This is a make or break your life kind of article. Not saying I buy it, not saying I don’t, but it feels like there is some logic to the below. Full article here.

• Smart people spent more time on achievements than on relationships when growing up.

It’s a value system thing. Smarter people value acheivements and personal successes above almost all. So then dating becomes an opportunity/cost situation. Is it more worth it for me to take a risk an invest in another person or is it more worth it for me to continue investing in myself? That’s an impossible question because it present and unknown. If if there’s anything a smart person really hates it’s the unknown — you can’t control that and there’s no award for figuring it out.

• Smart people feel that they’re entitled to love because of their achievements.

The life of a smart person centers around the fact that if they do well, work hard, and hone their skills they will succeed. To them life is a meritocracy. Therefore in their minds if they are good, do well, act nicely, and take care of themselves love should just develop like their careers did because they deserve it — they have made themselves worthy of being dated. Now let the dates roll in.
I don’t know why it doesn’t work this way, but it doesn’t. In fact, sometimes the more successful, independent and accomplished you are the less appealing (so “worthy” in the eyes of a smart person) you become of being dated. The article makes a brilliant point that I will quote,
“romantic success has everything to do with how you make the other person feel. And making someone feel a certain way is a somewhat nonlinear process that requires a different kind of mastery than that of calculus or Shakespeare.”

• You don’t feel like a fully-realized sexual being, and therefore don’t act like one.

This is interesting. As a smart person you grew up your whole life as “the smart one”. You were the acheiver, the leader, the one who everyone else wanted in their group project group. You were not viewed as “the sexy one” or “the mysterious one” or even the one focused on finding a boyfriend/girlfriend. That identity sinks in over time and you grow uncomfortable being more than that thinker. You don’t slip easily into being the impulsive, irrational, love-driven feeler, and you don’t think anyone views you in that light.

• You’re exceptionally talented at getting in the way of your own romantic success.

You’re too smart for your own good because you can talk yourself out of anything. Applied to the dating realm that’s dangerous because jumping into dating anyone is a completely illogical and generally dangerous prospect. So you fuck it up time and time again because you’re smart enough to figure out the odds of it actually working.
And, furthermore (and more importantly) you hate failing. You don’t like feeling like you gave it your all and it didn’t work out. This goes completely against the nature of your meritocratic I-worked-I-win mentality.

• By virtue (or vice) of being smart, you eliminate most of the planet’s inhabitants as a dating prospect

This part blows. Smart people attract and hang out with smart people. So, as the article points out, that’s, say, 5% of the population. Now according to this theory that’s the 5% that don’t know what the hell they’re doing when it comes to dating. So not only are you in that group but you’re also trying to date that group. Bad news bears.

According to the article:At this point, you have three choices:

• A) Loosen up
• B) Do a very thorough search all over the planet and be prepared to move to Duesseldorf

OR

• C) Join a monastery.

Harsh, but maybe true. Get out of your head, take some risks and realize you’re probably going to get hurt once or twice or five times before you meet a right person.
And maybe — no — definitely don’t mention this article to any prospects on the horizon…