An unusual problem.

LittleMissMe and I were tweeting back and forth this morning and it got me to thinking. I have an unusual problem that has plagued my dating life for as long as I can remember. She says she has it too.

I'm not just going to jump right out and say it I'm going to tell a couple stories first. So everyone gather around sit cross legged in a circle and pay attention. There will be a quiz after.

My second long term girlfriend and I dated for only 6 months. The end however was not a mutually enjoyable experience. I loved this girl. I know after 6 months how can you really know. Regardless, I treated this girl with love and respect. Sure I'd poke fun at her as is normal. I didn't coddle her or put her on a pedestal. I just made her feel loved and admired.

This girlfriend however came from a family where the father was abusive. Not physically, nor sexually, no, her father would just yell and scream and call her and her mom names. Her mother was always, always held accountable for every mistake, no matter how big or small. I, however, would be calm, supportive and respectful when there was a mistake made. This made the girlfriend at the time uncomfortable and she couldn't figure out why.

This lack of comfort eventually grew to the point that she broke up with me by saying. "You're too good to me, it isn't what I'm used to and it I don't know how to deal with it." Her coping mechanisms were all built around being yelled at. In a nut shell I was "Too perfect," her words not mine. (she is now in an abusive relationship where she gets treated like shit, she's been with him for 6 years)

I had another girlfriend that yelled that she hated me and was jealous of how smart I was and how easily I learned things. My intelligence made her jealous to the point that she hated me. This wasn't some vapid idiot of a girl either, she was in school to be an engineer.

I was at a friends yearly keg party where people gather from where ever they live now and congregate on a ranch, camp out, drink beer, and catch up on everyone else's lives. Kinda like Facebook, but without a WiFi connection. While at this keg party I was being introduced to some new additions to the party. I was introduce like this.

Boomer(the host): "This is Hero, he's one of those ridiculously smart people."

Hero: "Well I'm smart but nothing exceptional."

Boomer: "Oh come on, you're a genius admit it."

Hero: "No, I don't think so."

Boomer: "Fine, tell him what you do for a living."

Hero: "I teach post secondary education."

New guy: "Oh really, what do you teach?"

Hero, with head hung low: "Petroleum design engineering."

New guy: "Really? How old are you? "

Needless to say there was nothing I could say to convince this guy that I'm not a "ridiculously smart person".

When I mentioned before the "Ride Home" girl, I said that she picked my brain for a good while. Every once in a while she would say, "Wow, You're like really smart aren't you". I'd always respond with, "I do alright."

My old boss when I was landscaping said, "You have to be the dumbest smart person I know."

I understand that I am I smart. Have I bothered to quantify it? Not really. It isn't something I like to announce to everyone I meet, it doesn't go over well. I try not to make fun of people that aren't as smart as me, unless I know them then it's fair game. I like being smart, it makes life in general a little easier, but it comes with some draw backs.

No one wants to play logic games with me, or trivia, or strategy, or any other game that isn't totally based on luck.

I cannot have a conversation where I have to explain words I use commonly. A date isn't a very good date if I'm giving a vocabulary lesson. (Why is it people know what perpetuate means but not exacerbate? They are in the same family of words.)

When doing the online dating thing, I can't message a girl that has terrible sentence structure and grammar.

I find I have a hard time conversing about menial useless crap. I can't stand around the water cooler at work and go over last night's episode of The Bachelorette.

I guess what I'm getting at in all seriousness isn't that I'm "too perfect" as I was saying on twitter this morning. No I think it is just a problem with being above average.

It all has to do with that little chart. I hate statistics but I understand them. I'm sitting a little bit above average in the intelligence scale. Therefore, I'm further away from the mean line and first standard deviation lines (the three middle lines). Roughly 50 percent of the population sits in that area of intelligence. As you deviate further and further away from the norm (mean line) there is less and less percentage of the population in that area.

Being smarter means, statistically, that you have less chance of running into someone else of comparable intelligence. This same principle applies to looks, athleticism, basically anything that a bell curve can be applied to.

So, as LittleMissMe and I approach perfection we are actually lowering our chances of finding a suitable match.  Weird isn't it, as we try and better ourselves so that we may become more attractive to possible mates we are actually lowering the amount of mates we ourselves will find suitable.

LittleMissMe and I's parents, (they aren't the same parents, I want to one day have sex with her and being related would ruin that) have told both of us that perhaps we should lower our standards. I say fuck your hat.

My favorite philosopher Jean Paul Sartre said "If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company."

I would be much happier alone than I would be in a relationship where I have to coddle their intelligence, deal with lack of emotional depth, sacrifice my hobbies and past times, or have to look at someone that I don't find attractive.

I get asked why I'm single all the time. I answer with "By choice, I haven't met a girl that's worth while.". I don't think anyone believes me but I don't care.


Later Days,
NTH