Ask Lemmy

For me, capacity and curiosity is more important because it usually means the other person can change based on information rather than thinking they already know. Usually, that means they are somewhat intelligent as a result.

If I were the type to choose a partner, I'd say it's very important for them to be not dumb, but less important to be actually smart. It would still be a positive, but someone who's not a genius but still had many other good qualities can still be fun to hang out with. It's also a mindset thing-- someone with little knowledge but a will to learn is better than someone who knows more, but refuses to learn anything new. (Not that knowledge == intelligence, anyways.)

Smart enough for her strengths to make up for my weaknesses.

So so so important. But I'd rather someone be a bit dumb and really nice to me than the hellscape I am living now.

Simplified at the cost of accuracy:

On a scale from 1-10 on attractiveness you get ±1 for being below/above one standard deviation on intelligence.

Other standard deviations: Sad/happy ±2 Mean/kind ±1. Different/same life goals ±5.

Not much. As long as she's a person with common sense and a bit of intelligence, I'm fine.

So this is an interesting question to me and got me thinking... I think the qualities that are important to me in a partner (compassion, empathy, openness, open mindedness, passion, etc.) aren't strictly tied to intelligence? Maybe there's a correlation, I guess? Depends on how you define intelligence.

I probably wouldn't go out of my way to look for particularly intelligent people. In fact I'd probably avoid anyone who puts their IQ in their bio (because... Eww). But based on my interests and personally, I can see myself naturally sharing more in common with "intelligent" people (wow that sounds pretentious).

I do wonder if I'd feel frustrated with a partner who couldn't understand me when explaining complex things though...

Important, but not as important as loyalty.

I just want somebody I can play strategic (in the looser sense) board games with at a level compatible with me tbh.

I think I would need some kind of example of what we're counting as 'intelligence.'

Pretty important. As well as good emotional regulation.

There is a Chinese expression: "The ugly wife is a treasure at home"

It is possible ugly can be substituted for dull (mentally).

yes.

As long as they're able to go about their life without doing dumb shit that's good enough for me. More important is being ethical and having good emotional intelligence (I suppose this could be lumped in with intelligence but it's not the same as being book smart).

That depends on what you mean by intelligence.