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[padre29]

Hmm Happy St. Valentines Day TMM, ran across this article about singlehood and the College Student and though that it would make for a interesting discussion vis a vis Braininess and Attractiveness of sorts.

When I applied to Harvard, my friends were ecstatic. “It will be crawling with guys who will find your mind irresistible,” they told me. “You will be in great demand!” I arrived on campus filled with excitement. So much for all those guys who were “intimidated by my intellect”! So much for romantic evenings ruined by careless references to Charles Martel! That surely wouldn’t be a problem at Harvard.

Or would it? Let’s just say that, not unlike hundreds of other Harvard women, I will be spending Valentine’s Day alone. With an all-male drag organization. I hope they have something romantic planned.

So whose fault is this? Everyone has an explanation to offer. Is it the demise of the dating culture? Global warming? Are we too committed to commit? Or are all Harvard men simply unprintables, as many of my female friends suggest?

Perhaps they have a case. Edward Dahlberg once observed that “What men most desire is a virgin who is a whore.” Harvard men seem to want a genius who is a moron. While Harvard women spent their high school careers trying not to intimidate too many men with their intellects, Harvard men spent theirs making women swoon with their massive, girthy arrays of knowledge. Arriving at Harvard demanded adjustment. For if Harvard men are not intimidated by Harvard women’s intellects, Harvard women are not excessively impressed by the intellects of Harvard men. It might seem as though this would lead to interesting, balanced conversations and battles of wits. Instead, it has produced a lopsided quagmire. Harvard men want women who are impressed by their intelligence. Harvard women want men who aren’t intimidated by theirs. Both are disappointed.

Speaking as a man, given the choice between someone who was awed by my knowledge of the Renaissance and someone who knew as much about it as I and thought that, frankly, I was a little too short and Jewish, I would pick the former every time. This is what Harvard women are up against. While Harvard guys can take the bus to Wellesley and find themselves seized by hordes of fair-to-moderately nubile houris, the thought of Harvard women riding over to, say, Wabash College and snaring eager men seems patently absurd. Aside from the transportation costs involved in driving to Indiana.

Harvard is certainly far from the relationship Mecca my friends envisaged. Only 15% of Harvard students are in a relationship that they are willing to list on Facebook. This is low—25% of Northeastern students, 27% of UMass students, 24% of Emerson students, and 22% of BU students are listed as “in a relationship.” So why are our area counterparts coupling up at rates almost twice ours?

Perhaps brooding on these issues has simply made Harvard women unfit for company. Instead of going on dates, even group dates, they band together to produce the Vagina Monologues. A college that can supply 30 women to perform and 100 to attend the Vagina Monologues on Valentine’s Day night is a college without a dating scene.

Indeed, both Harvard men and women must confront the same problem: a dating culture conspicuous by its absence. The concept of taking someone out to dinner and a movie has been replaced by the nebulous notion of the hook-up. Harvard students are getting more action on Friday nights with total strangers than many loving Victorian couples did in the course of 50-year marriages. This is not optimal. But what other options does our generation have?

The Self-Help section of Amazon.com hints at the underlying problem. Men’s bestselling help books include Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed and The Layguide: How to Seduce Women More Beautiful Than You Ever Dreamed Possible No Matter What You Look Like Or How Much You Make. Women’s include titles like If I’m So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single? and Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. In these books, women are constantly enjoined not to “settle.” “Settling” is bad. Men, on the other hand, are constantly enjoined to settle, and often. These philosophies cannot both work. The world is either filled with discriminating women wandering around with checklists and constantly rejecting men like Mystery, or with accessible, impossibly beautiful women just dying to hop into bed. These expectations combine to produce dissatisfying results for everyone. The gap between ideals and hormones produces the hook-up culture, which is frustrating to most sane people. The difficulty about instant gratification is that it is neither. But if men don’t run around like deranged rabbits, they are failing to live up to their potential. If women “settle,” they’re committing the ultimate crime of self-disrespect. No one wins.

So at the risk of sounding like sediment, let me announce that I have no problem with “settling.” “Settling” is what happens when you accept someone in spite of the ways in which he or she falls short of your ideal. At times, it is inappropriate. But this kind of “settling” is what real relationships are based on. Harvard students, adrift in the sea of misaligned expectations, need to realize this. Instead of waiting for someone who not only finds their intellectualism positively arousing but also enjoys long walks on the beach and is over 6’, Harvard women should take another look at that short Jewish guy. Instead of seeking women who are impressed by them, Harvard men should try to find the ones who actually like them. And we should all leave Charles Martel out of it.

[Apple]

For me, character and attitude are much more important than looks or even intelligence. This article seems to be specific to Harvard culture, but something fishy is going on in the whole western world, and I can't put my finger on it. Men are afraid to be men, women try to be men, and the whole thing just goes to hell. Wendy McElroy sheds some light on it in her critique on radical feminism, but I think it runs deeper than that. Whatever "it" is.

[Candlewick]

I ask myself what's up, as well.

It's not just dating/mating. Any sort of connection-making seems more of a burden than an asset to people. They are very distracted and self-absorbed, have unrealistic expectations and no desire to "cultivate" relationships because that's work.

There are not too many adults to be found anymore. Just kids.

That's the Wolf Age for you. I suspect that resignation is the correct response. 

[slidemansailor]

It is a very shallow world where the cultural norms are established by screenwriters and portrayed by actors. When you get out of that circle, you find people with depth.  Unfortunately it is a very big circle.

[sambaguy]

when i think of having to date a woman who isn't libertarian, it... discourages me

[Rick N]

There are not too many adults to be found anymore. Just kids.

Exactly.

[Pragmatic1]

I ask myself what's up, as well.

It's not just dating/mating. Any sort of connection-making seems more of a burden than an asset to people. They are very distracted and self-absorbed, have unrealistic expectations and no desire to "cultivate" relationships because that's work.

There are not too many adults to be found anymore. Just kids.
 

THERE IS ALOT OF TRUTH TO THAT.  I'm weird because I care about liberty and not Jon & kate plus 8.

[The Frog]

Seems to me like there are very large egos colliding with each other at Harvard!!

Looks to me like some people need to let go of their intellects a little and start living a bit more with their hearts.

Intellect and virtual knowledge are not that important in a mate. Experience, values and a heart capable of love are much more valuable! Never forget an ability to communicate, the lubricant of relationships!

BTW, Charles Martel is an important guy historically, he began the turn of the Muslim invasion of Europe at the Battle of Poitiers in 732. Martel=marteau=Hammer... A great king of the Franks, grandfather to Charlemagne.

[Bluelinegirl]

Seems to me like there are very large egos colliding with each other at Harvard!!

Looks to me like some people need to let go of their intellects a little and start living a bit more with their hearts.

Intellect and virtual knowledge are not that important in a mate. Experience, values and a heart capable of love are much more valuable! Never forget an ability to communicate, the lubricant of relationships!

It is extremely difficult to communicate with someone when your intellects are drastically different. For example, I enjoy studying Physics for fun and intrigue but explaining quantum physics to someone who isn't interested in the potential energy findings of magnetic propulsion is not my idea of a Saturday evening by the fire nor is listening to someone drone on about the joys of plumbing. Especially when I cant tell him I plumbed my whole house, added two bathrooms tapping into the water main as well as ran 220 electric from my breaker box (including adding a new 220 breaker) to install a washer and dryer in my kitchen (through 6 concrete walls) without emasculating him? So whats a chick to do when a fella doesn't want to learn and she doesn't want to dumb down? I got a cat. She likes Physics

[Winston]

Well I think most men are afraid of a woman who is smarter than them.

Me, I'd LOVE a girl who is smarter than me.

[padre29]

Seems to me like there are very large egos colliding with each other at Harvard!!

Looks to me like some people need to let go of their intellects a little and start living a bit more with their hearts.

Intellect and virtual knowledge are not that important in a mate. Experience, values and a heart capable of love are much more valuable! Never forget an ability to communicate, the lubricant of relationships!

It is extremely difficult to communicate with someone when your intellects are drastically different. For example, I enjoy studying Physics for fun and intrigue but explaining quantum physics to someone who isn't interested in the potential energy findings of magnetic propulsion is not my idea of a Saturday evening by the fire nor is listening to someone drone on about the joys of plumbing. Especially when I cant tell him I plumbed my whole house, added two bathrooms tapping into the water main as well as ran 220 electric from my breaker box (including adding a new 220 breaker) to install a washer and dryer in my kitchen (through 6 concrete walls) without emasculating him? So whats a chick to do when a fella doesn't want to learn and she doesn't want to dumb down? I got a cat. She likes Physics

The cat likes Physics?

more likely:

[Bluelinegirl]

LOL She loves the experiments. She kinda has a neck twitch but she seems happy! lol

[Who...me?]

When I was a young guy my older brother and I would use our little brother to test our "physics" experiments to see if they were safe enough for us to try.

Like the home made parachute off the 2nd floor porch experiment.
The drive the big wheel off the 6' stone wall at the end of the yard experiment.
The ride the toboggan down Hake's hill (read as the very steep, long, tree covered with the occasional large rock) experiment.
And my personal favorite, the try to jump Winding Hill Road on the snowmobile using the self constructed ice and snow ramp experiment.

*The little brother in question was hardly ever killed in the quest for youthful excitement and is in fact alive today, and tho mildly scarred, has children of his own.

[Bluelinegirl]

After the last man in my life, I give up. Seriously, I need someone with a very high iq, highly mechanically inclined, high level of street smarts, social smarts, testosterone, high dose of respect, his own stuff... oh the list is just too long so screw it lol

[slidemansailor]

IQ is poor measure of anything but the ability to take IQ tests.

Moreover, I'd dare say a productive, practical man in boots and coveralls would be a much better catch than the high IQ guy in a Brooks Brothers suit.