Just A Guy Thing

The smarter you are, the more problems you’ll have in your dating life. That’s the conclusion of Dr. Alex Benzer, author of the Tao of Dating. Benzer observed the dating woes on the Harvard campus as both a student and later as an advisor and has come to some surprising conclusions:

1. Smart people are achievement-oriented growing up, leaving little time for relationships.

In adolescence, intelligent folks spend more time winning awards and padding their college applications than chasing after potential girlfriends and boyfriends. If you don’t practice making a personal connection when you’re a teenager, the situation only gets worse when you get to college and beyond, when you’re really in hyper-achievement mode.

2. All that high achieving makes smart people feel entitled to love.

All the accomplishments smart people ring up don’t necessarily help them in the arena of love. While it might help getting a first date, it won’t help you get a second.

3. Smart people don’t act sexy.

Most smart people get pegged early in life as “the smart one.” They start to think of themselves solely with that label, rather than as a sexual man or woman. All that energy going to the head never has a chance to trickle down to the heart, or even the groin.

4. Smart folks get in the way of their own romantic lives.

Put simply, all that thinking gets in the way of the more primitive urges of your lizard brain.

5. Smart people eliminate most of the human race as potential partners.

If you think you’re in the top 5% of the population in terms of education and smarts, chances are you will seek out similarly intelligent people as potential mates. By eliminating the vast majority of potential mates, you obviously reduce your chances of finding a good match.

Benzer’s recommendations to smart people looking for love are to loosen up and consider a wider range of people as potential dates; and get out of your head and focus instead on how you make that other person feel.

For more info, check out the Tao of Dating website.

photo credit: chegs