Ask HN: What's it like to be in a relationship with an extremely smart woman? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's it like to be in a relationship with an extremely smart woman?

6 pointsunited8931 comment

Apologies if the question seems crass. It comes up a lot in reverse, but I figured the HN crowd might have some input.

There are a lot of well known (and somewhat true) cliches about dating geeks, mostly men. So I'm curious to hear people's story about what a relationship is like with an extremely smart woman instead.

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I've a male friend who acknowledges that he's not the brightest bulb in the bunch. He's in a relationship with a CPA who he thinks is super-smart. They're not married anymore, but got back together after a few years of living apart. She works during the week while he takes care of house-husband duties, and gets out of her space on the weekend. He figured this arrangement out on his own, so he's probably smarter than he gives himself credit for.

Sometimes smart women are challenged by their hormonal cycles.

My first wife was very difficult to be around. After we'd been unmarried a while, she called to complain that she was still losing half the month to PMS, and did I have any ideas? In the weeks that followed I found something for her to try, and she's been much more productive. She's much more driven to succeed than I am, and is doing quite well for herself now.

/methinks women tend to be smarter than men, on account of the female body's ability to producer greater amounts of Progesterone (which is also produced in the brain, as a neuro-steroid). This is the evolutionary balance for the gender generally having slightly less strength.

Sometimes modern women get intellectually handicapped with the use of 'imitation hormones' to suppress their menstrual cycles. I've spent some times reading women's posts in online forums, and there are a lot of complaints about side effects from so-called "birth control" prescriptions.

I suspect that my current girlfriend was made suicidal [0] with the injectable birth control Depo-Provera (Bill Gate's birth control drug of choice for use in Africa). When I met her, maybe 10 years after this assault, I recognized that she was a rather intelligent person who happened to turn to the street pharmacy to self-medicate depression. I helped her to get herself stabilized, and seems to be doing better now.

[0] This "side effect" of using Provera to chemically castrate otherwise-healthy women was mentioned by a caller on a Science Friday [NPR] segment: https://soundcloud.com/scifri/looking-beyond-condoms-for-mal... (The first caller was at 8min30sec):

  SF: Denver and Jessica, Welcome to Science Friday.

  Jessica: Hi, [...]  I tried about six different birth 
  controls. Depo-Provera made me manic and suicidal, yet 
  that's still on the market and considered acceptable for 
  women to take. [...]  It's okay that I was suicidal, and 
  that that form of birth control is still on the market.  
  
  [...]

edit: Birth control is great. Chemical castration is not. I birth control'd myself. It was easy, and reversed itself after a few months. I'm going to do it again soon, but I'll collect data this time.

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