Dating and EQ

This is a fairly amusing perspective on why it’s so hard to find someone you want to date:

Pearls of Wisdom: Smart, cute and unavailable

The Stanford Daily
October 13, 2006
By Lisa Mendelman

At Stanford, we are blessed to be surrounded by book-smart people. Trust me, the real world looks nothing like this. Even the fuzziest English major (i.e., me) can solve your average differential calculus problem, and, assuming “Freakonomics” and The Economist count, there are lots of well-read techies biking through the Quad. Where the Farm’s population falters, however, is in another realm of intelligence: the fundamentals of social interaction.

I am with Lisa so far — when schools, or businesses, select a population based on “IQ stuff” w/o considering “EQ stuff” they get people who are not-so-socially-graceful.

Things fall apart a bit when she explains there are 2 axis – SQ is social quotient, and EQ is emotional quotient:
I will assume that second axis on which we are plotting men—and, to be fair, women—ranges from mean and arrogant to nice and down-to-earth. (Obviously, when I used the words “ugly” and “cute” in high school, I was referring to personality). We’ll call this the Emotional Intelligence Quotient, or EQ.

There is a big challenge in our field – people (including me) oversimplify “EQ” and identify emotional intelligence as being “down to earth” or “nice.” I think sometimes emotionally intelligent people are fierce. But I agree with the author that I’d rather date someone both socially and emotionally aware…
🙂

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