Tonight I saw "Sherlock Holmes" for the second time (totally awesome and you should all see it), and I came to an interesting conclusion. I am attracted to arrogantly intelligent men. I suppose I've always known this, but for some reason it clicked during this movie and I was able to provide myself with the clever phrasing of my condition. I began thinking about this the other day while reading Nikki's blog about her attraction to cocky guys. I'm not attracted to guys who are merely cocky; men wrapped up in their own appearances or general awesomeness are rarely worth involving in an intelligent conversation either because they can't focus on it or simply lack the ability. Of course, I also don't want some guy who just spouts out knowledge without any connection to the conversation at hand. There's a happy medium between the know-it-all and the guy who likes to pretend that he's not smart, an infuriating sort of modesty that you really want to admire but can't quite bring yourself to.
I have a couple of models for this mysterious and most likely non-existent enigma of masculinity: Sherlock Holmes (as played by Robert Downey, Jr.; sadly I have never actually read the stories) and Benjamin Franklin Gates (as played by Nicholas Cage in the "National Treasure" movies). These men, albeit fictional characters, have a sort of off-handed way of making their intelligence known. Sherlock Holmes uses extreme attention to detail as the basis of his deductive reasoning, but what makes him different from other simply observant characters (like, say, Shawn Spencer) is that he combines the details with his extensive knowledge and comes to a conclusion by way of his genius. Of course, it doesn't hurt that his period clothing, carelessly mussed hair, and strategically unshaven facial hair make him next to devastatingly handsome. While Nicholas Cage isn't nearly as handsome as Robert Downey, Jr., his character does have a vast amount of historical knowledge that he also uses to concoct plans such as stealing the Declaration of Independence or sneaking a peek at the matching Resolute desks. These men win because of their minds. Even when Holmes wins a fight, it's because he has evaluated his opponents' weaknesses and taken advantage of them with efficiency.
Now, I realize that this is asking a lot of the menfolk out there. I'm not saying he has to be a genius, and he doesn't even have to know the same things that I know. In fact, I would love it if I could actually feel stupid around a guy for just a minute. Let me make my meaning on this absolutely clear. I am not saying that I am so much smarter than every guy that they are all idiots. I am not saying that I am not able to have great conversations with guys. And I am absolutely not saying that I want a guy to treat me like I'm an idiot or make me feel bad about myself. What I mean is that I would love for a guy to go off on a subject for just a minute about a topic way over my head. This probably sounds weird, but I really respect intelligent guys. I've been told before that I am a smart girl. Whether or not that's actually true is debatable, but I've also heard that guys can be intimidated by smart girls. I would love to let the tables be turned on me, not to appear like some weak-minded female, but to let the guy know that he definitely has the upper hand in some part of the relationship. This is all starting to sound a little crazy. I really hope that my readers will take what I'm saying with a grain of salt and look for the meaning of my rant rather than hold my own words against me.
One more note: I know you're probably all going to tell me that I'm being too picky and that I shouldn't overlook a perfectly great guy because he doesn't perfectly fit the mold. Don't worry; I have no intention of turning this into some unbreakable rule that all guys must measure up to, that would be ridiculous. I'm just ranting about the possibilities of the ideal.
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5 comments:
Ah, the conversations we have sometimes. And I totally agree with you in every respect about intelligent guys. And you're so smart! :)
This is like an IDS running as a proxy to a large network of 2^16 routable hosts, with possibly also NAT'ed network comprising of innumerable unroutable hosts. Let us use the well known open-source project Snort as an example. It monitors the bits passing through the network and examines the traffic packet headers based primarily on the 3rd and 4th layers of the OSI network model, analyzing source and destination internet protocol addresses with corresponding TCP/IP or UDP port numbers (unless, of course, this packet is ICMP) and reacts based on predefined rules that come from a large database maintained by a community or the users own rules. Upon a rule finding a positive match, this will trigger an alert which can then be scripted in the shell or with any language desired to perform an action.
But then there is the deeper part. The IDS will also perform deep packet inspection, traversing all the way down to the 7th layer, analyzing by even certain application protocols or even bit-by-bit, and acting on these characteristics as well. But alas, this deep packet inspection comes at a cost...and therein lies the problem we face here.
Well, best of luck. Finding someone to talk over your head is difficult. I know I haven't found anybody who can do it for me.
Mission accomplished, Scotty. Thanks :)
you are a great writer, loved the post! I'm sure he's out there somewhere :)
Engineers pair well with English majors. I should know since I'm married to one and he sure can make me feel dumb at times and I generally don't care. Would you like me to inquire as to if there are any single available men in the BIE department for you (they're the best of the best, hehe!)?
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