I am highly intelligent, ask me anything

[nolinkname]

Using standard IQ scales/assessments I am highly intelligent. I have also done some research into high intelligence. Being highly intelligent has advantages and drawbacks. Ask me anything :-)

(Just to preempt some comments: No, I don’t think intelligent people are better human beings than other people. I think qualities such as being kind are more important for example. No, intelligent people are not always ‘better for society’, there is some evidence, for example, that really highly intelligent people carry out proportionally somewhat more crimes (white collar). No, I don’t look down on less intelligent people (sometimes I envy them), but it can obviously be a bit difficult to connect if you have very different frames of reference. No, intelligence does not have any direct links to social skills (positive or negative).)

Probably in childhood when her parents made her do the mensa test. It must have been a source of pride for her parents, which shaped OP's sense of self and value. My guess is OP and her parents were immigrants in the country where she learned her second language and did most of her her schooling. Perhaps there was a great focus and even a fixation on OP being Mensa-level smart and gave her parents some bragging rights. Probably the family spoke about it a lot.

In many educated, intellectually confident families, there isn’t the same emphasis on external validation like Mensa membership. They tend to treat intelligent as par for the course, just how the family and their offspring naturally are. There’s no big need to stamp it with an official label. Being smart isn’t treated like a trophy, it’s just how they are, intelligence is just kind of assumed.

I’d assume that a lot of genuinely intelligent families would roll their eyes at Mensa. When intelligence and education is just part of the family culture, books everywhere, interesting dinner table conversations, music lessons, art, curiosity about the world, a label is not needed. Much better to focus on good schooling and rich co curricular plus a rich social life, experiences.

I remember camping in Norfolk some years ago in a really lovely grounds near the sea and the place was absolutely packed with Cambridge academic families. It was clear they were keen for their dc to have as wholesome and outdoorsy, real experiences as possible, they were all roaming free putting on plays, making dens, playing with the dogs, going wild on the amazing playground, out until late - no 11Plus or CGP booklet in sight.

Not enough eye-rolls ....

Idk, I guess 17 and 18 year olds don't give too much thought to the intellectual depth of conversations theyd like to have in their 40s and 50s. I know I wasn't really thinking beyond 'he's nice to me' when I was that age.

He loved her, they got married. Three decades later after kids were grown and there were no severe financial consequences like homelessness/no reason to force a sale of the house, he left.

Reading some of the replies on this from the OP and the details about her, I do suspect this is the same poster who name changes frequently and then posts something to highlight how intelligent and extraordinary she is.

The only slight difference in this thread from the other is that she’s trying to act like someone who has empathy and compassion, whereas in the other, she was beyond arrogant, insufferable and lacking in any real emotion.

Though, based on another of OPs threads, she can only go out when she adopts different personas, so maybe that’s what we’re seeing in these threads.

This one was batshit: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5485795-aibu-to-find-it-incredibly-frustrating-that-there-are-basically-no-resources-in-the-uk-for-people-like-me?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Oh dear.

My experience wof people who are this arrogant and make a huge deal of how intelligent they are, especially if they are academic is they simply are academic not clever. They could apply that intelligence to a lot of situations and they have massive gaps in knowledge of things they don't value because they acquire blindness to areas that don't interest them. They have limited life experience and this is important to applying knowledge to areas that's are socially different to them. They have narrow social circles which amplifies the effect and they have a superior attitude because of their self perceived greatness. I've also come across those who have a terrible lack of common sense and appalling general knowledge skills. I have met people with a first who don't know if a penguin is a fish, bird or mammal. I shit you not.

These people who wang on about how clever they are, are often exceptionally dull. Their own sense of self importance stops them listening to other perspectives. If they don't value it, it's not important and is trivial. And yes they think they have great social skills because they have friends in their own bubble but their ability to completely alienate others (which they don't realise) who aren't in that bubble is enormous.

The most intelligent people I've met are rarely academics. They have a really big range of knowledge which includes stuff which isn't highbrow and they have an ability to apply information from completely different and unrelated things in wacky ways to come up with innovative ideas. Some have academic ability others do not. The thing they have in common is they don't feel the need to tell everyone they are intelligent. They know they are, everyone else knows they are and they can't hide it. Sometimes it's an awkward thing but they remain humble precisely because they recognise that everyone has something of value to say that they can absorb and apply elsewhere in someway because they understand that it's not all about IQ or traditional intelligence. Wisdom can be something that's very practical and unacademic and that's completely different.

Honestly it's fascinating to see the way this thread has gone. Being able to do killer sudoku being a sign of intelligence? Hmm not really. You just learn the patterns and combinations. It's not that hard being able to add 1 to 9. It's a game of logic and process of elimination. That's just being systematic and diligent. You don't have to necessarily be really bright to do them.

Real intelligence is about being able to pick and unpick everyday stuff as much as indulgence in academia and certain subjects which have high cultural value.

Yes, I'm sorry, that was a bit misleading. I was really being a bit facetious, I suppose, in that so often people do seem to confuse these concepts. I think, in a way, we are saying the same thing in so far as they are not the same thing ie; you can still be kind or empathetic without it falling into those admittedly very harmful states,

It is a bit like misogyny and narcissism on here. Of course it is a repellent attitude, but not every annoying thing a man does is misogynistic, and not everything someone does that you disagree with makes them narcissistic. The over-liberal application of these terms does as much harm as good imo.

And an ability to navigate the often toxic politics of the academic world! Or so my prof friends tell me ;-)

I assumed it’s the same person. Language styles are similar. Problem is none of the threads does he/she come across as particularly intelligent. She does however seem to possess significant mental health issues. I suspect this is someone who did well academically at school and was constantly told through childhood how smart they are only to find the reality of adulthood is very different. Rather than adapt they continue to perpetuate a myth that they are smarter than everyone else and seek validation on the internet all the while probably spending their days sat on the sofa because they can’t hold down a regular job which they’ve convinced themselves is because they are too intelligent.

Huge fan of highly intelligent women. How do blokes deal with it though? In my experience of meeting very bright people they often wrestle with mental health though and I think the two are correlated. Smart women also have to dumb themselves down.

Take your point
i said it as they are so often disliked that’s why I said it! Not to be elitist at all :(

And am sorry if it read like that, which it did…..

This thread is getting curiouser and curiouser

Do very clever people have an obligation to be interesting, socially-skilled, productive etc though?

I wonder whether we should think of raw cognitive capacity as a bit like raw athletic capacity, or very good looks. They are capacities which might be converted to wealth and success, but mostly are not.

Is this some kind of AI piss take ?

Performed by arrogant, little students who are having larf?
If so. Not funn.Getvw life

Quite possibly.

Yes exactly .
Each time I’ve been in Japan I learn a few phrases .
I just memorise them and otherwise rely on Google translate .
Where I’ve been , well we were in Tokyo , Osaka , Nara , Kyoto .
So easy to manage .
I would really like to learn more and head away from the more touristy places

Yes the op says they are intelligent and are a teacher, by their own admission he/she has poor social skills so it's baffling really what the intelligence is and why the ama.

If I was the op I'd be on the relationships board asking how can they could integrate more in social settings and become more engaging rather than dwelling on their perceived intelligence status.

As a professional novelist, I find your response to the giraffe question fascinating. An invitation to use your imagination and creativity is 'mundane and boring'?

Every writer I know would have a field day with it. Like, I started thinking, 'But why is it a binary? Maybe giraffes, due to their long necks, have a whole societal system built up around where they wear their neckties. Maybe a depressed giraffe who's mistakenly wearing his tie in the 'happy' position is getting annoyed at all his asshole friends who never ask how he is. Or maybe it shows social status! Or maybe giraffes who aren't coupled up can only manage to put on pre-tied bowties, and an actual necktie is a statement that you're with someone.'

How is this boring?! Is the ability to be flexible and imaginative not a sign of intelligence in itself?

Really interesting that you leapt to thinking that people were trying to provoke you with this.

She already got some reasonable advice on not wearing such different personas in different social settings that she's afraid of an acquaintance from one group seeing her with another!

If it is the same person, she seems practically crippled by worries about how others perceive her. It's a form of hypervigilance, quite exhausting as all of life becomes a series of self-imposed performances, and ultimately fruitless because no fucker cares enough to judge you that intensely. A lot of people can sense the anxiety and/or performance aspect, too, which ends up alienating the ones you hoped to impress while attracting bullies.

'If it is the same person, she seems practically crippled by worries about how others perceive her. It's a form of hypervigilance, quite exhausting as all of life becomes a series of self-imposed performances, and ultimately fruitless because no fucker cares enough to judge you that intensely'

Yes the focus on perceived intelligence seems to be a total distraction from the real issues which seems to be anxiety and poor self esteem.

This is why I think the OP might be making this high level of intelligence up. Or not really know any exceptionally clever people to compare herself to and to properly judge her own level of intelligence against. All the exceptionally clever people I know (at the top worldwide of a particular industry full of very clever people) all have fizzing and inventive minds that are on a different level to most other really clever people that are simply good at picking things up quickly and being one step ahead (as the OP has said about herself. Its very common). But actually thinking you are "one step ahead" as the OP does is actually a subjective view of yourself.

True intelligence is to be able to think original thoughts in my view. Im not sure we've seen evidence of that so far.

This thread is interesting and depressing, someone has said they are highly intelligent and the first impulse of many posters has been to come into the thread and try to knock them down a peg or two.

Intelligence takes many forms, being academically able does not mean they are also excellent at creative tasks, learning languages, emotionally adept etc

I score well in IQ tests, I have the ability to process large sets of complex information quickly, I can see links and break down processes very well, I am able to read emotions of others well, I have good pattern recognition.

I am not a writer, I like bullet points and concise styles of communication. I dislike large groups or what I consider excessive social interaction, while I can read emotions well I struggles to show them and prefer to keep people at arms length. I become hyper-focused on tasks and have a tendency towards obsession for short periods of time when it comes to hobbies or new interests. I am creative in the sense that I can follow knitting/sewing/crochet etc patterns well but I cannot create my own and just wing it.

Many people, especially those who interact with my at work would describe me as highly intelligent and capable, but that doesn’t extend to every aspect of life or every discipline, it just means that I am very good at what I do because my brain processes information like a computer.