i re-read the elitist post of a couple of days ago, and i don't think i expressed myself well. it's not that i think i must have a harvard girl or else, by any means. it's just that college was the place where i most felt i was surrounded by people i could relate to. this relatability, i think, is the most important point for me, and this is why i find myself suspicious of relationships with substantial age difference -- it's not the raw age so much as it is being in a different point in your life.
i was talking with adrienne yesterday and she said something interesting: that most people view being empathetic/soft-hearted/emotional as being anticorrelated with intelligence (or at least that many people don't respect the intelligence of people like that.) i thought this was interesting because i am the complete opposite -- i'm as much of an intelligence queen as you can get (well except for the queen part), but the intelligence that i am going for largely comprises understanding other people in this empathetic or emotional sense. this is, of course, why my close friends are largely female, not to overly stereotype.
now of course the ability to understand other people well is correlated with book intelligence. a lot of it is just analogy intelligence, which some (cognitive psychologists) claim is the basis of human intelligence as opposed to monkey inteligence. to really understand people, you need to be able to put yourself in their shoes and simulate. you also need to be perceptive, which i think should also be correlated with any kind of intelligence (perceptive being the trait of the naturally curious; in addition, if you don't notice and pick up on things, it's kind of hard to test out as smart.) and perception is the number one thing i am going for, since i love nothing more than to have these vaguely gossipy conversations based on things we have noticed about people, or general crackpot theories informed by perception.
it's certainly true that i am an elitist, but i could care less whether or not someone went to harvard or not. i think this is probably positively correlated with having the kind of emotional intelligence i want, and i think that it's possible that i still have more in common with undergrads than i do with real world people (short version: i'm a generalist, undergrads are generalists, real world people are often pigeonholed), which is sad as i don't share their culture any more (see previous comment about different point in life, etc..)
but anyway, i am nothing consciously; i just get an intuitive impression of someone and go from there. and i have a good feeling about this latest person i don't know at all, even though i know nothing about her. this is how i know i am me again; the harmless crushes. truth be told they may be the most defining feature of my personality.