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This is my first post here. I was looking for an adequate place to write about dating psychology and found lesswrong.com. Before fixating on writing something I searched the site to understand the community better and noticed that most posts start with a concise section about the writer's credentials and how they happen to reason that they are knowledgeable enough on the subject they are writing about, to post about it in such spaces. I will adhere to that and explain my thoughts briefly before starting my endless ramble. This essay is not a complaint. It's a systems-level account of what social initiation feels like from a rare personality/intellect profile—meant as both analysis and invitation to others who might be stuck on similar parameters.
I am twenty-two years old and have limited experience with dating, which is exactly why I am dumping my conception of how it might work here and sparking dialogue or finding individuals with similar profiles to point me in certain directions. I aim to add something to lesswrong.com that I haven't yet seen much of—an interactive article, written on a real issue as perceived by somebody it directly stands in relation to. This is supposed to read as more multi-faceted than a mere opinion-piece. It's a streamlined style of reasoning on a relevant topic and can read as a living analysis of rationality or as a more literal interpretation of the issue at hand.
Approaching someone romantically is incredibly difficult for certain minds and select psychological structures.
The rarer the profile the harder it becomes.
Languages can have socially baked in stoppers for romantic approaches.
Unfortunately I do not have any officially recognised credentials in psychology or philosophy. I do however have a tested profile which sits at +3σ on the Wechsler Scale and I believe that my reasoning, even if streamlined here for the sake of not drifting off into sinkholes of context, is sound.
This will likely deviate harshly from academic papers and what people are used to when reading structured analysis because of the perspective it's deliberately written out of. About a year ago I felt an isolable need for partnership for the first time in my life. Since then I've fallen into trenches full of information and have come to multiple conclusions about dating at an elevated level. This text will be focused on approach and everything that precedes it. I will use my own person as an example since I want to refrain on speaking on behalf of anybody else but myself; I might sound arrogant to some but I am not of the opinion that I am able to write absolutes about other's experiences. I will structure this essay-style text as follows...
I think it wise to begin by stating a few bases I operated from when concocting all of this in my mind.
The first one is on gender—I do not think there to be an actual difference between sexes regarding social behaviour. When reading about dating I often stumbled on paragraphs that tried to mysticise masculinity or explain certain behaviours as inherently feminine and make pseudo-rational assumptions on how people act according to their sex instead of their character.
My view is that no behaviour, trope, or style of thought can be pinned on what's between one's legs. I could explain this away by quoting studies but I find a logically derived argument much more enticing: An interest in tea is often seen as feminine in western culture. One has to travel just a continent over for that notion to change—in China tea is a male-dominated hobby, stemming from traditional practices like scholar's meetings and imperial service. The reason behind that I believe, is the meticulous application of cultural norm, which drives a hobby into a gendered direction.
How can one describe a behaviour, interest, or preference as masculine or feminine, if there is no hormonal or instinctive rush tied to said concept? If you have a specific example, which you would like m to analyse or test me with, please let me know.
My second axiom is that IQ is much more important than many people give it credit to be. The term 'IQ' has been butchered to the point of being almost irrelevant in non-academic discussion in my experience. I believe that an easy way to explain it is, that lots of people equate intelligence to success or performance in life. For me that is near identical as saying a good engine is the uncompromisable base of building a fast formula car. Yes, it plays a certain role, but a car can have two-thousand horse power and still be slow, if it's carrying five tonnes of weight.
This of course is challenging to understand if one doesn't understand IQ testing and structure on a basic level. If you know that a WAIS-IV test uses VCI, PRI, WMI, and PSI to test for FSIQ and you understand what these metrics portray and how one tests for them, the picture becomes much clearer at what IQ truly does. Better abstract reasoning, more layers to run simultaneously, or even less resource being used to process an issue result in less emotional clouding and logical decision-making for me and I doubt I'm alone in this—studies show that it isn't an unusual phenomenon in comparable individuals.
The third statement I will use as a base is that emotional decision-making is widely more prevalent than its counterpart, which is rooted in reality and rationality. I won't go into much detail here as most of it would just be parroting the point above.
I would prefer to maintain a certain level of anonymity so I won't go into hyper specific facts. The purpose of this short part is to show traits I exhibit, to avoid lazy responses to this essay that linger into assumptions about my looks, behaviour, or compatibility since I am using personal experience as a base for this after all. Furthermore I will delve into visual issues later as well which wouldn't make sense without a mental image of the person explaining them.
I am not interested in sex, status, or someone at home who slaves away for me. I value monogamy, trust, and intimacy. I love explaining my interests and learning about other's hobbies and quirks. I enjoy cooking, cocktails, tea, scotch, gin, origami, golf, drawing, writing (currently writing a romance novel), and anatomy, to name a few. I gravitate towards fulfilling a partners needs more than my own—this could be born out of a selfish need for control, starvation of intimacy, self-fulfilment, or something else; different topic. I am 190cm tall and have a mesomorphic frame. The distance between the outsides of my shoulders is about 52cm. I have strong glutes and shoulders, high facial symmetry, green eyes, and thick brown hair that waves at a certain length. My teeth have perfect alignment—without orthodontics—and I have a strong jaw and cheekbones. Some negative traits might be that I have a pathological need for clarity, I hate shallow conversations, I don't tolerate nonsense at all, and I do have some disappearing stretch-marks from when I used to be overweight. I dress slightly more formal than the average, making use of Gurkha trousers, turtlenecks, shirts, ties, trench coats, suits, silk scarves...
This segment will math-heavy. I don't have many preferences for physical shape. It needs to be a biological woman. I want someone healthy (non-smoker, not overweight, fit) and I have a high standard for hygiene. However, I want someone to share conversations with at a high level, someone who's curious, someone with socratic values (argues to expand their knowledge instead of to be right), someone who can match me at my level and keep me on my toes. The mathematical probability of finding such a woman is vanishingly low:
About 2.28% of the global populus are at FSIQ 130+...
About half of those people are female, puts this at 1.14%...
If we account for her having to speak one of the four languages I speak (German, Greek, French, English) we're at approximately 0.205% of the global population.
That is about 16.4 million women worldwide. This is of course purely theoretical and not very scientific—what I'm trying to express is, that a match is not just anybody.
All relationships have a first meeting. The initial approach is the first step in most romantic relationships and can happen from either side through coincidence, a faux-pas, and many more happenings. Approaching is often something that men have been socially drilled to do. I find there to be a problem in that social construction, as mentioned earlier.
A routinely useful trait of mine, is that I do not act with missing information and I slightly overthink most things. That trait is not really your friend when approaching someone. The first exchange of information also happens visually more often than not; being 190cm, wide as a fridge, with an 'always focused' look and determined demeanour is not really inviting in my opinion. Approaching me likely doesn't appear very risk-free—for every fine-tuned GABA receptor in my brain there must be one unit of purified stupidity that forces me into not scanning faces at all, providing no openings or reassuring glances, ever.
I often ask myself if I look taken, unapproachable, or simply like a bad trade to potential partners. I've never received a compliment from a person in public in my adult life. The only interactions I have where someone willingly approaches me are tourists asking me for directions or recommendations.
I guess I must look fairly competent but also cold and detached. I do bloom when someone does talk to me however and I believe that interacting with me isn't horrible or unpalatable—I do take great care in being cordial after all. However I think I might look unintentionally intimidating to a large amount of people.
All this leaves me with not much choice but to do the approaching myself. I am sure you can guess that I'll spin this to not be quite as simple as it sounds by now. There are multiple point to this, the first being that I have a pathological wiring against absolutes. I cannot bring myself to expressing an opinion or something I conjured up from mere spontaneous thought without a guaranteed option of explaining it on a deeper level. That is something I can personally work on however the last point coming up isn't.
Furthermore I don't think I have the authority to approach someone, realise they aren't what I'm looking for, and exit from the situation—possibly causing some loss of confidence in the counterpart. No matter how textbook my distancing is, I do not know what they are going through, how they perceived me, or what moment I caught them in.
The next point is that I live in a Swiss city. English allows for social language; little sentences that signal 'I'm open to talk.' German—especially the Swiss variety allows for no phatics. If you find yourself in a theatre foyer in the UK and see someone who looks interesting, you might approach them and say, 'First time here?' and a conversation will spark; she might answer, 'No, I love coming here, how about you?' In German you're more likely to convey a more literal message. 'First time here?' can sound harshly condescending, like a criticism for strolling around, or at the very least patronising, where you get across more like, 'Let me help you.' with the previously mentioned statement.
I realise that what turned into a bit of a self-description and rant of mine might present like more of a case study for self-pity or Dunning Kruger induced fanaticism, however it was aimed to be perceived. I'd like to open the floor and state a few questions at the end, to provoke some feedback...
Does any of this even vaguely make any sense to you?
Do you agree on certain points?
If you are a woman, how would you like to be approached by men?
If you are a woman, what keeps you from approaching?
Have you found yourself in similar situations?
Are there outlets or solutions to this?
Is there anything anybody would like to add or explore further?
How did you perceive this?