April 7, 2013
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Maybe Smart Really is The New Sexy
I’d always seen this phrase on hipster t-shirts, and chuckled to myself upon reading it, because it sounded like an oxymoron. The stereotype always goes that the guy or girl that goes after books instead of looks is always destined to remain a virgin forever and die alone in their parents’ basement. But, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe it might be at least partially true, in an overly-complicated way. Involving math and other smartypants things.
This thought occurred to me recently after reading something that my ex’s current girlfriend wrote at the beginning of their relationship. She kept gushing about how he seemed to know everything about her, and could almost read her mind. She saw this as some sort of emotional depth, that she couldn’t wait to know more about herself through his eyes. It sounded very famiiar to me, but was the opposite of my own experience with this particular guy. When we were together, I was the one that amazed him by seeming to read his mind, and he would hang on every word I said. He made no secret about the fact that he would read everything I wrote and act like some sort of sexual detective. It threw him for a loop, as he was usually the one so in charge of his own emotions. But yet I seemed to be able to break him down in no-time flat, with little to no effort. In fact, the breaking down of his aloof veneer unhinged him so much that he got to the point where he would only ask me questions during conversation, and change the subject when turned the questions back around on him. He was trying to remain mysterious around me, but at the same time get to the heart of who I was. We were two enigmas trying to unlock the secret of one another, but on my side I didn’t break. I thought it was very amusing that something that I found sort of irritating about the guy was probably the one thing that reeled this girl into a deeper relationship. He is smart, but the right kind of smart, and therefore it makes him sexy to others.
Everyone knows that dateability is based on certain factors, of things that a potential boyfriend or girlfriend can bring to the relationship. Looks are one part, but there’s also emotional maturity and compatibility. Interests, skills, creativity, spontaneity. Those aren’t necessarily things you can learn from reading a book about physics. But, what if that doesn’t really make a person smart, after all? Smart is the ability to solve problems and learn, not just regurgitate facts. A person who is smart, at least the right kind of smart, can improvise and deal with situations very easily. Smart people are interesting, because they know at least a little about a lot of things, and probably have lots of interesting stories. And, smart people are good at experimenting, and that’s something that probably, at least in my experience, makes them very good sexual and romantic partners.
But, at the same time, that only seems to hold true for other smart people. Non-intellectuals, even those that aren’t “dumb” by any stretch of the imagination, seem to see intellectuals as one of two flavors: boring, or crazy. So, in that regard, smart is sexy, but only to other smart people. So, maybe all of these stereotypical forever-virgins need nothing more than to start picking up dates at the library. It might do them a world of good, to be able to flex their brainy muscles in front of their peers.
