Some interesting narratives!

When I think about my own experiences, while not in a romantic sense, I've generally actively avoided engaging with academics from hard sciences like biology, physics and maths. The reason behind this is at the few mixers of which I've attended, a number of the academics I met in these areas were very condescending towards me and my work. The minute I state that I work in the social sciences, my scholarship (despite not asking me anything about what my focus is or what I even do in the social sciences!) is rendered invalid and uninteresting. Comments like 'oh you're from the arts' or 'oh, that's cute' can be quite frustrating and very dismissive, and the conversation either shuts down, or they continue to talk about their work.

This is of course is not a reflection on anyone on this forum or broader, it's just the few experiences I've had that could also be limited to the university that I work at. I'm genuinely interested in the work of hard sciences and make a point to ask about their work and engage thoughtfully (though I'll be honest and admit I may not have a clear understanding of what they do in the pure scientific sense).

So if I were to reflect on my own biases and was single, I'd probably avoid dating academics in those areas based on those social interactions that have negatively coloured my perceptions. In saying that though, I've always had delightful conversations with academics in disciplines like geology, astronomy and meteorology and surprisingly to myself, engineering.

So I think that even academically, dating 'like-minded' people may not always work out, because even across different disciplines there are varying degrees of social hierarchies.

I've got it as a .pdf if anyone wants it. Yeah great stuff!

I remember a while back saying something along the lines of because I'd spent an extended portion of my life in higher education or academia (in research) I'd find it very difficult to have a lasting relationship with, say, someone who'd left school at 16. I was quickly corrected by someone who'd gone through PhD, but whose husband had left school at 16 and was a carpenter or something similar (?).

My take is it's all to do with how well you can relate to someone. Obviously, the lady who corrected me and her husband related very well to each other and all the best to them for that.

However, I still feel going through the ringer in education and academia does in many cases alter our hot wiring. Many of us have been through PhD and having had those experiences, how many can honestly say we're the same person as we were at 16 or even when we finished our first degrees? We then run into mates who left school say at 16 and gone straight into work, and whilst we can have a few beers and a bit of banter, sooner or later unless there is other common ground then differences eventually show through. Similarly, someone above said as a social scientist, she tended to avoid people with science, engineering and technology backgrounds - even though they were on the same educational level, there was a gulf between them.

It's not a case of "because I've an education, I'm better than you". That's utter bollocks and an arrogance I don't like. There's plenty ordinary people lived fulfilled lives without that "education". It's simply that our experiences change us in different ways and the common ground we need to form a lasting relationship will shift and change with that.

It's not necessarily education that causes changes and thus what we want out of a partner. There are other things that can form common ground such as hobbies, travel or (a no no for some) work.

Ian