I def. agree with this Julia Allison column:
And DEFINITELY stop insisting that men are ‘intimidated’ by your brains and earning power. They aren’t. …
“Men who perceive themselves as smart and successful are attracted to women they perceive to be smart and successful,” writes [Christine] Whelan. And yet, more than half the women surveyed still insidiously and falsely believed that men wanted to marry down.
Like the ‘Sex & the City’ episode where Miranda pretends to be a flight attendant to disguise her true, ostensibly more emasculating profession (an attorney, of course!) women think they must lie or understate their achievements to ensure a happy relationship.
Completely untrue, insists Whelan. “When these able women buy into gender-based stereotypes of what a man is looking for in a woman, they not only insult the men they are trying to attract, but also give off negative vibes about their own self-confidence.”
Those vibes–stemming from needless panic and a false sense of I’ll-Never-Get-Married-Doom–may translate as desperation, anger, cynicism and bitterness, which we all know men just love.
Men actually do want intelligence, self-confidence, and ambition. “Success is sexy,” says Whelan. In fact, “more income and education may increase a woman’s chances of marriage.”
Girls were definitely intimidating to me … when I was 16. Not any longer, honestly. I don’t think there’s ever been an occasion when I haven’t pursued a woman because she was smart, or earned a lot of money.
In my experience, the smart, successful women who think men want to date someone beneath them are projecting their own insecurities and their own (hypocritical) need to date a man that is smarter and more successful than them (which becomes more scarce as intelligence and income increase).
Props to TAB, whom I believe is onto something. In a similar vein, I won’t date a woman who plays up that she’s ‘Ivy educated,’ which really only means your dad when to the Ivy League or that you play the French horn or something.
I think every girl I’ve dated, ever, has been at least pretty smart. Who wants to date someone who can’t hold a conversation or with whom you have to constantly explain things?
The income thing is a little trickier, if a woman is making enough to constantly go jetting off to Aspen and Europe — well, okay I admit I think I have less to offer that girl than someone who makes about my income. But hey, I’m smart, I’m funny, I’m athletic – not to mention modest…
I must be meeting the wrong guys….I was once told by a guy friend that none of the men at church would date me because I am “a doctor”….and “too smart.” The same guy told me the other day that he is currently dating a doctor and a lawyer!
I was thinking about this a little more, and decided that maybe part of the reason I feel this way is that I meet very very few people I think are smarter than me. Like I could think of only two my own age off the top of my head. I guess I am a bit conceited … but I do think I know a lot of people as smart as me, like most of my friends. But smarter?? Nahh…
I think everyone is just attracted to different things. Some are very attracted to intelligence, and some don’t care. I’ve met plenty of both. And some people value intelligence but don’t say it out loud for fear of seeming, as Derek said, conceited.
Yelbis, that guy-friend of yours may have just wanted you for himself and been bitter.
I think all the girls I’ve been really into, I’ve been impressed by. Either by their career or their passion for some other interest such as running or theater or even political activism.
I disagree, the first thing any man sees in a woman is her physical attributes. You can be the smartest high-profiled attorney in the US and if you look like janet reno, you are screwed.