Women Quiz Partners with 'Illiterate Boyfriend' Challenge: 'Try Saying These Words'

There are common standards we look for in a prospective partner. They should be kind, caring and thoughtful. Having a shared interest helps. So does remembering important dates and anniversaries. But how much does it matter if they know how to pronounce the word “gnocchi”?

It turns out that’s a potential dealbreaker, according to a cohort on TikTok. The “Illiterate Boyfriend” trend is testing some couples on the app. Users have compiled a list of words for women to ask their male partners to read. Many of these men, most of whom appear to be in relationships with women, fail to finish the list without difficulty. They stumble over entries such as “hyperbole”, “cynicism”, “diaphragmatic” and the often-mispronounced French term “hors d’oeuvres”.

“I want you to do your best to pronounce these words,” one woman asks her boyfriend in a clip viewed more than 8.8m times. He correctly reads off the herb “thyme”. But he is less successful with “epitome”, “challah” and “fuchsia” (“foo-chia?” he guesses). “Conscientious” and “faux pas” also prove tricky. He ends up with a score of five out of 17, or 29%, a very poor result.

The couple laughed through the exercise, but viewers were not as amused by an adult man struggling through what they considered basic vocabulary. “The fact that his vote matters just as much as mine is really upsetting me,” one woman wrote in the comments section. “I’m going to be honest girl, this is worth breaking up with him over,” read another comment.

Two of the words the man correctly identified were “colonel” and “regime”, which, to one user, was evidence of a red flag: “he’s obviously a Republican”. Regardless of political affiliation, it seemed fair to mock him. One final quip from a viewer: “He’d be so upset if he could read these comments.”

The test spread across TikTok, with more young couples joining in, to similarly poor results. Even those men who did well got caught up in the cycle. One man sped through the list, ending with a perfect score and a self-satisfied grin. It was not the outcome he might have hoped for. “This is the lowest possible standard,” one woman commented. “The men are being praised for literacy, we’re in trouble,” wrote another.

Distress over perceived “intelligence gaps” brings to mind a phenomenon that reverses decades of dating precedent: women are now more likely to marry less-educated men than men are to marry less-educated women. This is not necessarily by women’s choice; it reflects the available dating pool. According to a 2024 Pew Research report, in 1995, young men and women were equally likely to hold a bachelor’s degree. Now, 47% of women ages 25 to 34 have one, compared with 37% of their male counterparts.

“We do have in our mating market an oversupply of educated women and an undersupply of formally educated men, academically, not necessarily in their skill set, emotional or social intelligence,” said Dr Wendy Walsh, a clinical psychologist.

Dr Jess Carbino is a former sociologist for Tinder and Bumble who studies dating apps. When she asks people what they look for in a partner, “intelligence” is rarely in the top three desired traits. “They say things like humor, kindness, attractiveness, typically,” she said. And there are many different ways to consider intelligence, spelling being a way to formally test fourth-graders, not romantic partners.

One thing people do want is an equal. “It’s not necessarily that someone needs a specific degree or to know every word in the dictionary,” said Robin Hamilton, a couples therapist. “It’s more: are you able to communicate with me, are you able to meet me halfway with the subjects that I’m talking about?”

One of those subjects might be reading, an indicator of vocabulary range. Men’s rates of book reading have slipped over the past decade; nearly half of all women read just one novel or short story in 2022, but only one in four men did. According to data from Tinder, mentions of books in bios on the dating app jumped 40% this year among women, but only 23% among men. Women believe they see this disparity playing out on TikTok, even if it is through a ultimately meaningless list.

It is elitist and naive to draw real conclusions about what makes a good partner based on a reading test. This “Illiterate Boyfriend” list contains words that may be more an indicator of class than intelligence, conflating education with one trait women have prioritized for hundreds of years, mostly due to necessity: having money.

But the trend also reflects a wider disillusionment among straight women, who are significantly less likely to want to date than men are, partly because they say it’s hard to find someone who meets all their standards. “He looks at the word ‘queue’ and pronounces it ‘qwi-wee’?” one woman said in a video responding to the test. “And you still have sex with him?”

“It’s rage bait for women who are frustrated and angry with the mating marketplace that is slanted unfairly against women,” Walsh said, adding: “It’s OK to date a guy who can’t say epitome or niçoise. I have a PhD, but I need spellcheck for hors d’oeuvres.”