I've seen it brought up a few times in various forums here, but I've always wondered about all the great minds out there who very well may have suffered through this same love shy thing. Obviously, the present social standard differs quite a bit from the rules of the past--women work, women's rights in general, we're open and frank about sex, gender stereotypes have fallen away a bit, etc.--but I don't really think this stuff has that much effect on the biological level of just why some men can't do the whole dating/marriage thing all that well. I'm not suggesting love shy guys tend to be more brilliant, it's simply untrue, but there are a disproportionately high amount of these types who come to be regarded as geniuses.

Pretty much any great philosopher you look up (German, anyway) died alone. That's not to say they were totally devoid of a love life, but if you read some of their stuff, brilliant as it is, you realize that it's usually the kind of thing only a man living a life of tremendous solitude could write. Immanuel Kant--died alone. Schopenhauer--died alone. Nietzsche--big surprise here--died alone. Even the big British philosophers--Locke and Hume--went without marrying anyone. Again, who's to speculate on their relationships or whatever, but, and I'm sure there's a huge amount of self-projection going on here, you would think this is indicative of a lifelong condition. In the math and sciences, just to throw out some big names: Newton, Tesla, Mendel (any big religious monk tended toward this, clearly) and many more I'm sure.

Beethoven gets me particularly because he was such an obvious genius and recognized as such while alive...and a musician of all things! Now, I know he had some affairs here and there, but reading some of his letters, and I've only read a few, the guy was bitterly rejected more times than not...and he went on to die alone. This is a guy who could have had anyone (he wanted a woman of status and royalty, but really, how many hot slags must there have been hanging around the court?) This all makes me wonder how love shyness works biologically, because it isn't always about the availability of women, it's wanting to consummate with them. This is not the same as asexuality either (though some of the aforementioned men very well may have been). It's complex.

I'll close with this snippet from Darwin: "It has often been objected...that the most eminent men who have ever lived have left no offspring to inherit their great intellect...Great philosophers and discoverers in science, aid the progress of mankind in a far higher degree by their works than by leaving a numerous progeny." Read the whole chapter in Descent of Man if you ever get the chance...it's pretty phenomenal. I think he's right though: it's a much greater thing to leave behind a legacy of ideas and insights than to pump out a few kids. As Van Gogh looked at it at the end of his life, having never had children, his works were his progeny.

Bottom quote in my sig line says it all...

If I recall correctly, Beethoven kept falling in oneitis with women he couldn't have. So did Vincent Van Gogh. They may have had relationships here and there, but I know they suffered unrequited love and rejection a lot.

ever hear Moonlight Sonata? Its supposedly about a girl that Beethoven loved but couldn't have.

beethoven

Probably Fur Elise as well.

I ended up watching all three episodes of this series. A little simple at times, but pretty good overall I'd say. As it relates to love shyness, I see Beethoven had similar hang ups on things a lot of us do, namely idealizing and romanticizing women who just don't exist (a la Leonore). As Led Zeppelin puts it in 'Going to California': "Trying to find a woman who's never never never been born."
I think it's a recurring issue and I know that what little success I have had with women has required me dropping all my poetic notions of them. Not to put them on a pedestal, and conversely, not to treat them like a truck stop toilet. In fact, this applies to pretty much every human relationship you can have. There is no better or worse than. Sounds trite, and it is if you look at it superficially, but in practice there's nothing truer.

Then again, Beethoven, idealistic and flawed as he was, wrote things no human's ever come close to expressing before or since:

The late 19th century Austrian composer Anton Bruckner was probably a life-long virgin; he never married and apparently repeatedly became fixated on very young (i.e. teenage) girls all through his adult years, into old age. Henry David Thoreau also, it seems, never had sex (though some argue that he was homosexual - if that matters in this case).

Sir Isaac Newton is best known for the theory of gravity, but he also invented calculus and the three laws of motion upon which all of mechanics is based. More fundamentally, Newton's mathematical approach has become so basic to all of physics that he is generally regarded as the father of the clockwork universe: the first, and perhaps the greatest, physicist. He is also not known to have ever had a romantic relationship of any kind, and is believed to have died a virgin at the age of 85....

I'm convinced Bobby Fischer, recluse and genius, was love-shy for the greater part of his life.

welll... this is depressing i do see a pattern though. makes sense... 85 yer old virgin... that one really hit me where i live

Dante is the master of the one word or cryptic photo-only post...

Yeah, what's with these unicorns lately, Dante? You have thrown one in just about every other thread.

I have been told a few times by guys that girls really don't dig really smart guys. If any woman objects, than I'll say that most women gives off the impression (intentionally or unintentionally) that they don't dig smart guys.


I remember a girl had a crush on me, the only reason I could really think of was that I was a smart guy, but I was dumped pretty quickly.

I remember talking to a guy afterwards who pretty much told me that generally girls don't dig smart guys especially young smart guys (I was about 20 at the time). He basically said what Cyndi Lauper said Girls just wanna have fun.


I also think to though that as smart guys we are preoccupied with a lot of stuff that the average person finds boring. And part of the reason we might be so smart is because we spend a whole lot of our time being preoccupied with "boring" stuff such as studying, reading etc and not participating in more "normal" and "fun" activities.

I can imagine people like Newton and Beethoven and probably even Einstein wasn't too successful with women. I bet they probably spent so much time at their craft and were therefore probably viewed somewhat as introverts which seems to get you off to a bad start with women.

Einstein did marry, though. I don't think Newton or Beethoven did.

I know Nikola Tesla was either in- or volcel.

Steven Hawking only got married (several times) because he has money, and because he wrote a pop- science book. In any other circumstances, c'mon, that guy would be screwed (in the virginal, rather than non virginal sense!)