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.
I wish you were more specific, there’s multiple types of intelligence.
Agreed. I need intelligence defined by OP since it means different things to different people.
Ex: you can be emotionally intelligent but as dumb as a billboard
Or super smart but emotionally cannot pick up on any emotions or physical needs.
Both of these are bad.
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).
Important, but not as important as loyalty.
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.
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…
Very. There are different types of intelligence though and I don’t want someone with the exact same intelligence strengths as me. That’s boring. I want some different but complementary intelligence; I like learning from people and I like when a partner us open to learning about my passions. Like a nicely overlapping venn diagram.
Also, I like a person who likes venn diagrams and other data visualization tools.
Aside from the issue of age of course, if they’re intelligent enough to understand the relationship and what it means, then they can make the list.
It has always been the most important. Now I’m gonna say something that usually results in people telling me I’m arrogant and sincerely this isn’t arrogance it’s just fact: I’m extremely intelligent. And I could not really have a spouse who wasn’t. When my wife and I met we both found such relief because we both feel this way. She’s highly intelligent and that was the most attractive quality to me.
I recognize though that it’s not the only quality of merit. She’s also extremely kind and loving and supporting, and independent of intelligence those too are extremely attractive and praiseworthy. I guess really I wish everyone could simply find a person who they are attracted to in many many respects. That’s the best foundation I think.
I’m extremely intelligent.
If you feel the need to say it, you probably aren’t as intelligent as you think you are.
True intelligence is knowing how stupid you are. -Socrates
…what? How do you expect them to demonstrate their intelligence within the span of a single comment, without telling you? This “comeback” doesn’t work if their intelligence constitutes actually relevant context.
They don’t need to prove their intelligence, but this entire line just throws off “but awkshully” vibes of someone who thinks too highly of themselves. Bolding mine.
Now I’m gonna say something that usually results in people telling me I’m arrogant and sincerely this isn’t arrogance it’s just fact: I’m extremely intelligent.
You know who brags about their intelligence enough to be told they are arrogant? Morons. Morons who think they are super smart do that.
If they left that one sentence out then the rest of their post as written would have made them look smart.
Mmh, I see what you mean. Fair enough!
Eh, it’s a largely anonymous internet forum. No one could possibly know from reading a single comment, nor does it exactly afford bragging rights.
Intelligence vs wisdom… he may have the one, but probably not the other.
Super important. I’m an idiot, and if we both are stupid we’ll be in serious trouble.
For me, capacity and curiosity is more important because it usually means the other person can change based on information rather than thinking they already know. Usually, that means they are somewhat intelligent as a result.
Extremely, stupid people are boring. Give me a 5/10 PhD student.
Intelligence is important, but big muscle is importanter.
