up with a job far too easy for him because other people shad difficulty understanding him.

I once read an article which described high IQ people being wrong as like driving a high powered car off a cliff. I think when people think of themselves as very intelligent they struggle to believe they can be wrong about something, even when they haven’t thought it through. They think “I’m smart, I think (feel really) this, it must be true”. That to me is a big turn off, if on the other hand someone actually has a think and is happy to consider carefully the points put to them then I think that’s attractive.