Intelligence, like beauty, is a gift that has more to do with dumb luck than personal achievement. So while I admire intelligence and beauty, I tend to respect compassionate and down-to-earth individuals who exhibit a genuine sense of integrity. If they happen to be intelligent and attractive, all the better.
Gaining a sense of an individual's intelligence from casual (or intense) conversations is relatively easy. The problem/challenge is that it's often easier to underestimate a stranger’s intelligence than it is to put the energy into finding out how intelligent the person might be or actually is.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Unknown
Too many people use their limited areas of expertise or knowledge as the benchmarks of intelligence, which is actually a cheap trick to score dopamine squirts by artificially boosting weak esteem by looking down on others. I prefer to find out what topics people are interested in by encouraging them to share what they know.
It helps to start out assuming the people I'm communicating with are smarter than me and then giving them the opportunity to prove me right or wrong.
People's responses reveal their intelligence, especially to abstractions such as humorous comments, creative interpretations, and not-so-obvious observations that connect seemingly unrelated dots.
One of the most helpful tells is how people misinterpret what was said and how much trouble they go to to avoid answering specific questions. (When people overreact to what wasn’t said they're letting you know what they fear might have been said.)
Identifying sensitive areas is a lot like how dentists locate cavities by working a probe and watching for winces.
How people tip toe or tap dance around topics/questions not only exposes where they're actually coming from but how intelligent they are. Dull witted types (especially racist and bigots) seldom realize how much they're giving away (about being craven safety addicts) whereas highly intelligent types tend to catch on relatively quickly and then go to great lengths to cover their tracks.
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