Int-: -elligence and -imidation

I've just been moseying through the streets of Blogostan, checking out the latest from ITHOM, Rogers and Spurious...ITHOM's street is treelined and playful, even in the dark; the sun is shining today and it's a beautiful boulevard to be on; the mirrors there do not confuse or confine me, but allow the play of light and image and gaze. Rogers, as always, demonstrates the breadth and depth of his knowledge at every turn. This is a concrete jungle, much like the campus where we first met: a place of learning, with twists and turns and the ease-of-getting-lost. Spurious's realm is a motorway, a superhighway of information, a speed and a persistence in the epic that is his blog. Yet I notice I have described Spurious as 'intimidatingly intelligent' on my links list, and this reminds me of another conversation....

I sat with IQ in the bar, surrounded by strangers but with something of that closeness in our speech that is becoming joyfully frequent. She illustrated for me the nature of her relationship with Corona, her lover in her other life. 'Watch,' she said, and she conducted on the table a little dance between two finger-people...one set of finger-legs moved closer to the other, and the other moved a little back...step forward, step back...and gradually - bit by bit - the two moved closer. It made me laugh at the time, and I remain glad that she shared this with me, as she does such a good job of not allowing me to see much in the way of truly personal information. We discussed for a short time her relationship with Corona, and she explained something about a mutual intimidation that they experience of each other, based in no small part on their experience of each other's intelligence.

I explained that I - as someone who, like Corona, finds women sexually attractive - can relate to the notion of a woman being intimidatingly intelligent: good-looking, intelligent women are intimidating in some way, I explained. She seemed to be amused, and I remain unsure as to the extent to which I exposed my feelings at that moment.

But it's true: I experience a sense of captivation around her, and I have done it before with other intelligent women who I find physically attractive. I will no doubt do it again - it seems to be my pattern in life. What is intriguing is the difference of my experience of Spurious. He has a kind of cheeky charm that I could be attracted to if I were that way inclined, but I'm not. Nonetheless, I experience the intelligence he displays in his blog somewhat intimidating, but this is nowhere near the same sense of the word as I use it in relation to IQ and other Int women. In response to Spurious (and, for that matter, Rogers), I feel small, like I'm playing games I can never keep up with...like when I used to play Chase on my own in the playground as a child, hoping someone else would join in, but they were always busy with their own game. This is not a bad experience, exactly: on occasions it inspires me to attempt greater things, to jump higher, to run closer to the pack of other kids in the playground. With IQ and her kind, I feel intellectually more equal, like I can learn and teach and engage, like a game of chess...slowly organising our thoughts and ideas across the board, the pieces moving purposefully in a slow Sarabande. Yet, at the same time, I feel secondary, as if I am playing with the black pieces, led in the dance...and all this because of my other desires.

How do my sexual desires and the functions of my sexuality play with my experiences of int-elligence and int-imidation? Is it because Spurious and Rogers are men that in some way I automatically feel deferential? This feels like it might be part of it...there is maybe a sense that I could become what it is I desire in IQ and her kind, but I will never become what it is that I admire in Spurious and Rogers. And maybe it is partly my old, dormant desire to become what they are that leads me to avoid intellectual vulnerability with them by sharing my thoughts as I might with IQ, or do with Olga. (Although herein is evidence of the dual-INT: that I am not intimidated by Olga is the reason I can share in this way.) Because ultimately, I do not want to be like IQ or the other INT women I have wanted to have. I feel caught in a state of neither-nor, my self destabilised...wanting to be something I can never become; wanting to have something I can never have; admiring them both and with my response always generated qua response, rather than an autonomous act.

And there is a third, even more tricksy Int-: it is a difficult thing when int-elligence and int-imacy meet in someone so able to manipulate both of them.