What is the deal with men and smart women?
Men say they want to date a smart woman, but when given the opportunity to date a woman of equal or higher intelligence to them, they punt.
Or they ditch the opportunity entirely. As one woman attests: she met a man online who seemed like a good match, and they met for coffee. About 45 minutes into their date, the man looked at his watch and said he had to leave. He didn’t mention getting together again, and she never heard from him again. The woman is a scientist with multiple advanced degrees, and it was just after she responded to a question he asked about her field with a research paper she had just published that he suddenly had to leave.
Unfortunately, this seems to be a common thread in dating right now. Men say they want to be with a smart woman, they even say -86%, according to this study– but when the opportunity comes, they will actually, as the aforementioned study testifies, move their chairs further away from a woman when they know she scored higher on an intelligence test than they did. With all of the evidence produced in the past 20 years, it sure seems like intelligence, at least for women, is a serious liability.
What’s an intelligent woman to do?
First of all, accept that these studies and statistics aren’t reflective of all men. There are plenty of guys out there who get fired up to date smart, even smarter-than-they-are women. There are plenty of problems with that study, according to Gizmodo. Finally, consider that the sample size was pretty small: only 105 guys were intimidated by a woman with more intelligence than their own. Yes, that’s 105 guys. Consider, though, that there are 151.8 million guys in the United States alone. If we conservatively say 50% are married, then that leaves 75.9 million left who are single, and a ton of those guys want to meet you.
Secondly, why would you want to date someone who is intimidated by your intelligence?
If you run into a situation as the woman described in the coffee date above, brush him off and move on. We know it’s often easier said than done, but especially with online dating, it’s a good idea not to make too much of an emotional investment before you actually meet the guy.
Finally, if you’ve got it, flaunt it! You don’t have to be a know-it-all to subtly let your brilliant brain flare. Chances are you spent a lot of time, energy, and money getting that brilliant brain, so absolutely put your brilliance to use in social situations. Whether it’s a conversation at a party where people are talking about a subject on which you have a breadth of understanding or chatting up a gentleman who asks about your work, show off your intelligence a bit. It is, after all, a huge part of who you are, so they should probably know about it from the beginning.
As for those 105 guys, I feel kind of bad for them, as they clearly let their ego and the fragility of their masculinity make their decisions for them. But it’s really only 105.