I believe it depends on exactly what you define as “intelligent”
I can get behind this. There are many kinds of intelligence and their measurements are subjective.
Within that perspective, I’d say that I’d rather be with someone naive that is capable and eager vs someone stubborn and unwilling to learn.
That’s where I’m at as well. Could go so many different ways; how do I know someone is intelligent? Do their conversations feel particularly deep to me? Do they invest their money well? Good at memorizing baseball facts?
At a certain point yeah, obviously if they just have wind blowing around inside their head it’s unlikely that I would find them desirable as a partner. So in a way it is very important to me. But the vast majority of people are capable of nurturing loving and rewarding relationships rooted in who they are as a whole, whether or not they are remarkably intelligent. So in another way it’s not important at all
Oh no
The longest relationship I ever had: the person would say the craziest, most off-the-wall things in the world. I though they had no sense at all. Then I realized that whenever they said that sort of thing, they would be carefully observing how people reacted. That person frequently asked me for advice, but rarely took it, which was infuriating. Then I realized that they asked lots of people for advice, and carefully considered them all. Eventually I understood that person had solid grades despite serious life distractions, was an excellent judge of character, and was really good at making difficult decisions.
So I guess my point is: there’s all kinds of smarts, and it can be hard to tell who’s got em good.
Intelligence is important, but I think even more important is curiosity and an open mind. There are lots of really smart people who are also closed-minded insufferable know it alls. And if they’re not curious about learning new things, new perspectives, and exploring this amazing world we live in: then what even is this all about?
Scuba
My husband would not describe himself as smart, but I think it’s probably because he never cared enough about school. He is pretty book smart and has a huge vocabulary in both his native and second language (his second is English, my native, and it’s fucking nuts to me that he’s got a wider English vocabulary than 70% of the kids I went to high school with), but he was just never into academia.
He is significantly smarter than he realizes though. He remembers every good tip or life hack he comes across, so he’s got a wide range of perfected methods for cutting onions, hanging pictures, keeping your place organized, etc.
He’s also very observant about me, to the degree that he literally knows me better than I know myself (I’m autistic and masked well my entire life until I immigrated to a new country and could really get weird without anyone stopping me). I tend to not care about things being right for me as long as they’re not wrong wrong. He’s noticed foods I don’t really like, routines I’m not aware of, and he is stupid good at turning me on (I tried lots of different phrasings here, I’m sorry it still sounds ick).
He DMs in dnd, and he’s so good at it. I tried dming once and realized that it was the equivalent of using your weekends to train for a marathon vs doing beer league soccer (dming vs being a PC). I just don’t want to work that hard while having fun. He has no issue keeping track of dozens of plot hooks or stat blocks and he incorporates new information from the PCs into his story as he goes. I don’t think it’s possible to be a really good DM without being smart (or at least about as smart as the players, and we’ve played with some pretty smart people and with kids, who are wayyy more creative/hard to predict than adults).
I want to go on, but at some point, he’d feel like this is TMI, so I’ll stop now.
I always looked for partners who were academically talented first (well, first for intelligence, I do think kindness is more important), and I’m so glad I was open to people who don’t make that their whole shtick, because I don’t deserve a husband this wonderful.
This was so good I read it twice. Thank you for sharing.
is he single?
Fun fact…no.
Among the most important attributes, if not the most important. There has to be some physical attraction and usually that is what gets things going but it’s sometimes surprising how other attributes become more important as the relationship develops. Charisma and humour is huge. Creativity and skill is a massive turn on. Kindness and self awareness, vital. These are often dependent on or related to the base level of intelligence.
It changes over time, too. As a young man, I devoted very little consideration to intelligence but those weren’t really relationships, mostly sex cosplaying as a relationship.
There are so many different types of intelligence, and so many different ways of judging them. Someone’s intelligence can vary so much even on a day to day basis based on if they get enough sleep, their blood sugar, stress levels, hormones, health issues, distractions, etc etc. I used to put SO MUCH stock in intelligence but as I’ve gotten wiser I’ve realized it doesn’t matter if they can solve math problems quickly or have a big vocabulary or specialized in a niche field of science or got an advanced degree etc etc. I learned that as long as a partner is good at problem solving and makes good decisions, none of the rest matters. Are the decisions they are making consistently making their and other’s lives better? Are they able to tackle hurdles when they come between them and their goals? If the other pieces of compatibility are there then that’s really all that’s important.
Dont gotta be super smart, just have a good attitude and curiosity. I want to build a life together, not cure cancer.
Why dont you want to cure cancer, my guy?
Big cancer doesn’t want you to know.
If my dumbass cured cancer, we’d probably have an ‘I am Legend’ scenario on our hands
Damn. I’m glad SOMEONE wanted to cure cancer…
Hi, cancer survivor here. Shoutout to Dr Crawford.
Intelligence is important, but big muscle is importanter.
If everyday anomalies and unanswered questions don’t drive you a little batty, your willful ignorance will start to become annoying.
But we must be at ease with uncertainty as well! I argue this with my husband. You can’t possibly know everything, if you rush to assign some answer to every question you are just going to be wrong a lot.
To think about them and wonder, yes. To need to know everything? No. The fact that there is always more unanswered makes me happy, I am glad there is still mystery in the world.
If you can’t have a reasonably equal exchange of ideas, that’s a deal breaker. You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking brilliant to have a decent conversation, but you have to be able to understand the important concepts in your partner’s life (work, politics, religion, hobbies, or whatever else) and then meaningfully engage with them on those things.
More intelligence than that CAN be a bonus, but less… seems like that would lead to a lack of fulfillment.
You can’t fix stupid.
Extremely, stupid people are boring. Give me a 5/10 PhD student.
Essential.
I don’t want to be close to people who: are unable to follow a simple reasoning, consistently assume things that they cannot reliably know, have an 8-or-80 mindset, or conflate their wishes with reality. Because people like this turn the lives of the ones around them into living hells.
Note: I’m talking about intelligence as “ability to reason”. I’m not talking about the set of knowledge that the person amassed over time, or ability to memorise stuff.
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I wouldn’t want to spend my life with someone, who would not be capable of understanding the things I like thinking and talking about, so a lot less intelligent partner would be a problem. I would also not want to feel like I have nothing to offer intellectually to my partner, so the ideal is to be in the same league. I can theoretically imagine some kind of combination of one partner being less intelligent but also outstanding in another department that the other partner is lacking.
