Is He Too Dumb For You?

We have Marianne on the line right now. Marianne, are you there?

Yes, good morning.

Tell me your question.

Okay, my question is, how do you know when you're being too picky rather than being selective about the men you spend time with?

How picky are you?

I've been told that I'm incredibly picky.

Can you give me an example of a time when you said something to your friend and they said you're being too picky?

Okay, I'm on several occasions, unfortunately, I have, I know. I'll ask the gentlemen or whoever I'm spending, I talk to everybody. I'm not taking that way, but I try to get some insight as to maybe some of their past, whether they sometimes, whether they even have an education at all whatsoever or how they even feel about it because I know it's very important to me and I have a lot of education and I like intellectual talk.

Let me ask you a question, Marianne, what to you is an education?

To me, in education, I want someone that maybe they don't necessarily have to have a degree, but is interested in learning. Right, so you don't... and experiences. Some people just don't like it outside that box.

So you don't... for you, it's not about whether someone has an education, really. It's about whether someone is intellectually curious.

Intellectual, yes. I think that's the best word. I love intellectual talks. Even things that I don't know, I like to learn things from even other people.

So wouldn't it be a better test? Wouldn't it be a better test if we want to phrase it in that rather crude way to let's say start talking about something that you're into and you probably know that he wouldn't know about, which of course would be a bonus if he did, 'cause you'd realize that he was educated, whether it was buying some institution or self educated. But let's say you started talking about something. Wouldn't his interest or disinterest in that tell you everything you need to know? See, I'm the same in the sense that I wanna be around people where I can have great conversation with them, but I also know that I actually value curiosity far more than a pre-existing education. If I know someone is interested in learning and they wanna go away and figure things out and understand more about the world and learn more and they're into culture or art or traveling or whatever, that curiosity to me is much more valuable than the education itself. 'Cause I can give you many people, by the way, who are educated and.

Who aren't intellectually curious. That's right.

Yeah, I've met those two.

Right.

You're right. They're the most boring people in the world. I can give you a ton of people who have no formal education and are completely curious about everything. They want to learn, they want to devour new information. So, I'm happy that you're being fussy. I'm happy that you're picky. I just want to make sure that you're being picky about the right things.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely. But, you know, I know that that's one area in my life where I, like you said, I do, when you put in those words, I do value curiosity and just a desire to want to learn anything.

So maybe you need a better question. Maybe the question you want to ask someone early on is maybe you throw out something that you're learning about, something that you're curious about right now, which is a great conversation starter. Someone asks you what you've been up to recently, whatever question you're asked, say what you were going to say anyway. That's what politicians do all the time, right?

So I studied political science, so I guess I should probably know that one.

Right. So when someone says, how are you? If you want to talk about the medieval period of history that you've been learning about, someone says, how are you? And you go, oh, my God, I'm so great. I spent all day today with my friend going around this museum learning about Medieval history, it is so fascinating. Have you ever gone to learn about it? Great, you answered that on the How are youe? question. That's easy. And also, by the way, someone will thank you for giving them something more to talk about than, How are youe? I'm good, you? Yeah, I'm good. So you come here often to this rock?

Those questions are so awkward sometimes.

They're really awkward. So you just say what you want to say, but the beauty of that is of course, when you say, this is what I've been learning about. You say to him, okay, I told you the geeky thing that I'm learning about was something you're trying to learn about right now.

Okay.

And if he says, no, I mean, I don't know. I just am really into the Kardashians or whatever crap people say. Then you can go, okay, maybe my time is better spent with the guy behind him. But at least you'll be asking a better quality question than asking someone something that seems slightly to miss the mark when you say, you know, where did you study or, you know, what did you do to get to your job and so on? That doesn't necessarily tell you anything about someone. Someone could have just worked very hard in their own right to get to where they are, but find out if they're curious. And that little conversation technique is a great way to do it. Makes sense?

Oh, it makes lots of sense. I would definitely work on the quality of my questions for now.

Are you glad you called Marianne?

Thank you so much. I can't wait to see you in April.

You're coming to see me. Where are you coming to see me?

In San Diego.

Oh my God, it's gonna be the best time ever. It's gonna be the best day of yours and my life.

It definitely will. I know it will be definitely mine.

For anyone out there who is listening, we have a tour going on right now. We're going all across the country, UK, America, Canada. We're going everywhere doing these live events. Marianne is joining me in San Diego. We're gonna have a lovely little hug. If you're joining me in any other city, come see me, come say hi. I'd be delighted to see you. Marianne, thank you so much for calling. I really appreciate it and I hope to see you. Well, I will see you soon, so I'll see you in San Diego.

All right, thank you so much for taking my call. You have a great day.

You too. Bye bye.