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Unicorns and Dragons: Surviving True Peers who Don't stay True, by Kathleen Casper

8/4/2016

3 Comments

 
If you spend any amount of time in Giftedland, (the universe where parents of asynchronous and intense gifted children and confused and overexciteable adults go to read about all the things that make them unique and frustrated and often very, very lonely,) you will read about how hard it is to find your "true peers," or in other words, people of our tribe... people who have similar traits and actually care about and get excited about the same types of things we do. 

There's talk about that unicorn of emotions- that almost mythical-seeming spark that happens and connects us immediately with someone to a depth and intensity that others may not comprehend and that you certainly don't expect, since it rarely happens and since when it does you feel so excited you don't even know what to do with what you've found or how to function so that you can somehow make sure that you don't ever have to go without the amazing rush that comes over you when you are together.

It's that electric jolt that throws you literally off your feet sometimes, with giddiness and amazement, and makes you want to get closer and closer and learn everything you can about this new and rare creature. It can make you do things you never imagined- give you strength and newfound self-confidence, and cause you to laugh uncontrollably or stay up for days at a time without sleep just so you can absorb everything about this other person and the connection you feel in your mind, through lengthy conversations with your new tribe mate or just staring at all wall trying to make sense of it all.

It has knocked me over when I least expected it, like seeing that spark in a new friend and connecting like lightning hit me during a hug in an elevator with someone who I never ever wanted to have to let go. It's grabbed me from across a room at a community gathering when my eyes saw someone I'd never seen before and I recognized the spark in theirs, and zapped me upside down and sideways while I was sitting back to back with someone in a restaurant whose spark had been driving me batty for years. Each one of these connections were a shock to my system In different ways. One of them made me literally unable to get out of bed for days while I pondered what to do with this new intense feeling. One had me risking my reputation and tore up my marriage and still never worked out as I hoped it might. And the other was the most incredible, but short, romance story that keeps me warm inside when I'm struggling to deal with real life and I replay it often in my head for selfish entertainment when I need it most. Each one made me richer. (And each one eventually broke my heart into a zillion little pieces.)

Some people who have never experienced this depth of connection may think I just explained "falling in love," because our culture uses those intense descriptions for that scenario- connecting with someone and never letting them go. But this isn't just a love scenario- this is much more than that. Yes, there are immediate feelings of awe and attraction, but as it has been explained by psychologists and researcher, (and I've said myself in those few instances,) it's a connection at so many levels that others may never even comprehend. It's like finding water after crawling in a desert for years. It's like believing in Santa and the Easter Bunny and World Peace and all those fantastical things all over again, like you find that every amazing emotion and possibility you ever dreamed about is standing right there in the flesh. And then you get to revel in it, if only for a brief time.

A brief time? Yes, unfortunately sometimes (perhaps even every time...) those intense connections are doomed to only occur for short periods of time, spread out across the vast landscape of a gifted person's life. There are several reasons for this, that it's important we recognize them so that we don't fall into a trap that many do fall into- the trap of disappointment, disillusionment, and overwhelming sadness when we expect them to last forever and then we eventually have to go back to real life and we can't take them with us.

Whether the connection is a friendship or a romantic relationship, or some kind of blend between the two that's about to blow up into a full fledged love and burn you both up with it like a dragon, each of these rare and special situations has their own challenges alongside the wonderful emotions that envelop you in the beginning. In other words, nothing is perfect, and nothing lasts forever.

Sometimes these true peers can't possibly be our everything. And sometimes they seem to be, and then they aren't (which can be worse.)

Time and Distance

All the reasons we have to search for information about ourselves and this elusive notion of what gifted even means, are because we realize we are so different than others. Statistically, if giftedness occurs in only 3-5 percent of the whole population, finding someone you fit with at this level is even more rare when you add in all the different intensities and social quirks and our individual obsessive interests. So it's amazing to actually find someone whose traits so closely match yours. And this often does not happen in the same neighborhood, or same part of your city, or even possibly in your same state. So it is most likely that you will meet this amazing person who you never want to part from, and they will live hundred or thousands of miles away from you. This makes never parting a lot more difficult and adds to the roller coaster of emotions you are feeling.

I've spent many an hour contemplating moving to New Mexico where one of my amazing connections lives, and even planned some great trips to Kentucky and Washington State where my other former "true peer" type friends reside, all in the hopes of alleviating the empty feeling that seems even emptier after meeting someone who I thought filled my soul so completely.

But it isn't always possible. Knowing how busy my life is because of all the things I enjoy doing and learning and being and seeing, it is reasonable that the people I connect with at this kind of level are also very busy and lead active lives. No matter how many times you talk about how amazing your connection is and how much you want to see each other or tell each other everything about yourself and learn everything about them, it's likely someone is going to have to go do something other than concentrate solely on the other person at some point. And it's not always easy to keep those discussions going across all that distance, even if you can squeeze time in for visits on occasion. Life is busy, and friendships, even of that caliber, are hard to keep up. Think about how hard it is to schedule visits with your family members. It is even harder to find ways to schedule with another person who is just as busy and overcommitted as you are. You are both planets circling the sun at a high rate of speed, so finding a similar orbit is difficult.

I've spent many weeks and even months looking forward to a rare opportunity to see the few people I felt that connected to, and I was happy to see them when I could, but I was also heartbroken at how little time we actually could spend together. And when we finally had an incredible weekend of spending hours talking and laughing and hugging, real life seemed even more cruel when I had to jump back into the stream of obligations and promised engagements that I encounter each day.

Timing

And the issue of time expands into the concept of timing... Not every connection happens when it's feasible to see each other again at all, no matter how badly your heart aches to see them. 

Even though it is likely you would move heaven and earth to be closer to each other, sometimes life commitments trump what we want for ourselves. Maybe it's family members who need your time and attention, like young children or aging parents. Or you are working on projects with dire implications to other people or the environment or the whole world.

Or, as is often the case, you aren't the only people trying to circle into each other's orbits. Often gifted people find other partners and friends to love when they are unaware of the intense connections that are possible with other intricately matched gifted souls. We fall in love with people we care about and who care about us; we settle down and have families and make plans and we often cannot, would not, should not or could not hurt the other people in our lives by abandoning them to pursue the new intensities after learning how deep our connections can be with someone else. We don't want to mess up our lives or change our futures, even if it's really tempting at the time.

So no matter how pure or true or deep our connection may be with our possible true peer who lives out in the world somewhere, we have to leave it out there and go back home. Because we care deeply about our other connections too. And because that's the world we already live in. And because even if we did want to go, change takes bravery and time and effort and sometimes we have to just go forward like robots in our real lives because we are happy enough... or at least we hope we can be. 

Disappointment

And then there are those who pursue those connections anyway. They may have the freedom or the passion that won't let them be unless they try all they can to make it happen. They move heaven and earth so they can have more time with that person who fits so well into the space beside their own soul, and they can't stay away from the electric current that is running through them both. They may find every spare moment to call or text or email; they may find ways to fit in visits or even to move as close to them as they can. Or they may throw all the risk aside and continue to let the relationship dominate their thoughts full time.

I've had those moments of thinking I could make it all work like that. I've spent hours on the phone and flown hundreds of miles to show up at their door (or at least planned those trips even when they didn't work out like we imagined... But those are another story!) And I've considered all the ways I could change my life so that I could expand my time with them as much as humanely possible. 

But look, I'm still living a life without a true peer now. That's because things don't always work out like we hope they might. 

Reality

And when we think we have found the most amazing person in the world and we want that forever after happiness promised at the end of Disney movies and fairy tales, reality sets in. 

And reality often is not just life obligations and other commitments getting in the way, many times it's personality issues too. What seems like an incredible match at first, often devolves into one of challenges. Balancing our own intensities with those of someone else, especially someone who is similar in their obsessions, is hard, to say the least. And it's even more difficult when you find you have not only similar hopes and dreams, but the same anxieties and fears too. 

Someone who enjoys your every waking moment for a while, can become possessive or resentful of your time or your other interests. They may love your passion and talking and talking, until they want to get other things done and they don't know how to nicely extricate themselves from the pattern of late night discussions or constant contact you both once established. One of you is likely to want to escape to real life more than the other one, or have other connections you need to honor too, so your life has to go back to a more realistic life pattern. Inevitably, this great puzzle piece match up is likely to become a little unbalanced. And not everyone weathers storms well. Usually it's just you having doubts and wondering whether you were too intense or you did something stupid. But now it's both of you second guessing and worrying and stressing each other out.

And that can hurt. In little bits and pieces you start to wonder if perhaps you misjudged the depth of your connection. You may find enough things you don't agree on, or enough traits you wish you could change in your perfect match, that they seem less and less like the supernatural force they once were. They are human after all, and so are you. All those great things you wanted to do together start getting squished in your mind by all the reasons it won't work out, or the novelty of your plans start wearing off.

Or their significant other or other friends decide they hate you for taking up so much space in their loved ones' head or heart. And then you watch as the are slowly convinced that they shouldn't feel the way they do about you. And you wait for calls that don't come or invitations that never appear, and you notice the passion-filled discussions that you once had are tame or disjointed or not happening at all anymore.

And no one really knows what killed the spirit of it- was it time or a lack of true compatibility? Or did it just burn so bright at first that it didn't last as long?

Then what do you do when your true peer doesn't seem so true? How do you keep going when the embers fade but you've already seen the light? Do you walk back into the regular world with your regular friendships and loves and hope you can maintain some sense of normalcy?

It's hard to keep going with the day to day things when you've experienced the depth of an intense friendship or romance. Missing the relationship takes hold of your mind and everywhere you turn you see them there. Everything reminds you of what you no longer have. The phone that used to buzz with activity sits quiet. The stories you were saving up to tell each other during those future visits and late night pillow talks may never be told. And you can't even bear to look at the photos of you laughing, hugging, grinning, so you put them somewhere safe so someday you can look back on them and not be sad.

In order to move on, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. There are still other people in the world worth meeting, and you may find someone else who is able to give you the kind of friendship or relationship you are looking for. These intense connections are rare, but they aren't impossible to find. And once you found one and know what it feels like, you can find more. I was in my thirties before I found my first adult true peer friendship. But since then I've found a few more. And the more you meet, the more you see that even these intense relationships vary in so many ways. Eventually you will find someone who doesn't want to let you go, and you will have many future days of fun and laughter again.

2. It's ok to mourn friendships, especially these ones. Just as we go through grief when someone dies, losing a friendship also causes grief. Take time to miss the good times and to take care of yourself. There are good books about grief that may interest you. Dr. James T. Webb authored a book that is specifically about different types of grief that gifted people go through because of their intensities. It's called Searching for Meaning: Idealism, Bright Minds, Disillusionment, and Hope. It is a great resource for dealing with all sorts of depressing situations. And don't feel silly asking for help. Talk to friends you can trust to pour your heart out to, or ask people to keep you company so you don't have to be alone. And if it feels overwhelming or goes on a long time (you can judge that, or others may tell you it may be lasting too long... And don't be mad if they do and you don't agree,) then consider seeing a professional who can help you conquer the existential depression. It's important to mourn, but also important to land on your feet.

3. Eventually the person you thought was a true peer and who let you down in some way will likely be back in your circle again. You may cross paths due to your common interests, you may just see them by chance, or one of you may reach back and invite the other back into some kind of working relationship or even a new kind of friendship. Don't write them off while emotions are high. They may end up being one of your closest allies or friends. I know this because even after a very sore broken heart, I became good friends again with the person I felt disappointed me the most. And now when I'm experiencing issues in my life and I doubt I'm ever going to find other amazing connections, I can call him and ask him for his advice or thoughts on the matter. Since he knows me and we spent many, many hours talking about our deepest thoughts and letting each other into our souls, his opinion is often the closest thing to truth. I would not trade knowing him for the world.

4. And finally, (speaking of "not trading knowing him,") it is important that you realize how special the relationship was in the first place and how lucky you were to have it at all. Some people don't know what that kind of intense friendship even feels like because they aren't wired in ways to ever see that many levels of connection. It may hurt like crazy to lose someone you loved and had such high hopes for, and sometimes you might wish you could turn back time and erase it all, just to avoid the heartache. But really, that was some amazing stuff, wasn't it? How could you ever really want to have gone through life without loving like that? 

At some point you will hold those memories tightly in your heart and they will float you through other painful experiences. You loved and were loved. Someone saw you as so worthwhile that they stared at you in disbelief and asked themselves (out loud or in their minds,) over and over, "where did this person come from? Where have they been? And why did I get so lucky as to meet them?" And you know you thought those same things about them. That's pretty dang lucky. And pretty darn special. And you can keep that memory close because it's yours now, no matter how crazy or silly or sad it all got later. For a while, you had the universe in your soul. It isn't gone- it's still there. So embrace it. Don't let it feel less worthwhile just because it isn't the same anymore.

Life is crazy and unpredictable. It's hard and it's wonderful. And who would have thought that in that mess of a universe you would find someone who could see you so clearly, if only for a short while? You have experienced more than many people ever do. And you made it through one of the roughest parts of living- losing those you care about. 

So pick yourself up and go forward knowing what that spark looks like- recognize that gleam in their eyes that pulled you in. And this time use the last experience to help you enter the chaos with a little more confidence and a lot more bravery. You will be ok. It happened, and you are a better person now for the whole experience. Good luck, and don't forget to raise your chin and smile. You never know when you will find yourself falling down that next incredible rabbit hole.


​For another blog entry on the topic of gifted adult relationships, please check out my article, One True Peer, at ​http://oneworldgifted.weebly.com/blog/one-true-peer.
3 Comments

One True Peer

6/1/2015

27 Comments

 
By Kathleen Casper

 

Gifted adults often spend their lives trying to find friendships that have a depth and breadth at the spiritual level that most of their friendships and intimate relationships only skim the top of. And once in a while they actually find one of those if they are lucky, although they are incredibly difficult to find. Researchers don’t know exactly why this is, or why it matters, although they can follow the brain chemistry evidence to prove there is a biological event that occurs when people do find connections (Krienen, Pei-Chi Tu, and Buckner, 2010), somehow the idea of finding that one person who matches their character and mirrors their soul matters more than most gifted people want to admit. Some give up and live a life of solitude. But others continue to look, sometimes moving from unsatisfactory relationship to yet another unsatisfactory one, always hoping they will find “the One.”

Starting from youth, gifted children begin looking for peers who mirror their intelligence and interests. Articles have been written about what “true peers” are for children, whose asynchrony of development causes problems for them in finding even playmates who understand them at the appropriate levels. But when a gifted child grows into a gifted adult, the intricacies of relationships thicken and just having someone who can do “parallel play” at the higher levels isn’t enough. Gifted adults have the potential of forming intimate relationships that overshadow the casual friendships they maintain in their workplaces and in their regular social networks. This pursuit of true adult peers is so important that it manifests itself in what can appear to be self-depreciating or harmful behaviors and even unhealthy medical conditions, including diseases and stress-induced maladies, multiple intimate relationships, divorces, and more.

Just knowing there is a potential for more intimate depth is enough to keep them searching, and often moving from relationship to relationship until they find the “soul mate” they are looking for- if they ever are able to find them.

It is well documented in research articles that the gifted are prone to characteristics that can lead to problematic social interactions on many levels- the high sensitivities, their questioning nature, persistence and obsessiveness, passion and perceptiveness, empathy and enrage over unfairness, and so forth (Heylighen, n.d.). The combination of these characteristics and each gifted person’s specific areas of concerns and passions are unique. Therefore, a gifted person may have to search high and low throughout the population of their communities and the world in order to find someone who matches their desires and understands them at the deepest levels.


Loneliness is a major issue for many adults, but particularly those who are gifted-

Gifted people historically struggle with the issue of loneliness throughout childhood, into adulthood and even in the elderly years. Looking at just about any list of gifted characteristics, loneliness is often mentioned- showing how difficult it is for gifted individuals to feel true connections with others. It’s a lonely existence to not feel like you really belong. This statement says it best- "A common feeling or fantasy among highly gifted children is that they are like abandoned aliens waiting for the mother ship to come and take them home” (Webb, Amend, Webb, Goerss, Beljan, & Olenchak, 2005, p. 136).

This desire to find someone who understands us is human nature. Psychologists have documented the need for social connections. “Across the lifespan, affiliative and attachment bonds have clear survival and reproductive advantages that may help explain why the motivation to form and maintain close social bonds is as potent as the drive to satisfy hunger or thirst”(Cacioppo, 2009).

Researchers (Caspi, Harrington, Moffitt, Milne, & Poulton, 2006) found that loneliness in adolescence and young adulthood caused actual physical maladies such as cardiovascular issues and other health concerns.

Even when a person has what appear to be many friends, they can still be lonely. Many gifted people actually have several casual friends but this does not fill the need to fully connect with someone.

A study done by Lavelle and Hawkley (2010) found the following:

Loneliness is a feeling of distress that accompanies perceived deficiencies in social relationships. Loneliness often occurs in conjunction with social isolation, but a person can be socially isolated without feeling lonely and can feel lonely without being socially isolated. In contrast with social isolation, loneliness is more closely related to the perceived quality than qu
antity of social relationships.


Even if someone is not really isolated, if they feel isolated it’s even worse. In fact, researchers Cacioppo, Fowler and Christakis (2009) found that “Humans are an irrepressibly meaning-making species and a large literature has developed showing that perceived social isolation (i.e., loneliness) in normal samples is a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.”  

In other words, the lack of a true connection can also be dangerous. It makes people who feel socially isolated willing to take more risks and incur greater costs in order to find connections, sometimes getting themselves into more exploitive relationships than individuals who feel more connected to others.

Gifted characteristics have a tendency to sometimes be especially isolating when the individual feels that the world is full of unfair situations and things to be anxious about. And those who are more willing to accept that other people can be helpful in facing these massive problems are more likely to feel supported in their pursuit of justice, but those who are skeptical and don’t have a network of friends they can count on feel even more hopeless. In fact, research has shown that people who feel like they are connected to others believe they can overcome challenges with the support of their friends.

Researchers (Cacioppo, Hawkley, Rickett, & Masi, 2005) from the University of Chicago found the following:  

People who feel socially connected …react to interpersonal conflicts in peaceful and constructive rather than offensive and aggressive ways, thereby producing an environment that others want to inhabit but in contrast, lonely individuals are more likely to construe their world (including the behavior of others) as potentially threatening or punitive. (p. 147)

 

Finding This Level of Connection is Rare-

There are so many benefits to finding that real connection with someone, and yet it is more difficult to find than it sounds like it should be. Researchers theorize that in order to truly connect and form a friendship, often people need to find someone within 10-20 points of their own IQ score. With only about 3-5% of the world’s population exhibiting gifted characteristics, and even less having similar interest areas and personality compatibility, this makes it quite difficult for a perfect match to take place.

The IQ guidelines sound strict, but Francis Heylighen attempted to explain this enigma when he studied the way gifted people function in society. Heylighen found that in order to converse about an issue, a gifted person (which he referred to as a GP) will often discuss it using information they already have to make inferences and analogies in order to better understand the situation. The fact that most of what is going on in the gifted person’s head is harder to follow for a non-gifted person who is not processing the information at that level and this heightens the anxiety level of a non-gifted person in the conversation, and any input they can contribute to the discussion may not add enough to the thought process for the gifted person so they do not fully engage. If the gifted individual tries to explain their thoughts to the non-gifted conversationalist, they may sound as if they are dumbing it down and insult the other person, making the formation of a friendship difficult.

Heylighen (2007) found the following, "As a result, the GP will tend to remain in the boredom zone, anticipating most of what the other is going to say without learning much new, while the non-GP remains in the anxiety zone, being unable to comprehend much of what is being said, and wondering what the other party is up to." 

Gifted researcher Dr. Kathleen Noble (2012) noted this struggle and the importance of finding true peers in her research, stating, “In terms of finding peers, you have to realize it is hard, and you have to work at it.” She also noted that the individual’s living or work situation also plays a part in how difficult it is to find a true peer, but that new technology such as the internet makes it easier to find and explore relationships which may help rural women who are not exposed to as many others. If someone lives in a city or is connected with a university or “some kind of idea factory” it should be easier to find other gifted peers, but for those who work in the corporate world (presumably with less women co-workers) or in the retail world (presumably with less gifted individuals) or at home raising children it’s harder to do so.

​Another issue that may make it more difficult to find a true peer is the personality type of the gifted individual. Highly sensitive people may shy from relationships, especially ones that have the potential to be more than just casual friendshipsbecause of their fear of being emotionally harmed by rejection. So finding a true peer requires finding another person who understands this dilemma and is willing to work around it until both parties can trust each other (Aron, 2001).

However, when gifted people do find someone that they click with on such a deep emotional level, they can finally feel like they are supported and that they are no longer alone (Castro, 2008).

And as Susan Daniels points out in her book Living with Intensity, gifted people begin searching for kindred spirits and true peer connections in young adulthood and “their friendships and love relationships may have an almost explosive quality. Successfully finding others with whom they can truly connect allows gifted adults to savor the joys of true intimacy—joys that they will experience with their characteristic intensity” (Daniels & Piechowski, 2008, p. 170).

 

What is a TRUE PEER?

Different cultures call the idea of a “True Peer” different things. Some refer to them as “best friends” or “kindred spirits.” However a “true peer” in the world of the over-excitabilities-prone, sensitive and high level thinking gifted person is often defined as being even more than those everyday terms. The connection being sought is at a level of depth more in-tune with that of the controversial “soul mate.”

The idea of a “soul mate” is intriguing and different cultures all over the world have believed in and referred to this phenomenon. As far back to Plato, soul mates were an item of discussion; “Bashert” is a Yiddish word that Jewish people use to mean one's divinely foreordained spouse or soul mate, whichis called "basherte" (female) or "basherter" (male). It can also be used to express the seeming fate or destiny of an auspicious or important event, friendship, or happening (“Yiddish Dictionary Online,” n.d.); and in the Malaysian culture they use the word “Jodoh” for soul mate or partner. Malaysian Muslim women sometimes say, “Jodoh pertemuan dan ajal maut di tanganTuhan” or ‘matters of death and soul mates are in the hands of God.’ Researchers Ibrahim and Hassan translate this by saying “Jodoh in this regard means ‘soul mate’ or ‘partner’; but most importantly the word has an implication of fate determined by God at the perfect timing. If one says she hasn’t met her jodoh that means God has not permitted her to meet her soul-matebecause the time is not yet right. 

The Urban Dictionary (2006) has a wonderful explanation of what a soul mate is:

A person with whom you have an immediate connection the moment you meet -- a connection so strong that you are drawn to them in a way you have never experienced before. As this connection develops over time, you experience a love so deep, strong and complex, that you begin to doubt that you have ever truly loved anyone prior. Your soulmate understands and connects with you in every way and on every level, which brings a sense of peace, calmness and happiness when you are around them. And when you are not around them, you are all that much more aware of the harshness of life, and how bonding with another person in this way is the most significant and satisfying thing you will experience in your lifetime. You are also all that much aware of the beauty in life, because you have been given a great gift and will always be thankful.

According to some modern day experts, there are soul mates and then there are also kindred spirits. A Soul mate should be distinguished from a kindred spirit, who is someone you connect with that you may feel like you’ve known forever, or who brings you a certain message in your life like many people likely have done. Life Coach, Author, and Personal Trainer Jana Hollingsworth (2011) states, “Kindred spirits can sometimes be our soul mates. However, having a special bond with someone does not always mean they are ‘the one’ that we are meant to spend the rest of our lives with.” However there’s been little research regarding either type of phenomenon.

It may be a gifted characteristic to search for this “true peer” or soul mate. Some researchers have tied the idea of finding a true peer to the theory of self-actualization, with the reasoning that love and belonging are important parts on the hierarchy of human needs that lead to self-actualization and that in order to fully be able to learn about one self, the need to connect with others must be met.

And yet, researchers also believe that the capacity to develop strong and lasting friendships cannot develop in the gifted individual until she herself has experienced the glad peace of being understood and accepted by kindred spirits -- people of similar abilities, values and interests. 

Some who are gifted in entelechy (a driving force that makes the individual focus intensely on passions,) are more likely to want or need the “true peer” type of intimate connection but also may find deeper disappointment in relationships when the connection does not end up to be as great of a match as they had hoped.

According to researcher Deirdre Lovecky (1986):

People gifted in entelechy bring deep feelings to a relationship. By spontaneously expressing feelings, they encourage others to do so as well. Their example of overcoming obstacles and their continuing support and interest encourage others to grow. They not only hear the flowers singing but invite others to hear them too.

People gifted in entelechy are capable of creating “golden moments” of friendship, those special times when two people are truly their best selves and able to share on a deep level" (N. Jenckes, personal communication, December 26, 1984). Gifted adults may find sources of rare intimacy; however, they may also find an overwhelming number of people who want contact but have little to offer in return. They may feel vulnerable to and intruded on by the demands of others who may feel cheated that the promise implied in the initial sharing cannot continue.


​Perceptiveness is another type of gifted characteristic that adds complexity to the issue of finding a true peer. Those who are more perceptive and have more empathic connections hold “women's most potent gifts, yet, as with all great gifts, there is increased vulnerability.” 

According to Researcher Deidre Lovecky, “one of the problems for women with an exceptional degree of perceptiveness is that they experience a deep sense of being different from others -- including most other women -- in their moral and social concepts, in how they view truth and justice, and in how they can foresee the ultimate consequences of particular trends of both individual and community behavior.” So it is harder for them to show their real selves in relationships and instead of finding the true peer, the highly perceptive woman “finds herself in many relationships in which she has to erect a false face that hides how different she really is. Consequently, the highly gifted woman may, in fact, feel inauthentic in her relationships” (1996).

Even if a “soul mate” is not found, often gifted individuals do find a couple very close friends during the course of their lives and it helps them learn more about themselves. Examples of this are present in many articles on the emotional lives of gifted individuals. In Deborah L. Ruf, Ph.D.’s research on EQ and the IQ Connection, Dr. Ruf specifically mentioned two different subjects, Candice and Gene who both had only a couple of close friends. “Candice had two different friends in her late teens and in her 30s who helped her find herself.”

According to Dr. Ruf, Sandra became one of the most evolved, self-actualized people in the study and had a couple of close friends as well as a number of casual level acquaintances and was “very happily married to her second husband.” (This last statement does bring up the question of self-actualization and the pursuit of a soul mate through multiple relationships/marriages, which is an area that is lacking in gifted research.)

And Gene, a 56-year old scientist with an IQ of about 175, who she says had only two close friends, one at a time, throughout his childhood (2000).

Gifted adults sometimes expect to share everything with one person and overlook the special relationships that can develop around one interest or one facet of self (Lovecky, 1986).

Researcher Jean Baker Miller (1986) suggested that being able to increase the authenticity in a friendship is the goal of women's relationships, but it can only be obtained when the two participants feel equal.

In order to find a true peer the gifted individual must take the time to both meet many other people and to put forth the efforts involved in building a friendship and exploring its potential depth. “Some of the reasons that many talented women have few friends and are often lonely revolve around the extremely limited amount of time they have for friendships and the ambivalence of other women to talented women who achieve at high levels” (Reis, 2002).

 

True Peers and Intimacy

​Gifted adults whose characteristics include over-excitabilities and sensitivities may struggle to keep an emotional relationship from becoming sexual. This is something that also is documented as occurring in the teen years when some gifted individuals start sexual behaviors, often times as a way to fit in, but also stemming from the desire to lose themselves in the deep emotions of sexual intimacy and the intense feelings of the experience.

As a counselor for the highly gifted, Annette Revel Sheelystates, “Highly gifted high school students who felt socially isolated in elementary and middle school have talked about discovering sex as a new, intense way to finally connect with other people.”

Polish psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowskidescribed the five overexcitabilities present in gifted people that all can add dimensions to a relationship and sexual experiences: Psychomotor, Sensual, Intellectual, Imaginational, and Emotional. And highly sensitive people are “more likely to find sex to be mysterious and powerful, to be turned on by subtle rather than explicit sexual cues, to be easily distracted or physically hurt during sex, and to find it difficult to go rightback to normal life afterwards” (Aron, 2001).

Finding a true peer or soul mate comes with inherent challenges especially if the individuals are already in relationships with people who are not on the same emotional or intellectual levels as they are.

Realizing that a connection on such an intimate plane is possible may disrupt the existing relationships and cause jealousy issues or other jaded behaviors from the parties involved.

The possible conflicts intensify if the gifted “true peers” get so wrapped up in the emotions of the new experience that they become intimate or begin to experiment with the idea.

These characteristics do not mean that gifted people cannot control themselves, or to imply that sexual behavior is inevitable when gifted people meet someone who they connect with on the intimate “true peer” level. But researchers have found that it can make it much more difficult to deny the temptation due to the high excitabilities that may be playing in the gifted person’s mind. Gifted researcher Stephanie Tolan (2007) stated that “when gifted individuals find an intellectually compatible partner of either sex during adolescence, they may experience an ‘explosion’ of feeling.”  This can create a situation where the gifted person feels they need to be with the other person and other relationships may suffer.

Tolan also noted another issue that can complicate the life of the true peers, stating, “If the partner is of the same gender, the complex cognitive process that accompanies the exploration of feeling may lead the child to assume a homosexual identitythat may or may not be accurate.”

Since gifted individuals often worry more than others about fairness and ethical issues, balancing this new relationship with their existing obligations is also important for their emotional growth and peace of mind.

 

The Risk of Reading too Much into Nothing:

It can be highly disappointing to many gifted individuals when they realize that the relationship they thought was “the One” is not what they expected. This causes many gifted women to revert to isolation and solitude in order to not be hurt by another disappointing relationship in the future.

Researchers have concluded that “the neurochemistry of infatuation causes us to overestimate compatibility. When infatuation fades (9 months to 4 years), incompatibility becomes our new focus. All our unmet expectations lead to post-infatuation frustration, which inevitably leads to disenchantment” (Murray, Holmes, Dolderman, & Griffin, 2000).

Many researchers believe that when gifted adults are fascinated with something, especially something new or novel, they tend to take on what interests them “like a holy mission, concentrating for exceptionally long periods of time with remarkable perseverance” (Clark, 1992; Lewis, Kitano, & Lynch, 1992; Lovecky, 1986). That can mean the intensity of infatuation with finding a potential “true peer” is heightened during the initial period of attraction.

Lovecky also noted that “Gifted individuals often exhibit the characteristic of intensity and it can be focused on their relationships, where the gifted individual desires relationships with intensity and sets themselves up for ‘intense mentor relationships’ that often result in keen disappointment.”

In order to know for sure whether an individual has found their true peer or soul mate, or even just a kindred spirit, it is therefore important to give the relationship enough time andgenuine effort to let it develop and to ensure it is more than just a mentor infatuation and that it lasts beyond the initial infatuation and into the future.

 

In summary, gifted individuals face many challenges when searching for the deep connection of a potential “true adult peer” or soul mate, including scarcity, emotional transparency risks, and balancing the new, unexplored, and potentially deep connection with other obligations or ethical beliefs. Yet finding a rare friendship like this is often a once in a lifetime event that cannot be taken lightly.

​As a popular saying goes, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the number of moments that take our breath away.” And if they find each other, gifted True Peers have the ability to create those moments even more than non-gifted people do, with their intensity, overexcitabilities and their craving for the novel and the unknown.

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    Kathleen Casper

    Kathleen Casper is the Florida Association for the Gifted (FLAG) president. She recently left the position of the state gifted education specialist at the Florida Department of Education and is excited to now be working as a gifted education consultant and providing support to gifted preschool and homeschool children and families. She also continues working virtually as a part time attorney specializing in family and education law for clients in Washington State and federal courts in WA and FL.

    Kathleen is an award winning educator in both Florida and Washington State, certified in multiple endorsement areas including gifted education, and has taught from K-12 in many schools and programs. She spent many years on the board of SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted, www.SENGifted.org) as a director as well as the secretary on the executive committee. She was on the conference planning committee for the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) while planning the 2016 conference in Florida. She is the former vice president of the Washington Association for Educators of the Talented and Gifted (www.waetag.net), the former legislative committee chair of FLAG, as well as the former Highly Capable Facilitator for Tacoma Public Schools.

    Please join us on the OneWorldGiffted Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Oneworld-Gifted-475374679239353/

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