Paul Brian
Emotional intelligence and intellectual intelligence are two different things, and they donโt always go together.
This can be a big problem.
There are a number of men who continue to have a mismatch and display a very high degree of intelligence and intellectual brilliance but a very low and dismal understanding of their own emotions and those of others.
This lack of emotional maturity can be surprising. After all, if youโre spending time around a man who is quite bright but then also seems to be very unintelligent about emotions it may seem odd.
He understands the theory of relativity, why doesnโt he see the way his behavior and attitude towards emotions is immature and childish?
Here are the top signs to watch out for in terms of a guy whoโs smart but not about his emotions:
1) He canโt take criticism
Intelligent men with low emotional maturity often find it challenging to accept criticism.
Even if you make a perfectly fair criticism of him or his behavior, or provide criticism that is constructive, he tends to lash out.
He takes it as a challenge or some kind of denigration of his intrinsic value, lashing out. This displays a man who really doesn’t understand much about how useful criticism can be and who doesnโt have the maturity to not immediately react.
Their intellectual prowess may lead them to believe that they are always right, making it hard for them to acknowledge their flaws or mistakes.
2) He gets defensive when challenged
Rather than engaging in open and constructive conversations, emotionally immature intelligent men may become defensive when their ideas are questioned.
Instead of learning from new ideas and questions, he tends to see them as a threat. He wonders why he is being challenged, even if it is something as simple as being asked to provide proof of a statistic or fact he has cited.
In work and in his personal life he reacts very badly to challenges to his power or dominance, acting as though even challenging questions are a hit against him personally.
Needless to say, this behavior can hinder healthy discourse and collaboration.
3) Heโs just not very empathetic or caring
While their cognitive abilities may be exceptional, emotionally immature men may struggle to connect with the feelings of others.
It is fairly simple: he just doesn’t care that much about others.
Whatever the source of this lack of empathy, very smart men sometimes suffer from a tendency to over rationalize and cut themselves off from their own emotions and those of others.
They may lack empathy, making it difficult for them to understand and respond appropriately to others’ emotions.
4) He tends to be hyper-rational and dismiss feelings
Highly intelligent men with emotional immaturity tend to rely excessively on logic and reason, dismissing the importance of emotions.
As noted in the previous point, this tendency towards rationality is especially strong in men. There is the perception that if he can understand his emotions or analyze them, he can transcend them or make sense of them.
Yet his analysis and rationality reaches such a stage that he will often engage in denial of how he feels or ignore how someone else feels because it doesn’t make sense to him.
This can lead to challenges in personal relationships, where emotional connection plays a crucial role.
5) He sees emotional vulnerability as weakness
Emotional immaturity often manifests as a fear of vulnerability. The tendency to rationalize in a smart but emotionally immature man is often born out of a belief that emotional vulnerability is weakness.
Due to his cultural conditioning or personal beliefs and complexes, he sees opening up emotionally as frail. Whether it is in his own case with opening up or having others admit how they feel to him, this man feels deeply uncomfortable about emotional sharing and reality.
He would rather break things down into facts and figures or some kind of dry analysis.
6) He hates discussing his or othersโ feelings
His dislike of emotional sharing and emotional experiences , often causes this bright but emotionally immature man to walk away from discussions of feelings.
Even very positive and joyous feelings can make him uncomfortable. He may ask his girlfriend, for example, why she is so happy, or he may feel uncomfortable at seeing the enthusiasm of friends singing while they are out at a pub night.
He finds strong and displays of emotion unnerving and does it feel like he himself can join in them without embarrassing himself or being somehow humiliated. This often has roots in early childhood.
7) He intellectualizes emotions
Emotional immaturity can be rooted in a fear of rejection. Intelligent men may avoid situations where they perceive the risk of rejection, limiting their personal and professional growth.
This is one of the ironies of very smart men who have trouble with their emotions, is that they often do understand their emotions and other people’s emotions quite well, but they don’t actually deal with them effectively.
They may know all sorts of theories about psychological defenses and integration and trauma, but when it comes to actually discussing their feelings or working on improving their relation to their feelings or somebody else’s feelings, they are nowhere to be found.
8) He struggles to form long-term relationships
Finding a long-term partner is not easy for anyone, but men who have trouble with their emotions struggle especially with this aspect. If he is extremely smart it can be especially frustrating and confusing to this man why he has not met his match.
He may be attractive, interesting, funny and smart, so why do his relationships keep visiting out before they even have a chance to start?
The answer often lies in his own inability and lack of self-awareness to see his emotions for what they are and to spot and improve some of his self-sabotaging emotional patterns.
9) He freaks out about change and life transitions
Most of us have trouble with too many changes and dramatic transitions in our life, but for a man who has trouble with his emotional intelligence this is especially true.
He struggles to adjust to the reality of change, especially when it comes to changes in those around him or in his relationships.
He just can’t stomach or accept the fact that other people’s feelings and inner realities are not always rational and are not always able to be explained in an analytical or intellectual way.
Highly intelligent men may find it challenging to cope with change, as it often involves navigating unfamiliar emotional terrain.
10) Heโs not emotionally resilient
Some of the toughest men I know in terms of their physical prowess and intellectual rigor, simply have no emotional resilience.
One or two disappointments and they become completely helpless wondering what to do and calling anyone who will listen.
They are mentally tough and able to crack even the toughest puzzles about how to earn money or care for their family, and they are physically tough and able to work hard and shoulder responsibility. But when it comes to difficult emotional experiences or things like depression or anxiety, they begin to freak out and have no idea how to deal with it.
11) Heโs terrified of rejection
Smart men who are emotionally immature often have deeper reasons for their emotional police stunted growth.
From an early age they tend to learn that emotions lead to being hurt and that opening up too much leads to rejection and disappointment.
They try to control their own emotions or dismiss them and do the same for those around them, and hope that this will lead to security and emotional validation.
Underneath all of this there is often a deep fear of abandonment and rejection or of expressing feelings that might not be understood over that might be met with scorn or dismissal.
12) He can be quite manipulative
In an attempt to control their surroundings, some emotionally immature men may resort to manipulation.
Their intelligence can be used to manipulate situations and people, further complicating their interpersonal relationships.
Emotional immaturity has a real cost and it can often lead to manipulative behavior.
When a man can’t deal with his difficult emotions and has trouble understanding the emotions of others, he may behave in inappropriate and manipulative ways.
13) He shirks emotional labor
An emotionally immature man who’s highly intelligent often suffers from a simple refusal to allocate his energy and attention towards his emotions.
He shirks emotional labor because he finds it overly tiresome and may even typecast it as stereotypically feminine.
He prefers to put his time into earning money and pass that he considers more manly. As a result he lets the ball drop on facing his emotions or working at all to negotiate and understand the feelings of others.
Emotional labor involves the effort put into managing and expressing emotions. Men lacking emotional maturity may avoid this labor, leading to surface-level interactions and superficial relationships.
