I leaned a new word yesterday – sapiosexual. According to Dictionary.com, a sapiosexual is “a person who finds intelligence to be a sexually attractive quality in others.”
That’s me. I just didn’t know there was word for this.
Ever since my wife died 3 years ago, I’ve been pretty isolated. The first year I was consumed by grief and one while purging my home and life. Then I spent 2 months completely isolated on my road trip across the US and living in the wilderness. Once I settled down in Raleigh to rebuild my life, I was still mostly alone. My only social contact was with a few old friends and casual interactions with people at the grocery store, the pool and the veterinarian.
Then Covid hit and shut down the world.
My world got even smaller. My only close social contacts were by phone. I’d wave to neighbors and occasionally exchange pleasantries with strangers behind masks in public places.
I went from having a witty, intelligent, charming wife 24/7 for 29 years to absolute silence except for a few phone calls a week.
Those calls often consisted of discussions about weather, food, news, TV shows my friends watched, my friend’s mid-life crisis, and other mundane trivialities.
It’s no wonder when I met MGLN, I was craving intellectual conversation. I was starved for it.
We didn’t talk about TV, politics or current events. We discussed history, science, medicine, life, psychology and education. She sprinkled words like audacious, sentimentalist and allopathic into her everyday conversation. I felt challenged by our conversations. It encouraged me to elevate my own vocabulary and writing.
I have another friend. Atif, who is an intellectual too. Conversations with him, though less frequent, are quite stimulating and thought provoking. Often, I have weeks of thinking and research to do after spending time with him discussing philosophy, business and life. There’s no sexual attraction here – obviously. But I’m drawn to our intellectual conversations.
I need more people like this in my life. Real people – both men and women – to have deep, meaningful conversations with in person.
I don’t need witty banter. I need thought provoking challenges.
This latest Covid omicron wave has been oppressive to me. I want to be out in the world interacting with more people. When this wave subsides, I’m going to start hanging out in public places where I might find them.
For starters, I’ll try coffee shops and a nearby “board game” restaurant/cafe (if it still exists). Maybe I’ll try some venues in the Durham art district, near colleges and near Research Triangle where scientists and engineers might frequent.
I’m kind of starving for this and I doubt I’m the only one.