Dear Dude,

Honestly, are guys truly intimidated by smart girls?  I’m an “A” student with glasses. Yet, while I’m stuck by myself mulling over the tenets of existentialism, the ditzy girls are getting the fellows’ attention.  I’m confused.  I thought that you guys didn’t want girls to play dumb.  I’m never mean, and I while I participate in class, I do shut up.  So, what’s up with this?  Are the glasses some sort of turnoff?

Sincerely,
Ol’ Four Eyes

Dear Ol’ Four Eyes

Ok, to be brutally honest….yes, guys are intimidated by smart girls. Yes, we tend to prefer bimbos who give very little resistance to our warped perception that we are the most perfect beings on earth. But you know what? Men can be morons. Every single man that passes you up (an intelligent girl with substance) will regret it one day. The majority of my friends still playing the “dumb and done” game with women are miserable (dealing with the high-maintenance, mood swing, boring-dinner-table-convo side effects that come with their choices).

To be viciously honest, men like it easy. We wish that we could live our lives without ever having to do laundry (and sometimes we get pretty darn close to this goal), ever having to battle through various levels of a video game (I still swear I’m just having one, endlessly bad round), and without ever having to work to get laid. The easier a woman is to have around (and the less we have to grow up, man up and work hard to be in her presence), the better. But guess what? A lucky few men will grow out of this phase (and an even luckier few will never be a part of it). There are some men out there (the ones who are actually worth your time), who will find your glasses sexy, who will listen to what you have to say, and better yet…will love that you’re smarter than them.

This is the guy you want to find. This is the guy who will become a better man by being around you (as a direct result of your proximity, intelligence love… not by a hidden agenda of trying to change someone). Don’t waste your time worrying about if the mass population of men deem you sexy. Just be yourself, loosen up around your peers (and in class), and share that sexy smart wealth with everyone. But do us a favor? Leave us that small amount of wiggle room to still believe that we’re as smart as you (even if we’re not), and don’t completely crush our fragile egos with a verbal beat down on any given subject. And most of all? Remember to shut up less, speak up (and enjoy yourself) more… and everything else will follow.

The Dude of Dudes

[Got a question for Mr. Dude? (And, no, that doesn't include asking him out; homeboy is taken!) Ask it: askthedude@collegecandy.com. He won't sugarcoat it, beat around the bush, or any other weird cliche that means lie to you. He'll be 100% real dude, 100% of the time. So bring it on, ladies.]

Your tired brain can thank me later.

The Impossible Quiz: Honestly, I still haven’t finished this quiz. If anyone out there can tell me how to beat question 15, I would die for that knowledge. This one will make you pull your hair out, but my dedication to the cause keeps me coming back for more. I think you’ll find yourself feeling similarly.

Seventeen.com Quizzes: This site has everything you’ve ever wanted to know about yourself. Literally. Do you want to know what your purse says about you? Seventeen knows. Is your boyfriend about to dump you? Ask Seventeen. I could spend an entire 48 hours taking these quizzes and finally decoding the mystery of life.

Place the 50 States: I always knew I was never a geography scholar, but this game was humiliating. But I challenge each and every one of you to try, because I can’t be the only person out there who can’t quite place the entire mid-western region of this fine country. Yikes.

Free IQ Test: Because you know you’re curious.

The Game Show Network Online: When I study in my room, my first study break includes an Easy Mac and an episode of Chain Reaction on the Game Show Network. So when I study in the library, obviously, I turn to gsn.com to play my favorite game show myself. I have come to terms with the fact that I may never get my 15-minutes of fame on an actual games how, so I might as well live vicariously through the internet, right?

Sporkle.com: Sporkle has it all. Any game you could think of including one called “ClickyPanicky” that happens to be very similar to the once popular, but no longer free game “Snood.” God, I loved Snood.

Perhaps I am a gamer at heart. Who knew?

I never thought that my innate intellectual prowess was affecting anything but my ability to make the Dean’s list. According to one Lisa Daily, though, I might be wrong. Being a smart and sexy female comes with its own catalog of setbacks, including the inability to find a man to love for life.

Basically, according to this article from the author of “Stop Getting Dumped: All you need to know to make men fall madly in love with you and marry ‘The One’ in 3 years or less”, smart chicks are less likely than their dense counterparts to snag a marriage license (and the man to go with it). Studies conducted in both Britain and the U.S. showed the same ludicrous results: the higher the woman’s IQ, the lower her marriage prospects.

Wait, what?! You mean, men don’t want women who can actually hold a real conversation about real issues? No freakin way.

Okay, actually, who am I kidding? I totally saw that one coming. But it’s not really their fault. The male decision to date dumb (and the female decision to “marry up”) is a matter of simple biology. Stats show that men want women who are younger, dumber and shorter. And, conveniently, most women want to find the best possible mate to raise the little ones. This generally means someone who is taller, smarter and older. Another big reason men want airheads? One theory is that men desire a wife who will stay at home, watch the kids and clean his dirty socks. And obvi, us smart b*tches will have none of that Holly Homemaker crap.

Men might also be afraid that their smart sphinx will go astray. A study conducted at the University of Michigan showed that men like to date women in subservient occupations because women in higher-level jobs seem more likely to cheat. And the theory is that men are biologically-charged to do pretty much anything possible to eliminate the need to raise kids that they did not, um, produce, which means staying far away from women who might commit adultery.

So what does this mean for women who can not only solve quadratic equations, but also want a hot hubby to come home to? Daily says not to worry, ‘cause there is somebody out there for everybody.

Basically, no matter how smart you think you are, there’s always someone – like, your future husband – who is smarter.

This weekend I met a guy. He is cute, funny, and 6’1″ – we exchanged numbers, and things were looking good.

Then at the end of the night as I was falling asleep, my phone chirped to inform me of a new text, from my new guy, “Great 2 meet u.”

Damn. And he had so much potential.

I know, I know, it is a sweet thing to say, but my problem is not with what he said, its how. I am the first to admit that I being extremely judgmental, but as an English major and someone who thoroughly enjoys words, I really hate to see them butchered.

Yeah, I’ve had people rationalize this texting style as faster, easier, whatever, but to substitute a single letter or a number for a word completely peeves me. Every time I see ‘4‘ in place of the word ‘for‘ or ‘c‘ instead of ‘see‘ or ‘2morrow‘ where there should be a ‘tomorrow‘ I cringe, I think of a junior high student, IQ points are lost, and a person suddenly seems extremely lazy- is it really that much harder to just type the extra two or three letters?? (The answer is no.)

Since my love life has been a little MIA lately, and aside from his bad text – etiquette I really thought he was a great guy I am not going to write him off (get it, write him off… since he doesn’t spell words right?) for lazy spelling. I’ll give him a shot, but I am just wondering, exactly how long do I have to wait before I can ask him to please expel the extra effort and use complete words?