Dear xenopustex:

I have the time and the interest this Sunday morning, so I am back to your thread. I re-read your original post. You expressed interest in the concept of Emotional Intelligence. You know you possess the other kind of intelligence, the Rational Intelligence and you are curious about the other kind.

You already have it, emotional intelligence about firearms. You wrote: “Strangely, there is one area in which I do tend to go with “feelings,” and that is, of all things, in the area of purchasing firearms. Call me strange, but just by picking up a weapon and cycling the action, I can tell if I have confidence in the weapon or not. Has nothing to do with the cost of the weapon, it’s just a question of whether it “feels right” or not and whether it feels high quality.”

This paragraph is very meaningful because if you make the connection, then you know- from personal experience- what emotional intelligence is about.

You know a lot about guns rationally, I have no doubt. But in addition to the rational knowledge of guns, you also trust your own knowledge. You feel confident in your knowledge and that trust and confidence in your rational knowledge of guns make you comfortable evaluating, assessing and handling guns.

If you had emotional intelligence regarding you as a person, you would feel as comfortable being you/ in your own skin as you feel with guns. If you had emotional intelligence regarding other people, you would feel as comfortable interacting with others as you do with guns.

Almost as comfortable because guns are straightforward, no pretenses, no lies.

So I should correct myself: you can feel much more comfortable around people than you do now, if you had that emotional intelligence about people. If you did, you would be able to evaluate people like you do guns, determine their value, just as you do with guns.

People are more tricky than cars as well. You wrote that you research the safety reputation of a car before buying it. Unfortunately, no such research available about a particular individual. And even if the individual is famous, who is making the evaluation online needs to be considered.

So indeed emotional intelligence of people is more complicated than that of objects and pets. But it can be learned.

The experience you had with the woman you liked, when you suggested dating her. I may be able to help you gain… emotional intelligence kind of understanding of what happened there. Would you like that? If you would, do share what happened: where did you suggest dating her: was it in a restaurant, elsewhere? Describe the place and event of that evening. What was the conversation about before you suggested dating? What did you say when you suggested dating? What did she say in return, what were her words?

anita