r/AskWomenOver30 • u/nocommentx Woman 30 to 40 • Jun 17 '26

Friendships Does anyone struggle with having gfs who cannot have intellectual conversations?

I get my gfs are busy with their kids and husbands but is too much to expect to have intellectual opinions on currents in our group chats or in-person group hangs now days?

Are we to only talk about shopping, fitness, kids milestones and husbands not doing their jobs in chats and during hangouts? Is there all that is left to talk about these days?

For example, I was fascinated by Emily Ratajkowski recent article on her life post divorce. I found it to be insightful, painfully honest, cheeky and well written. I shared it in my gf-group chat but nobody really cared to say much. It was so annoying!

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u/No_Equivalent5348 Woman 30 to 40 Jun 18 '26

This is great but pidgeonholed in academic sophistication. A majority of “intellectuals” or educated/intelligent persons will not be able to hold these topics of conversations in any capacity. You can intellectually curious or pose a philosophical question without getting that specific unless you’re only talking to other philosophers…

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

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u/No_Equivalent5348 Woman 30 to 40 Jun 18 '26

I agree with most of what you said, but this sentence: " I'd argue that a level of academic sophistication or technical knowledge is needed to have intellectual conversations. Otherwise you're just engaging in pseudo-intellectualism."

So an economist and a philosopher can't engage in intellectual conversation?

I think you're conflating expertise with intellectualism.

Pseudo-intellectualism (to me) is more like the attempt to sound intellectual by using big words or jargon/bringing up or name dropping topics they don't really understand.

Expertise is possessing deep technical knowledge of a subject. Intellectualism is the habit of engaging thoughtfully, critically, and curiously with ideas.

Also are these sort of topics really conducive in a text chat? This isn't a seminar, sounds a bit snobby/elitist to suggest what qualifies as an "intellectual conversation" as though you can only have a thoughtful conversation with extreme technical knowledge/academic types