Good News for Romantic Underachievers!

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Clarissa

October 21, 2015

Good news for every romantic underachiever of the female sex! Now it will be very easy to justify one’s relational losership by claiming that nobody wants to date one because one is a genius:

In a hypothetical scenario (one in which the man will never meet the woman), men showed greater attraction toward a woman who was smarter than them, but when they are faced with actually meeting a more intelligent woman, they showed less attraction and desire to date her.

Of course, “showing attraction and desire to date” somebody you have never even seen is an intensely insane concept but who cares? Relational losers will lap this up because it is much more pleasing to believe that one is lonely because of one’s intense intelligence and not because one’s psychological problems and unhealthy sexuality are scaring people away.

There was a time in my life where I also did the whole “I’m alone because I’m so brilliant and beautiful that people are intimidated by all this perfection” thing but then I dropped this boring act and now I’m happy. There is always a choice between blaming the unfair and cruel universe or looking carefully at oneself and taking responsibility for one’s losership.

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11 responses to “Good News for Romantic Underachievers!”

Stringer Bell

October 21, 2015

I have an additional problem with this article.

‘This is very interesting’.

No, it’s not. The social ‘science’ way of doing studies (We interviewed/gave some tasks to x groups, got some results, and now use those results to make broad inferences about human behavior) is not really science.

The methodologies are suspect, the data are suspect, the interpretations are suspect.

Now, you may or may not agree with that characterization of the field, but be consistent. McEwan finds this study interesting only because it supports what she already believes.

You could find tons of studies that use similar methodologies, data collection and analysis, and then come up with stupid conclusions like ‘women more like to vote for democrats if they are ovulating at that time’ or some shit like that.

That, for McEwan would be a ‘problematic’ study. Then it would be ‘OMG, can social science get any more sexist?’

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1. Dreidel
  
  October 21, 2015
  
  Congratulations on being correct for once on this blog. 🙂
  
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2. Clarissa
  
  October 21, 2015
  “You could find tons of studies that use similar methodologies, data collection and analysis, and then come up with stupid conclusions like ‘women more like to vote for democrats if they are ovulating at that time’ or some shit like that.”
  
  Absolutely. And this is why I detest this sort of “study.” This particular one is modeling an entirely unrealistic situation in order to be able to tell some people what they are eager to hear. The scholarly value of this is nil but people dig this sort of stuff. I’ve already seen several triumphant linkbacks to the “study.”
  
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Stringer Bell

October 21, 2015

“My first thought upon reading the findings of the study is that this isn’t really about intelligence at all, but about power. That is, a woman who is smarter than a man in the abstract is compelling, but a woman who is smarter than a man in real life threatens his ability to control the relationship.”

My god. Let me use language that she can relate to: By making this assertion she has silenced and erased the lived experiences of millions of men who are turned on by powerful women, not threatened by them.

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1. Clarissa
  
  October 21, 2015
  “By making this assertion she has silenced and erased the lived experiences of millions of men who are turned on by powerful women, not threatened by them.”
  
  And of all the strong, brilliant women who don’t have a problem attracting men. How this is different from the deeply patriarchal “boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses” is a mystery.
  
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  1. Stringer Bell
    
    October 21, 2015
    
    “boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”
    
    Haha, that’s exactly it.
    
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2. xykademiqz
  
  October 22, 2015
  
  By making this assertion she has silenced and erased the lived experiences of millions of men who are turned on by powerful women, not threatened by them.
  
  Hear, hear!
  When I first started dating my now husband, we were at a local brewery and I talked about my experience teaching theoretical mechanics. I remember specifically getting all passionate about the Lagrange equations with multipliers. My then boyfriend looked at me like a cat looking at bacon and said “That’s unbelievably fuckin’ hot…” followed by something more raunchy. I knew I had a keeper.
  Throughout our marriage, he’s consistently shown that my intelligence, passion, and ambition are all extremely attractive to him.
  
  I can also say that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing a number of men who are turned on by smart women, and I can’t say I dated a single one who wasn’t.
  
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jeff

October 21, 2015

“showing attraction and desire to date” somebody you have never even seen is an intensely insane concept”

I can’t imagine what I would say to such a question. Do you feel attracted to this woman you’ve never met now that we’ve told you that she is smart? Or, better yet, look at this IQ test. Feel aroused? No? You sexist jerk!

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1. David P. Bellamy
  
  October 21, 2015
  
  It must have been that the men were shown pictures of the women. Otherwise this makes no sense at all.
  
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  1. jeff
    
    October 21, 2015
    
    There is nothing about photos in the article but who knows. This is a retelling of a study nobody has seen yet from what I gather.
    
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Shakti

October 21, 2015

This makes no sense because this whole trope of “men don’t like smart women/intimidated by their smarts” is code for something else.

I am decidedly average in the intelligence department and I’ve had average grades and people have told me this.

It’s some weird cultural trope because if it wasn’t, women wouldn’t be entering medical school to improve their chances of getting married.

“It’s much easier for girls to get married once they are doctors and many girls don’t really intend to work as professional doctors,” he says.
“I know of hundreds of hundreds of female students who have qualified as a doctor or a dentist but they have never touched a patient.”
Vice Chancellor with Medical Students with Medical Students, Islamabad
Image caption
Dr Javed Akram, who rejects the idea of quotas, says his university’s female students “study harder so obviously they are better students”
Privately, many doctors – both male and female – tell me that a medical degree is an extremely hot ticket in the marriage market.
To confirm this claim, I visit the Aisha Marriage Bureau run by Kamran Ahmed and his wife. Business is so good they are opening their second branch in Islamabad.
Mr Ahmed says his best clients are mothers seeking doctor wives for their sons. “In social gatherings, it’s very prestigious to introduce your daughter-in-law or wife as a doctor.”
And he says if a young female doctor is even a little good-looking, then finding a match for her is a breeze. “By the way, if you know of any single doctor girls, please let me know. I have boys who are looking,” he adds in a cheeky aside.

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