Matthew Hussey separates intelligence from smugness, arguing men aren't turned off by smart women but by those who weaponize it. The real problem: intelligent people attract a narrower dating pool. He suggests meeting more people, taking risks with those outside your usual circle, and building a life around interesting environments.
Are men turned off by intelligent women? Some, yes, but not the best ones. I like to look at this in a pragmatic way because we can mourn about how some men are intimidated by women's intelligence and have been since the beginning of time or we can just look at what we can do to deal with that situation. Now, I want to distinguish for a moment between different forms of intelligence. or different archetypes of intelligent people. I think there's the academic, or I should say the pompous academic, 'cause not all academics are bad, but the pompous academic who wears their intelligence as their weapon. This person is the person that makes everyone feel stupid, uses words no one understands a lot of the time, and talks in terms that no one can really relate to. Then there's the sarcastic cutting comedian. This is the person who has not necessarily a deep knowledge of one area, but someone whose wit and speed of mind can make other people feel like they're slow. You say something, they immediately have a witty response to it and they can cut you down sarcastically very quickly with things they say. Then there's the person who's socially intelligent. Now, the person who's socially intelligent has a natural intelligence, has a natural speed of mind. But when it comes to talking to people, they're able to read the room and know their audience. So they always know what kinds of conversations to be having around different people. They can talk with the intellectual elites and be curious and be interested and be interesting, or they can talk in more base terms with anybody else and just have fun and be silly and be entertaining. The most intelligent people I know are also socially intelligent. They know how to work a room and they know how to make other people feel great. Intelligence is defined by the ability to acquire and apply knowledge. Now there's two parts to that. The pompous academic just focuses on acquiring knowledge, but they don't necessarily focus on the right application of it. Knowledge is learning a four syllable word. Intelligence is knowing when to use it. Knowledge is being able to quote Proust. Intelligence is knowing the difference between when you should be quoting Proust and when you should be talking about family guy. I don't care who you are, man or woman. If you're leaving more people feeling insecure and inadequate around you than feeling great around you, that's because you're unintelligent, not because you're intelligent. I don't believe your biggest problem is that you're scaring everybody away with how intelligent you are. I think you'll attract more people overall if you're intelligent. The bigger problem is if you're intelligent and you're attracted to intelligence, you'll be turned on by a smaller group of people than most. You'll have a smaller pool of people to select from. That's okay. There are ways to deal with that. I think there are three major ways. One is meeting more people, so you increase the chances of meeting the types of people you actually want. Two is taking risks with people that you may think are on your level or out of your league. And number three, we have to build a lifestyle that puts us in the same venues as intelligent and interesting people that share our interests. So that's it. Leave us a comment, man or woman, telling us what you thought of this video. I would love to hear your feedback and thank you again for watching guys. I'll see you next week.
