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nantucketsunset · 03-01-2007, 01:15 PM

I am glad someone quoted the part of the original post (ending "would you like fries with that") because I had missed that part in the original post. That quote also mentioned the fact that normal people can "make friends wherever they go" -- I find this so, so true.

How do other high IQ people make friends?

I have tried many things but over the years I have fewer and fewer friends. And please don't give me platitudes, because I'm turning 40 in 3 months' time and also a social scientist so it's not as if I don't know the "steps".
;-) I do follow the typical steps, and I am kind, loyal, funny, helpful, etc. but my way of thinking, my approach to life, even when I am completely silent and simply smiling -- my particular thinking "vibe" just puts people off. In the last couple of years I have had people say to me "you are just a little scary" so often, even though in my own mind I'm about as down-home, down-to-earth, humble and loveable a midwestern gal as I can be. Even my ex-boyfriend said to me when we broke up, "You are the best person I know, but no one can see that about you when they first meet you, so they shy away from you, and I don't even know what to tell you so that you could change that."

I've lived in various countries in Europe for 12 years and that hasn't helped - the moving around and the being an American abroad always makes me the "outsider". In the United Kingdom where I live now, it's hard for anyone at all to make adult friends after the age of 25 (it's an incredibly conservative culture in that way) so for me it's been well-nigh impossible.

And I'm an ENTP woman (on the MBTI personality inventory), and ENTP women are only about 2.5% of the female population, so that doesn't help. They are usually the only female out of 30 men in math and engineering classes, and often grow up quite alone and misunderstood. Often they don't meet any other ENTP women until they reach university, and then only meet a handful.

And meeting men who are comfortable having a romantic relationship with an ENTP woman... well, it seems it could be easier for me to become the third American female to be elected a member of the UK Parliament than it would be for me to find a good guy who is compatible with me and not threatened by me. I've got a one-two whammy because as a long-haired, natural blonde who looks 30 instead of 40, the kind of men who approach me are looking for a ditzy girl and then after one date they realize I am not the simpleton they are looking for, and the kind of men I'd actually get on with long-term don't want to have anything to do with me on first glance, because they misperceive what I am like.

But I thank God/fate/life/universe for my way of thinking, my ability to hone in on things, to categorize, to figure out, to intuit, to see the whole system at a glance. During times of loneliness and sorrow, of serious illness and feeling lost in the dark, my ability to think and wonder and marvel and learn and amuse myself has reached through the emotional fog and pulled me through.

Men with high IQs tend to be much more successful in life than women with high IQs (even looking at soft factors such as good marriages, children, reported level of happiness as well as hard factors such as money, success, whatever) and it's kind of cruel of nature to do this to the women on the right tail of the graph, but so be it, I wouldn't want to be any other way.

(Hope these thoughts don't sound too obnoxious; I don't mean to be.)

Are there any other ENTP's out there? I bet there are a BUNCH on this forum! :-) I think that Steve is one, it was mentioned in one of his 2005 posts I think.

03-01-2007, 01:15 PM	#33 (permalink)
nantucketsunset Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: London, UK Posts: 24	I am glad someone quoted the part of the original post (ending "would you like fries with that") because I had missed that part in the original post. That quote also mentioned the fact that normal people can "make friends wherever they go" -- I find this so, so true. How do other high IQ people make friends? I have tried many things but over the years I have fewer and fewer friends. And please don't give me platitudes, because I'm turning 40 in 3 months' time and also a social scientist so it's not as if I don't know the "steps". ;-) I do follow the typical steps, and I am kind, loyal, funny, helpful, etc. but my way of thinking, my approach to life, even when I am completely silent and simply smiling -- my particular thinking "vibe" just puts people off. In the last couple of years I have had people say to me "you are just a little scary" so often, even though in my own mind I'm about as down-home, down-to-earth, humble and loveable a midwestern gal as I can be. Even my ex-boyfriend said to me when we broke up, "You are the best person I know, but no one can see that about you when they first meet you, so they shy away from you, and I don't even know what to tell you so that you could change that." I've lived in various countries in Europe for 12 years and that hasn't helped - the moving around and the being an American abroad always makes me the "outsider". In the United Kingdom where I live now, it's hard for anyone at all to make adult friends after the age of 25 (it's an incredibly conservative culture in that way) so for me it's been well-nigh impossible. And I'm an ENTP woman (on the MBTI personality inventory), and ENTP women are only about 2.5% of the female population, so that doesn't help. They are usually the only female out of 30 men in math and engineering classes, and often grow up quite alone and misunderstood. Often they don't meet any other ENTP women until they reach university, and then only meet a handful. And meeting men who are comfortable having a romantic relationship with an ENTP woman... well, it seems it could be easier for me to become the third American female to be elected a member of the UK Parliament than it would be for me to find a good guy who is compatible with me and not threatened by me. I've got a one-two whammy because as a long-haired, natural blonde who looks 30 instead of 40, the kind of men who approach me are looking for a ditzy girl and then after one date they realize I am not the simpleton they are looking for, and the kind of men I'd actually get on with long-term don't want to have anything to do with me on first glance, because they misperceive what I am like. But I thank God/fate/life/universe for my way of thinking, my ability to hone in on things, to categorize, to figure out, to intuit, to see the whole system at a glance. During times of loneliness and sorrow, of serious illness and feeling lost in the dark, my ability to think and wonder and marvel and learn and amuse myself has reached through the emotional fog and pulled me through. Men with high IQs tend to be much more successful in life than women with high IQs (even looking at soft factors such as good marriages, children, reported level of happiness as well as hard factors such as money, success, whatever) and it's kind of cruel of nature to do this to the women on the right tail of the graph, but so be it, I wouldn't want to be any other way. (Hope these thoughts don't sound too obnoxious; I don't mean to be.) Are there any other ENTP's out there? I bet there are a BUNCH on this forum! :-) I think that Steve is one, it was mentioned in one of his 2005 posts I think.