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Look in the mirror, for starters. Who IS this obnoxiously self-congratulatory person? What is she hiding from herself by the sheer verbosity of her story?
Here's the story I read: young woman doesn't quite know what to do with her life. She's intelligent, has good basic instincts, but is, you know, YOUNG, and hasn't yet settled on what she wants to do with her life, other than a vague idea of "helping others. " (How an advanced degree in International studies will accomplish that is the subject, apparently, of another novella.)
She mistakes sexual attraction for a relationship, intelligence for knowledge of self and one's future, moves in with men too soon, and when the initial attraction wears off...gets bored.
Solution: spend enough time alone with herself to get to know this person. Find out what she really wants, in life and in men. Learn to accept self and others for things outside of intellect: kindness, responsibility, sense of humor, willingness to put the cap back on the toothpaste.
One's intelligence, one's career, the number of degrees one has, all those are part of one's whole. But they do not make up the whole. Learn to look past them, and if you can see who YOU are as a whole, you may avoid screwing up so royally in your relationships.
