Ask Lemmy

This is going to sound so bad, but I can't look for someone smarter without limiting my options too much, just as I am tall for a lady in my area so can't make taller than me a requirement.

So: smart enough to be funny, to understand the things I talk about? To understand how money works , live in the world easily, not stupid? Competent in some area, different from what I am good at? Required. Smart enough that I think "wow you are smart!" Not a consideration. I do think I assign extra 'points' to intelligence, it makes someone more attractive, but it's not something I need as much as I need kindness and open mindedness, and in myself I value those qualities more too.

Simplified at the cost of accuracy:

On a scale from 1-10 on attractiveness you get ±1 for being below/above one standard deviation on intelligence.

Other standard deviations: Sad/happy ±2 Mean/kind ±1. Different/same life goals ±5.

I think intelligence/personality are about even for me. I think I would not have rejected my wife if she were average intelligence, but the fact that she has a science background, and the quick way she thinks are part of the package that I fell for. So I will say very important, but not the most important.

It used to not matter that much to me, as long as they were basically normal intelligence or higher. But I have found that men do not really like dating women who are much smarter than them. And the conversation tends to be more interesting with smarter men. So I hold out for men who are pretty intelligent.

With women, it's never factored negatively into our relationship so any intelligence level in women would be fine, at approximately normal intelligence or above. And same for nonbinary/agender people too.

Pretty important. As well as good emotional regulation.

It’s not super important but there is definitely a floor

I prefer smart women that don't need to rub it in your face. Dated a woman who is incredibly book smart, doctorate in neuroscience, funny, sexy, pedagogic, and very confident and strong. Never makes you feel stupid because you don't know something. I miss her.

So so so important. But I'd rather someone be a bit dumb and really nice to me than the hellscape I am living now.

I just want somebody I can play strategic (in the looser sense) board games with at a level compatible with me tbh.

I like them really dumb so they really like me.

That depends on what you mean by intelligence.

If everyday anomalies and unanswered questions don't drive you a little batty, your willful ignorance will start to become annoying.

Dont gotta be super smart, just have a good attitude and curiosity. I want to build a life together, not cure cancer.

I think there's something to be said for being able to show somebody you love a thing that you love for the first time, so I don't necessarily want someone who's so intelligent that they're jaded to the world. However, after dating a man who was on the level of "Winter lasts as long as the Christmas season, spring starts in January," I realized that doesn't apply to basic facts about the world. I also don't want someone dumb enough to try and reject those basic facts about the world when questioned. I'm not really looking for a specific level of education, just someone who's interested in learning more about the world.

If I were the type to choose a partner, I'd say it's very important for them to be not dumb, but less important to be actually smart. It would still be a positive, but someone who's not a genius but still had many other good qualities can still be fun to hang out with. It's also a mindset thing-- someone with little knowledge but a will to learn is better than someone who knows more, but refuses to learn anything new. (Not that knowledge == intelligence, anyways.)

It's not incredibly important as long as we agree on the big life stuff.

A previous partner of mine wasn't the sharpest egg in the attic but we got along stellar with the exception that we disagreed on some big choices.

Edit: bulb -> egg because I am a dummy lol

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.

I love reading and playing Chess. Writing is a personal passion and maaan do I love to talk about psychology, sociology, and the larger sciences. At the same time I do enjoy exercise such as hiking and exploring in general, though I need someone to pull me out to actually do these things. Otherwise, I'll stay home and read, play games, and continue to learn the motherfucking piano, which is proving to be a nice challenge.

Intelligence here is simply someone who is curious and driven enough to ask questions. Solid +3 modifier to sexiness if they're smarter than me. Like, let me listen to you talk about amphibians, historical setbacks, or how a geological formation potentially created a series of tunnels full of mystery and allure. I eat that shit up.

yes.

Yeah not only intelligent but a curious and inquisitive mind. I need someone fun to be with who will challenge me and have cool conversations with. If they're not willing to learn new things then that's pretty boring.

I wish you were more specific, there's multiple types of intelligence.

As long as they're able to go about their life without doing dumb shit that's good enough for me. More important is being ethical and having good emotional intelligence (I suppose this could be lumped in with intelligence but it's not the same as being book smart).

Not much. As long as she's a person with common sense and a bit of intelligence, I'm fine.

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 partnet 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.

So this is an interesting question to me and got me thinking... I think the qualities that are important to me in a partner (compassion, empathy, openness, open mindedness, passion, etc.) aren't strictly tied to intelligence? Maybe there's a correlation, I guess? Depends on how you define intelligence.

I probably wouldn't go out of my way to look for particularly intelligent people. In fact I'd probably avoid anyone who puts their IQ in their bio (because... Eww). But based on my interests and personally, I can see myself naturally sharing more in common with "intelligent" people (wow that sounds pretentious).

I do wonder if I'd feel frustrated with a partner who couldn't understand me when explaining complex things though...

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.

Important, but not as important as loyalty.

You can't fix stupid.

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.

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.