Some say that love is not for the faint of heart.
It can be messy, complex, and can bring out both the best and the worst in people – sometimes simultaneously. In many cases, the choices made by a partner do not make logical sense.
With love, emotion can severely override any common sense, which can be incredibly frustrating, especially for people who are considered highly intellectual.
This is not to say that highly intellectual people cannot find nor experience romance, but there are a few reasons why highly intellectual people often have a difficult time understanding love.
Different scenarios can lead an individual to feel like love is out of the question, hard to find, or even to feel as though they themselves are simply unlovable.
Those Who Have Never Loved Before
Despite how it may feel, those who have never been in love or in a relationship before are not alone; if you fall into this category and you are not “late” or “weird” by any means.
With that said, if you have never been in love before, you might ask yourself why. Let’s evaluate the situation:
- Your dating pool: Are you being open minded? Sometimes highly intelligent people will discount others quickly before getting to know them.
- Your dating style: Do you have a tendency to intimidate the person you are on a date with? Sometimes highly intelligent people have a tendency to ostracize their date, often without even realizing it.
- Your expectations: What sort of things do you look for in a partner? Oftentimes those who are intelligent also possess higher levels of maturity and may want to settle down faster, which can come across negatively to some potential partners.
Those Who Have Loved And Lost
If you are struggling to understand why a relationship ended, there is nothing wrong with doing some internal reflection.
Here are a few reasons why highly intelligent people struggle to find and maintain relationships:
- Independence: Many intelligent people are also highly independent people. They know what they want and they may be comfortable being alone. Relationships come with a certain amount of reliability. When one person feels more dependent than the other, there is an automatic imbalance. Are you extremely insistent on your independence?
- Overanalyzing: Picking apart a conversation can be one tendency that intelligent people share. The need to understand the outcome of a disagreement, or the evaluation of words and their intentions can be a rabbit hole that intelligent people fall into. Do you overanalyze each conversation with your partner?
- Keeping Track of Flaws: Either in a cynical way or sometimes unintentionally, some highly intelligent people will keep track of their partners flaws as though they are keeping score. This can make for a very toxic relationship.
- Struggling to Empathize: If you cannot see eye to eye with your partner, you may struggle to understand their behavior (and thus what it means to love them).
- Putting Career First: Many intelligent people fall in love with their career more deeply than they do with a partner. In that case, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they do not understand love, but that they do not understand it in the same way.
Takeaway: Mindfulness is Key
When you are looking for love or beginning a new relationship, try to focus on compatibility, mutual respect, and a simple effort put forth by both parties involved.
You do not have to change in order to understand love, but you do need to be yourself and try to collaborate, compromise, and practice compassion.
Marie Miguel has been a writing and research expert for nearly a decade, covering a variety of health- related topics. Currently, she is contributing to the expansion and growth of a free online mental health resource with BetterHelp.com. With an interest and dedication to addressing stigmas associated with mental health, she continues to specifically target subjects related to anxiety and depression.
