6 Comments

My take on Intelligence and marriage or: what actually happens

When I was in my late 20’s and single, I used to run a survey of about 100 women (between ages of 22-40 or so): What qualities they would like in their future husbands –(none of them had been married),

They would come up with a list—usually 5-10 items i.e., the Irish would like the tall, dark., blue eyed Irish; sense of humor; social background; sometimes, income; etc

Then I was transferred to the Far East for 7 years and when I returned, I followed up with the same women. Many of whom had gotten married. It turns out, that they -on their first marriage only,-- ended up marrying someone that usually did not have any of the qualities they thought they wanted: Except for one area.

There is one quality that intelligent women never compromised on: Intelligence! –in fact when I mentioned this to them, and to the women that were still single, …their comments were the same:

“I could never respect a man that I thought was less intelligent than I am!”*

Turns out that in the Far East, up to 50% of the marriages are arranged (or the parents have a strong say in who their daughters, and sons, would marry) and it was true out there as well.

However there is a corollary to this;; and that is: intelligent men (on first marriages only) do not marry dumb women.. In fact the IQ spread between husband and wife is smaller than between parent and child or among the children.

Of course on subsequent marriages, men marry all sorts of women!

*PS education had nothing to do with the intelligence;

Expand full comment

1. I wish I knew the nature of the not-quite-fit (assuming it's not just the language barrier, because anyone can fix that in a few months), but maybe you had a reason not to write about it here so it's fine if you don't want to share.

2. How does one rationally calibrate the threshold of "good enough to stop searching and put a ring on her and put a baby in her" versus "roll the dice on another LTR"?

3. I wonder if some people keep rolling the dice excessively because nothing IRL measures up to stuff they see on TV/movies. The reference class is contaminated by fictional/cherrypicked evidence and that biases the threshold upward. Worse, the reference class lies somewhere deep down in the limbic system and only comes to conscious awareness as vague feelings. I think I've had this problem. In retrospect I knew some ladies in my youth who could have been good partners, but my physical standards were so absurdly high at the time that asking them out never even crossed my mind. Even when they dropped anvilicious hints that they were interested. Even when they're in let's say among the the top 20% prettiest girls at my school and I hung out with them on a daily basis as friends.

4. Ideally, when I find a 90/100, I should just marry them, and not keep rerolling forever for the perfect 100, because that way lies foreveralone-ness. I'm not getting any younger and de novo mutations mostly come from paternal age. Even as a man of 36 year I think my ability to attract a partner is past its peak.

Expand full comment

I'm wanting people to brainstorm the whole human connection with an emphasis on dating thing, which may just be the whole human connection thing but I don't know if it's an active interest of yours or Nick's. It's currently bugging me to the point it's messing up my sleep and I think it's better as a group than a solo project. It's not my top project but it won't leave me alone so I may as well try to solve it more globally until I solve it for myself (and then consult a bit). So I'm looking for a good forum to work on human dating/mating/connection systems. I'll just toss that out here and then think about other places. I definitely see a survey element (what people want, who people are, what works).

Expand full comment

I wrote a lot about dating strategies that I may post later but for now I will say "Why You Should Date Nate" is so sweet and I would totally date him. The whole thing makes me feel warm and happy.

Expand full comment