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Doctor Damage Tackles a Linguistic Conundrum
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Oh help me, please doctor, I’m damaged: I am a very smart, erudite person who uses big words. My problem is, I can’t seem to find someone who is smart enough for me. Once I used the word “acerbic”, and she asked me what it meant. I dumped her on the spot. How can I lower my expectations?
Sincerely, Disconcerted
Dr. Damage understands this conundrum well. In fact, he just received an email from a perplexed reader (are there any other kind on this site?) who suggested that the Doctor’s vocabulary and approach to language was “overwrought.” This comment sent the Doctor into a slight tailspin because, like many of his devoted readers, he, too, is delicately constituted and, perhaps, maybe even a little overwrought.
Okay, but let’s focus. This is your problem and we’re going to solve it in 300 words or less, or my publisher will have my ass. In your constant need to impress, or drive away, potential dates by using big words, do you think there is some sort of compensation going on? For instance, do you think that you like to use big words because there are size problems in other aspects of your life? Let’s start with your apartment, your car, & your stock portfolio? All suitably sized? Maybe there are other undersized things that you might be compensating for or diverting attention from. And in this instance, the Doctor is not talking about your amygdala. We realize that these are tough issues, but the Doctor no longer consults w/ those who lead unexamined lives. He is too old for that. Take a hard look in the mirror, Jack.
You need to start w/ an uncompromising self-evaluation. Though mundane, start with a simple list. You know, plusses and minuses. Honestly inventory your shortcomings (stop at three pages, that’s enough), and then make another list of your personal strengths, because this is where we want to concentrate in this session. Any potential mate wants a partner w/ self-confidence, who has obvious and immediate socially desirable attributes that can be displayed like peacock feathers to her friends and, eventually, to her mother. Please believe me, the Doctor knows a little bit about this. He has had two mothers-in-law for 25 years.
Once you have a better understanding of the many and various things about yourself that make you attractive to potential partners, the need to overuse big words will diminish, the Doctor predicts. We would recommend that you keep Elements of Style, by Strunck & White, in your back pocket. There, their advice is plain, “Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able.” While the Doctor would agree that their mission was not helping to build relationships, it’s still pretty good advice in general. After all, if your date wanted a word maven, she’d be chasing William Safire or Will Shortz, not you. Not all potential partners want to be intellectually steamrolled. And those that would consider it would probably prefer soft restraints anyway.
In your self-evaluation, it’s critically important to emphasize honesty. Don’t oversell your past. The tendency to reinvent yourself for each new potential love interest inevitably leads to problems, the Great Gatsby notwithstanding. The Doctor has learned this from his own impressive catalog of mistakes. Once you make it far enough into a relationship, you’ll find that there is inconvenience that attends these long-term, committed arrangements; sooner or later, she will meet your friends and family and they will not recall your glory days quite the same way as you have recounted them to her. Facts are stubborn things. The Doctor’s fictionalized youthful athletic achievements have been reduced to their proper place over the past several decades by those he thought to be friends. What the Doctor has learned from these youthful transgressions is that your partner doesn’t really care whether you were the MVP of your Little League team or the “all purpose yards” leader at your wussy little prep school; she would rather that you act interested at breakfast when she tells you about the things that she plans to do that day, and that you even ask her a question that shows you were actually listening.
In closing, we would recommend that you stifle the impulse to solve the NY Times Sunday crossword in a sitting, or crush all comers at Scrabble. Word bullies are all together too common nowadays, especially w/ Google and Wikipedia so handy. Any woman in her right mind nowadays would rather throw herself naked at the guy who will vacuum her living room and empty her dishwasher than the guy who can spell “antidisestablishmentarianism.” — DD