Well, yes, my own personal mileage DID in fact vary wildly when I last dated an SCA gentleman, and I’m afraid he may have colored my outlook on the whole Society in a less-than-favorable way for a brief time. But hey, I’m over it now.
Why isn’t the reverse also true? I had longed for an intelligent, informed companion when dating heavily last year, and such a male was just not to be found for some time, at least where I was apparently looking (NOT in lounges, I must add). Fortunately one sauntered into my life, while we were both in a bookstore. I have tried not to let go since then.
THE E.O.R(END OF REALITY) is you pay either way…it only softens the way you are conversing with a women about a topic- it if you are married w/ a slight twist of a slight twist of “i hate your company”…if you are single it leaves it open for “any & everything to fly”…which is like statistics 99.9% are made up on the spot…your more receptive-attentive.
No, intelligent women are no more or less scarce than intelligent guys. The problem is meeting ones who are not only intelligent but also are interested in the same things as you. No different than finding close friends of the same or opposite sex who you are not sexually or romantically interested in.
Although I haven’t read the book in question, I’ll give my take on this.
For many guys, there’s a much larger strike zone of women they would have sex with than they would really enjoy talking to.
Many (most?) guys aren’t particularly adept at picking up women for just sex (it’s not as difficult for the opposite case) but do just fine with the fewer women they enjoy talking to, so the contrast here is a guy who can pick up women easily, but can’t find his right match.
There’s a number of guys (but no doppers, I’m sure) who are willing to pay for sex so the question is if sex were easy, would you or how much would you pay for conversation?
Living in the land of “hostess clubs” the business man’s version of geisha places, in which one pays for drinks and having conversations with (usually) young women, there is a correlation between intelligent conversation and price. When I’m roped into these things, I’ve found that the cheaper establishments often employee young women who are usually pretty and terrible conversationalists. It doesn’t seem to bother most of the Japanese guys who go there since most of them just want someone to listen to them talk, but it annoys the hell out of me. OTOH, the much more expensive establishments in Ginza have women who can converse well.
A few years ago, I ran into an old friend of mine, and he was with his longtime girlfriend, whom I had never met. I soon found out she had traveled extensively, partly as crew on an antique sailboat. She had been a cook on that yacht, but she was a licensed captain (no mean feat.) I was entranced, though not in a sexual way. My old friend got more and more nervous, and he grabbed her and left abruptly. I found out later, he thought I was a-fixin’ to steal his woman! :eek: He never spoke to me again. When he retired, they moved to Hawaii.
She was no great beauty, but her mind is as deep as the Challenger Deep (but for longer than twenty minutes.) I didn’t want to steal his woman, by the way. I married a really smart woman 27 years ago, and I wouldn’t leave her for some circumnavigator.
This happens with my boyfriend and me all the time. For example:
Ghanima: It’s so cold! It’s like, a million degrees below freezing in here!!
Boyfriend: That’s impossible.
Ghanima: It’s like, 273 degrees below zero in here!
Boyfriend: I love you.
Nah, he just likes what it does to your nipples. No, really, that sort of exchange is very sweet.
I can’t help but notice that no one’s volunteered a semi-serious response to the OP; namely, what dollar value they’d assign to a pseudo-intellectual whore who gives good conversation. Gents, would any of you care to take a stab at this?
Just to go from Mensa stats, they have twice as many men as women. Though I’m not sure I buy that the female/male rift is currently a genetic issue, and is rather more to do with upbringing and prospects. (And of course that is only talking about a self-selected set of 2% of the population.)
I don’t think that means much. I could join Mensa, but why would I want to? I know plenty of very bright people, but none of them belong to Mensa as far as I know (and many are women!). I do, however, belong to a messageboard that has a lot of people with frighteningly gifted children, and that seems to be pretty even between girls and boys.
“Exploitation” connotes that they wouldn’t be getting paid properly for this conversation. I’m trying (without much success) to see what the market range is for this sort of personal service.
In real life (based on the thread responses) it’s apparently something that women don’t want to sell, and men don’t want to buy. Is intelligent and stimulating conversation really that much of a commodity, or is it that it’s more precious and intimate than sex?
Yes they are, at least once you start moving to the extreme ends of the bell curve. Average intelligence for men and women are too close to measure out the difference but the standard deviation of intelligence for men is greater. Which means you get far more very dumb people but also far more very smart people.
In my real life, this would be a completely useless service. It’s not that it’s ‘men don’t want to buy’ or ‘women don’t want to sell’, it’s “Why go looking for something we’re already extremely well supplied with, with no real likelihood of shortage on the horizon?”
Why pay for something like that, when one can show up to games night on Thursday and have not only no cost incurred, but reasonably good odds that someone else will supply one with cookies?
Not so much that as they tend to be either celibates, lesbians, of advanced age, or in committed relationships with men much, much brighter (or with higher earning power) than you.
No, really, that sort of exchange is very sweet.