I was at a friend's house because his mum was going to alter my wedding dress to fit me. I don't think he has ever had a girlfriend, and his mum made some awkward comments while I was there, as mothers do. On my return trip to pick up the altered dress, I thought she might bring the topic up again, so I tried to prepare myself. I wasn't sure how to address the lack of girlfriend part. It's entirely possible that he's just not interested. He is really passionate about his work, and I often tease him that his hobbies are his work. In fact, he is sometimes banned from talking about work, because we're curious if he is capable of talking about anything else. But I don't think his mother really wanted to hear that her only son wasn't interested in meeting someone.
Next I thought, maybe he just hasn't had luck with women so far. Is he that unattractive? It made me think, why aren't I interested in him? Which is actually a really difficult question for me to answer, because I don't really like to dwell on the negative qualities of others. I can list a bunch of good things about him. For starters, he plays Dota 2, huge plus in my book. He's a good listener, and also funny. He's really smart... I don't really want to say it, but I came to the conclusion that this is likely the reason why I'm not interested in him. I kinda feel like he's too smart for me.
That seems like a horrible thing to tell someone though: I'm not interested in you because you're too smart for me. Well, it's not even that he's too smart for me, as he never acts condescending, I think it's more that I feel too dumb for him. What would the point of that feedback be? Should he dumb himself down in order to make it more likely to find a partner? That just sounds like a recipe for misery, as he could never be himself. Thankfully, when I went to pick up the dress, his mum didn't bring up the topic of a girlfriend again.
It's not like this is completely out of nowhere though. A couple of days ago, I came across this Reddit thread, "Have you ever rejected a girl for being too dumb?" I get the feeling that intelligence definitely plays a part in attractiveness. With MrMan5.5, I love that I can discuss things with him, and we can have (usually) friendly arguments about various topics. I think the biggest difference is that I don't feel entirely intimidated by MrMan5.5's intelligence. There are topics where he is far more knowledgeable than I am, but there are topics that I am more knowledgeable than he is. I feel like we can have debates that aren't completely one-sided, and that's really important to me. I would hate to absolutely crush him every time we talk, and if I were to get crushed every time instead, it would just eat away at my self-esteem.
Part of it has to do with my childhood, as I was definitely one of the "smart" kids. It has become ingrained in my identity. Actually, being at uni was a bit of a shock, because all of a sudden, I wasn't the smartest, nowhere near. I was surrounded by people who seemed like they had been programming since they came out of the womb. I was surrounded by maths nerds who seemed to be able to do large-scale matrix multiplication in their heads. I was surrounded by.... OK, I'm not going to lie, in my arts classes, I definitely felt like I was one of the smartest people in my class. That's probably how I managed to cope. So enroll in arts, everyone, it's a great ego booster!
I also hate the feeling of being "carried", i.e. riding on the coattails of the achievements of others. It's really important to me to be able to contribute.
On an unrelated tangent, another friend of mine was telling me about how she dated someone who had the need to be the breadwinner of the relationship. However, he chose to study medicine and become a doctor. According to her, the starting salary of a doctor isn't great, and it's not until you get into a specialty that you start to make the big bucks. She ended up supporting them for quite a while, and he was having no luck getting into the specialty that he wanted, which he blamed on the fact that he was unwilling to play the political game at the hospital. He ended up quite miserable, as he felt like he was failing both at home and at work. It sounds like he is considering quitting medicine and going to work for his family's business instead - where luckily, he'll be able to make a lot of money. Sad little shaggy dog story. :(
I'm not going to say anything to my girlfriend-less friend, as I think it'll work itself out. He will find somebody who is on his intellectual level, and be happy, I am sure of it! And if not, he can always travel the world giving talks about software engineering without the burdens of a relationship!
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