When I met my SO, I thought that they were out of my league. I was a high school dropout. I was working a minimum wage job and attending community college. They were valedictorian of their class. They were in their last year of graduate school, and transitioning into professional life.

I was enamored with their academic achievement, and their circle of high achieving friends. They seemed to have made all the right moves, at all the right times. I thought it could have only been the result of a beautiful mind. Their beautiful body made the confirmation bias all the more palatable.

It was hard for me to appreciate what value they saw in me. Sure, I was beginning to do well in college after failing academically earlier in life. I was passionate about my area of study, and I had direction; but, it was hard to believe that someone so far ahead academically and professionally would have any interest in a relationship. It was as if I was getting away with a crime!

Early on, I felt that we had many deep conversations. I felt an intense cerebral connection with this person, and this was setting the stage for a fantastic and satisfying sexual life.

As I continued to grow personally, academically and professionally I felt that former gap narrowing. As my areas of study and line of work evolve I find myself succeeding in ways I had never anticipated. I had always thought that we were on fairly even intellectual ground, but it felt good to be able to feel like our careers were both in a healthy state of development and growth.

As our lives grew closer together, I started to question things. It began to feel as though I was always carrying the conversation. They seemed to get upset any time my opinion differed from theirs. I'm a natural contrarian, but I try very hard not to be annoyingly so. If we talked, it was always about my interests or hobbies. They didn't really seem to have any. When they weren't at work, or talking about work, they would consume vapid media content or scroll on the dopamine screen.

Fast forward a decade and then some. We have grown further apart than ever. They still have no hobbies or interests. They never seem to have anything nice to say about anyone. They work as little as possible. They operate on a cycle of fear, anger and remorse. They scream and say the most awful things when angry. Things are always tense between us. In the most heated arguments they say things that can leave no doubt about the ugliness of their mind.

As I look back, I reflect on how I fooled myself. I've always known that I am sapiosexual. I may not have had a word for it way back then, but I knew what I was looking for. My SO was, and still is very intelligent. Initially that was the attractant. That was the pre-pheromone which I had sniffed out. What I have learned since then is that highly intelligent people have many difficult paths to choose. Paths which maximize the benefit to the ego at the expense of others is very difficult for the highly intelligent individual to avoid. It is a simple matter of optimization, but it is also the road that leads to narcissism and intellectual laziness.

Unfortunately, this has done irreparable damage to my SO's attraction in my eyes. I can no longer see them for their physical beauty. Their attempts to sexually quench my thirst for something more cerebral and meaningful leaves me less and less fulfilled every time. I can't see past the ugly mind, and the constant selfishness.

From a sapiosexual perspective, I originally thought I mated up, but life is teaching me that things aren't always as they seem. I'm not looking for a pity party here. I'm partially venting, an partially offering some words of warning and wisdom. The transition from sapio-HOT to sapio-NOT, seemed to me a gradual decline that happened over the course of a long period of time. But as I reflect, it is pretty clear that I am also at fault. I so much wanted the sapiosexual connection to be there, that I subconsciously made it so by interpolation. If only the human mind weren't so primed for seeing faces in the clouds! Perhaps my SO simply got taken for a sapio-ride, but I can't help thinking that they were a willing accomplice in it all!

When I connect deeply with someone other than my SO, I can't help but think what things would be like, if only things were different. I fantasize about that someone being in my mind constantly, and I in theirs. In some ways, I'm a prisoner of my own success. A prisoner of my own selfishness. My own ego. Of time. I want to love someone, but I can't. So sapios beware... you just never know what the mind is capable of!