Conference quark::mennotes-v1

    As I've mentioned in HUMAN_RELATIONS, I'm actually attracted
    by intelligence in a woman, and turned off by an obvious lack
    of it.  I don't find it intimidating at all.
    				Steve

    
    I can't let myself be intimidated by intelligence.  Everyone is
    smarter than I am. :-}
    
    In all seriousness, I don't know why she experiences this for sure.
    It may not be that she's brainy, but that she's a brainy engineer.
    We people steeped in the nitty-gritty of reality are not as common
    as we like to think.  (Yeah, yeah, what do engineers know about
    reality, but I'm trying to be serious for a moment.)
    
    My point being, if she were a brainy lawyer or a brainy manager,
    the problem might be reduced.  I think it's an occupational hazard
    of engineering, not just because she's bright.
    
    The people who date her thinking she's a waitress and finding out
    she's an engineer might just not like surprises.  P.G. Wodehouse's
    characters were perpetually getting plunged in the soup because
    people were saying they were one thing when they were actually another.
    
    The people who get the quivers because they know she's an engineer
    right off the bat might just be having a lapse in confidence.  We've
    all heard about some good-looking man or woman that's always alone
    because everyone assumes someone so good-looking would never be
    without a slew of dates.  It's probably an analagous situation.
    
    Of course, I may be talking out of the back of my neck.
    
    DFW

    
    
    
    
    
    
                         ...only if it's Artificial.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

    I'm intimidated by very intelligent *people* because I can't keep
    up with them in an argument.  When they say something that I don't
    understand, I get frustrated.  I'm also forgetful and I have a very
    short attention span.  Other people remember things that I should
    and I feel inadequate.  Then I clam up.  With NOTES, I have time
    to think slowly and let things absorb.  In real life, the thoughts
    don't have time to absorb into my thick skull.
    
    My wife is intelligent, but not a genius.  We complement each other.
    (or is that 'compliment'?  Both, actually. ;-)  I.E. she's good
    with numbers and I'm not, so she does the number things.  On the
    other hand, I'm good at figuring out how things work and I can fix
    just about anything, she can't.  She is good with abstract things
    while I'm good at logical things.  Together, we can do just about
    anything.
    
    This paragraph originally was a 1 - 10 scale.  Then I realized that
    the scale is different according to the situation.  When it comes
    to figuring out numbers, I rate about 3.  When it comes to fixing
    a toaster, I rate about 9.  In this medium, I can take my foot out
    of my mouth before anyone else notices. ;-)
                                                                  
    If a person is too intelligent, I feel like they are talking over
    my head and I get either frustrated or bored.  I feel inferior.
            
    If a person is too unintelligent, I feel like I have to tone down
    for them to understand me.  They probably get frustrated and bored
    with me.
    
    The term 'engineer' carries an air of elegance.  Hence, sanitary
    engineer sounds much better than garbage collector.  Or coordination
    engineer sounds much better than secretary.  I'm a design engineering
    specialist, not a technician.  I used to be a 'computer repairman'
    in the AF.  People would really 'oo' and 'ah' just because of the
    word 'computer'.  
    
    Spence       

    
         I couldn't deal with anyone who wasn't intelligent.  But, as
    Spence said, a genius is another matter.  Male or female, geniuses
    (genii?) are usually considered rather strange in our society. 
    I know several, and I just don't know if I could date the female
    ones.
    
                                Bubba
    

    
    I always found intelligent women quite sexy & was lucky enough to
    marry one  ;^}  . She does intimidate me at times but I like
    that feeling (reminds me of our courtship rituals...well, this
    is getting too personal...). Besides the obvious fun of wrangling
    over various ideas & issues, intelligence can get better with age
    and can be more lasting than one's looks (& thus _more_ sexy as
    you get older). 
    
    

    The base note seems to me (perhaps I'm just over sensitive) to carry
    a little cultural bias.
    
    Why should an "engineer" be more or less intelligent than a "waitress".
    
    I know of a PhD who drives 18-wheelers full time for a living (he likes
    the life style). I know of a garbage collector with an IQ or 180+
    
    It has been remarked that Mensa (a club for the self confessed intelligent)
    has members from almost any profession you care to name.
    
    And on a more fundamental level how do you define intelligence?
    
    ====
    
    To answer the question in .0 however: no I'm neither intimidated 
    nor attracted by intelligence per se. I do however prefer the company
    of somebody with whom I can carry on a non-inane conversation.
    
    /. Ian .\

    
    I'm not fearing of the intelligence of some of the women
    I've dated.... some have been smart.. some not.  In cases
    both have been enjoyable people and vice versa. 
    Maybe this womens problem is not her "intelligence", maybe
    it was the (a) conversation topic, personality differences...
    and numerous other possibilities. 
    Just my views....
    

    WARNING: these are not my beliefs, just throwing out possibilities.
    
    To use an old stereotype, a waitress would seem, to a lot of men,
    to be an easy mark.  Once this 'mark' reveals any intelligence,
    then the 'mark' is not so easy and, therefore, probably not worth
    spending an evening with and ending up going home alone.  An engineer
    would be viewed as more likely wanting a lasting relationship, whereas
    a waitress would be deemed as being more likely to enjoy a one night
    stand.
    
    Spence

    I can't speak for anyone else, but I used to be a snob about my
    education level and literary/lingiustic ability.  There was a time when
    I thought people would think less of me if they saw me with someone
    whose grammar wasn't as good as mine.  I used to think that men were
    rejecting me because they were afraid to deal honestly with an
    intelligent woman until a good friend took me aside and very gently
    told me that I was acting as though "book learning" was the only human
    trait that held any value. 
    
    Honesty forced me to admit he was right -- I had been expecting the men
    (and women) I know to prove they were smart like me, rather than
    looking at each one's individuality and uniqueness.      
    
    Once I admitted that having read all the great works of literature did
    not qualify one for admission to the human race, I learned that I was
    deficient in many areas of my development, especially emotionally. My
    self-esteem was a shambles underneath a good front; by pretending I was
    smarter, I cut other people down and made myself feel more important. 
    
    I started trying to listen to what the other person had to say instead
    of putting down the way they said it.  I learned that some wonderful
    insights into life in contemporary society are phrased in some pretty
    crummy grammar, and that I could choose to listen to the thought, not
    its form.  I learned that many times the person with less so-called
    intelligence is more perceptive, more creative, more humorous, more
    adventurous -- any of a hundred traits that have nothing to do with the
    kind of book-learning I enjoy so much. 
    
    Interestingly enough, once some other aspects of my personality had a
    chance to develop and I became more self-confident, improved my
    self-esteem, and quit worrying so much about making sure everyone knew
    how intellectual I was, I started to enjoy intellectual encounters even
    more because I could enjoy a literary or technical discussion for its
    own intrinsic worth, not as something that proved I was a good person. 
    
    Probably the people who know me would tell you I still have a ways
    to go . . . but I'm working on it. . . 
    
    --bonnie

    
    
    	Bottom line. When all the kissing, and etc. is over, there is
    	someone next to you to talk to.. Personally, I'd rather talk
    	about something other than "The really neato new Mall" or 
    	"I like, broke my fingernail when I, like, pulled out my charge card".
	
    
    							mike

	back to .0
	(tongue firmly in cheek, here, btw)

	Some people are intimidated by intelligence - especially in females.
	Engineers gotta be smart, you know.

	Some people regard waitresses as friendly, people-oriented persons;
	engineers, of course, are cold-fish who only love their computers.

	It may be a combination of these that contributes to the reaction
	you're finding when people discover you're not "just" a waitress
	but also an engineer....

	And perhaps they also fear that you'll have no use for them if they
	aren't as "brainy" as you.  Heck, look at all those cases of wives
	who get discarded as "not good enough" once the guy they put through
	med/law school graduates.

		-hh

    	Well here's mine...
    
    	I think the waitress gets the more dates due to a couple of
    reasons (one of which has already been mentioned).  The first is
    that most guys would think that a waitress would be a much easier
    mark than an engineer.  Now obviously "most guys" does not refer
    to the cross section of men reading this notesfile.
    	A second reason could also be that many single men are looking
    for an SO and believe that a waitress would make a better SO than
    an engineer since the waitress isn't "tied up in her career".  I
    know that that would be a sexist outlook on life but as I said I
    don't think that the average man reading this file represents the
    average American man.   (What I'm saying is that the average American
    male is sexist.)
    	Another reason could be that understanding what a waitress
    does and how they "fit" into the scheme of things is alot easier
    for the average man than understanding how an engineer fits into
    the scheme of things. (For example almost everyone who's not a waitress
    can describe a waitress' job duties,  how many people (who aren't
    engineers) can describe an engineers' job duties.  Indeed I think
    that there are so many types of engineers that it would be difficult.)
    Faced with this simple vs. complex choice many men may choose the
    simple.
    	The actual reason is probably a combination of the many reasons
    given in all the responses to the base note.
                    
    Rich
    
    P.S.  How men react to finding you are an engineer would probably
    vary depending on where you were waitressing too.

>       For example almost everyone who's not a waitress can describe a
>       waitress' job duties 

        I think it's more accurate to say that most people *think*
        they can describe the job duties of a "waitress".  It's not
        usually quite as simple as people like to think.  Waitresses
        "wait on people", just as engineers "engineer".  In either
        case, the description is all most people can manage... and
        hopelessly inadequate.
        
        Still, you're correct in that most people perceive "waitressing"
        as extremely simple (waitresses/waiters I know tend to call
        themselves "waitrons", by the way), whereas most people perceive
        engineering as being hopelessly complicated.  That they perceive
        from the position of utter ignorance of the true facts in both
        cases is probably irrelevant to the discussion.
        
        	/dave 

re .0
	The woman with whom I had the most important relationship of my life
	was an engineer.  For me I find it difficult to form a relationship
	with a woman who is *not* intelligent.  I don't judge people for not
	having intelligence,  it's just that it does help a lot.
    
        Given that the aim of a relationship is to share life,
        I suppose that intelligence is not essential,  but a lack
        of intelligence cannot exactly be an advantage,  unless one
    	is looking for (to quote Monty Python) "a dumb rich nymphomaniac
    	who owns a pub!"
    
    Simon.