Don’t Fall in Love with a Smart, Introverted Man — Here’s Why
You think you might know them. You might be wrong.
Mia Fornes from Medium
You don’t notice them at first.
You group him with the rest of men you meet. You’re not that attracted — he’s irritatingly intellectual, enages in long strange stories; boring, you think.
But you meet him later, in another scenario. Maybe it’s months later, maybe years, but time has passed inbetween.
He reaches out because of something interesting you wrote. It’s your writing, it’s always your writing that draws them in.
He’s not your usual type, so you have no plans to fall in love.
You discover: he’s alluring, he’s fascinating, he’s so cerebral. When he talks about literature, somehow it’s like a symphony to your ears. His hobbies are unexpected and wide-ranging: philosophy, writing, tango.
He was a terrible student in high school, yet highly accomplished outside of it. Maybe he traveled across South East Asia for chess tournaments, or around the U.S. for tennis championships, or spent long hours sketching art in a black sketch hardcover notebook.
He’s extraordinarily successful, astonishingly well-connected. If he was bored in school, he’s been challenged like no other in his career. He has driven an original idea or ambition to completion, with a discipline and willpower you can only imagine, achieved what most humans could only dream of.
And yet the more successful and brilliant he is in a particular area, the more awkward and incompetent he is in the most basic of others: he forgets to eat, he can’t pick out his own clothes, he can’t pair socks.
But you smile when you learn of these quirks. You find them heartwarming.
He finds himself talking to you a lot, telling you things he has never told anyone else. You both conclude this must mean your connection is special. His dad was narcissistic and cruel, and it’s an emotional scar that still wounds him today. He cares about his mom, and his brother or his sister, but he fought a lot with his dad.
He’s got a penchant for logic games, and he speaks multiple languages. Swahili, German, Japanese — you will be entranced the first time you hear him speak another language, amazed by the worlds he floats effortlessly into that you could never know.
He’s a writer — but above all, he loves to speak about language. There’s no word he can’t solve or won’t try. To hack his brain, simply suggest a ethymologycal problem and watch his mind spin in search of a solution.
He admits that he works a lot, he doesn’t meet a lot of women, but he’s looking for the right woman: smart, driven, beautiful. Not one for online dating or apps, he hates dating, and he’s frustrated and clueless.
You’re puzzled as to why. There is an aura of mystique that surrounds him when you meet, a kind of presence in his portrayal of himself that he isn’t even entirely aware of, and that is exactly what makes him so intriguing.
He may unexpectedly sweep you off your feet with his depth, his intensity, his thoughtfulness. Watch him when he’s lost in thought, for that faraway yet intent look in his eyes.
Suddenly you will find yourself in love with this strange but brilliant man.
When it comes to smart, introverted men, you may very well be the only woman they have liked in awhile.
But fatally shy, they may never ask you out.
If, however, they do, each and every one of them will be almost comically nervous around you. Their hearts will race like crazy the first time they hold your hand, walking along the city’s waterfront under a starlit night sky.
You will hear the same words over and over from them: you are beautiful, you are so intelligent. Your skin is so soft, we are meant together.
Perhaps you decide, against your better judgment, yes, why not, you would like to go on a crazy journey together.
Congratulations: you will know a depth and intensity of a connection few would think possible.
Every time, it’s the little things that make you love him even more. He’s attentive to detail, gracefully anticipates your needs. Oddly neurotic in the strangest of ways: afraid of heights, of germs, sensitive to sounds. You’ve never met someone with his sleep patterns: he sleepwalks, he needs very little sleep, he’s out like a light.
Mostly, he just wants to make you happy. He loves to be with you, just to hear you talk. You will laugh together, play together, dream up inspiring futures together. In the span of a few minutes, you can shift easily from giggling like silly 4-year-olds to discussing the troubling impact of French novels on American literture.
You’ll make love. You’ll fuck. Relax blissfully into each other’s arms. Lulled into a sense of home.
You will know a oneness that transcends worlds, and words.
One day, he will decide to leave you. It will be sudden and swift with no warning.
Troubled at last by doubt, terrified that committing any further will hurt you, triggered by personal traumas, he will decide, quietly, independently — because that is how he has solved every problem — that it’s over.
He’ll miss your insights. Your freewheeling conversations. But that’s it.
His willpower and discipline means you will never hear from him again. The linearity of his mind means he will conclude, like a logic game, you were not meant to be.
He will not look back. You will never really know why. You will be haunted for days, months, even years. Maybe till the end of time.
When you meet such a man, do not fall in love. You will be demolished, devastated, systematically destroyed, yet again, by yet another smart, introverted man. Every single time.
Always.