I'm the most intelligent person I know

[tobee]

Not me.

But I've had 2 men say this to me in rl. At different times. Also I was listening to something today where a man was claiming to have the highest iq of anyone in the world.

I don't think I've ever had a woman say to me in rl that they are the most intelligent person they know.

Is this a male thing?

When the men have said this to me in real life I thought ""

yellow

Yup. Feel your pain there. I am also really well qualified, and would (metaphorically) struggle to find my ample arse with both hands.

I'm the most highly qualified person at my workplace too in a general sense - I'm the only one with a master's degree.

However I'm also the least qualified and experienced in the field we actually work in, and the only one who isn't a native speaker of the language we work in, so although I'm fully competent at the day to day work I have to ask for help or advice about the paperwork and bureaucracy more often than anyone else.

So it's not very helpful, more just novelty value, like being the tallest or the shortest in a job where height doesn't help.

I'm probably not the most intelligent though, qualifications don't correlate very well with intelligence when not comparing people actually taking the same qualifications!

MayFayner certainly looks like the most intelligent person on the thread! Why did nobody else notice the mistake with the percentage comment!

I was the most intelligent person I knew at school and others said as much! But.... I knew for a fact that wouldn't be the case at University as that was small pond to big sea. Still was a shock about how dumb I was but I stuck it and persevered.
I think there were others who didn't, but they didn't find out until second year when you couldn't just run from your A Levels anymore...

An ex NDN of mine,that I was quite friendly with,actually said this to me on a couple of occasions. I was ,because I honestly didn't agree with him. As far as he was concerned,there wasn't a topic under the sun that he didn't know everything about. I was proved right in doubting him after the following conversation;-

Me: My mum's going into hospital next week.
Him: Oh,is she OK?
Me: Yes,just a routine operation to have a fibroid removed.
Him: A fibroid? Oh,that's that thing in your throat,isn't it?
Me: (Lost for words).

So anyone come across any women who've said this in rl?

Yes, one of my friends. She has now passed the arrogance down to her child. It is embarrassing.

A member of the Dunning-Kruger club is even harder to cope with when they are also a mansplainer

Having said that I don't think that I am now. There are many types of intelligence.

Take Princess Diana. She was poorly educated but had a charm and charisma, the ability to make people at ease that few people have.

I also think of an old ex who seemed gentle and kind but took great offence at getting g higher grades than me. On the one subject he for a higher grade I never heard the end of it. It transpired that he never thought of me as an equal since much of his self worth was tied up in being male = better than female and being g intelligence. Not that he actually DID anything to challenge himself. That and he bombed his degree once I dumped him. His intelligence didn't extend to bathing and being a pleasant person to be with.

I don't think it's just men. The issue is the difference between self awareness and arrogance. I am a very intelligent person there isn't much I can't wrap my head around if I really apply myself but I've never ever thought I'm the most intelligent person in the room. I think someone saying that they're the most intelligent person they know is a bit idiotic, ironically. It's like telling people how cool you are, if you have to point it out you aren't that cool.

I don’t get this? Surely the UK average IQ isn’t so far below below world average?

I was thinking the same! It doesn’t make sense.
There seem to be a lot of very clever people on this thread, apparently .
I’m intelligent. DH is intelligent. I’ve met many people more intelligent than me! I suppose if we moved in different circles we could well be the most intelligent people we know!

When I was a teenager, I announced to a (thankfully very small) class at school that I’d never met anyone more intelligent than me. I was telling the truth (as I saw it at the time, obvs) but I look back and do a full-body cringe.

I wouldn’t say exactly that. I might say I’m one of the most intelligent people I know, which is true, and I’m certainly much more intelligent than the vast majority of people I come across in my day to day life. That’s not particularly bigheaded, it’s just a statement of fact. But it would come across very bigheaded to actually state that fact out loud to people apropos of nothing, and I don’t really see a time where it would ever come up in conversation, unless maybe myself and my peers were discussing this exact subject and related issues.

I agree with others, it’s a stupid statement to make for various reasons, and also hugely arrogant. Intelligence is not the be all and end all. And the truly intelligent also tend to be very aware of how much they actually don’t know. Plus, there are various intelligences, some of whom are strengths in some arenas but can be weaknesses in others.

I don’t see my intelligence as something I can or should boast about, necessarily, because I don’t actually think it’s something one can automatically take pride in. I haven’t accomplished anything of note with it, in fact I’ve patently under-achieved, and much of the time I find it a bit of a curse rather than a blessing. I am too intelligent to lie convincingly to myself so I find it hard to maintain the types of delusions and narratives that many people use to get through life. I also don’t have much common sense and I spend a lot of time feeling anxious and out of my depth.

I admire decency, goodness and moral integrity. Intelligence, in and of itself, is neither here nor there.

Anyway, I don’t think it’s necessarily about whether or not you say it, it’s in how you say it and also why you’re saying it. One can be factual but still humble. One can be arrogant without actually being able to back up that arrogance too - we all know the difference between quiet, steely confidence and the twat who thinks he’s all that and has to shout about it all the time, who actually knows fuck all about anything. I don’t think it’s necessarily a male or female thing, but female socialisation is likely to mean that fewer women will behave in this way.

In a similar vein my ex (left school half way through GCSEs) said to me (while I was midway through my pure Maths degree)
"Doesn't matter what qualifications you get, you will never be able to earn as much as me"
And he believed it. He was working an IT job at the time. Now he sells electric door to door - nothing wrong with these jobs of course. But sadly for him he doesn't make anywhere near what I do.
(Or did, currently dossing on a career break)

I should maybe say the man who said he has the highest I.q in the world is Keith Raniere, the American charged with running the cult NXIVM. Which Keith set up largely as a pyramid scheme to make Keith tons of cash and to provide many women & girls for Keith to have sex with.

I am probably one of the most intelligent mums in dds class/the people I come across on a day to day basis, if you based it on qualifications attained. I also have a reasonably high IQ but know that there are others who are far more intelligent than me. I don't say it and wouldn't ever say it in rl, but I do feel it sometimes. Only one of my friends has the same level of qualifications as me and I must admit she is someone that I can really talk to both on an emotional level but also about other things in life and someone I enjoy spending time with. But really it means nothing at the end of the day, my friends are my friends for who they are and I have a need to relate to them more on an emotional level than an intellectual level.

Ninkaninus, thats a near perfect synopsis.

I only say near perfect, because there is no such thing as perfection.

I have a high IQ but am as thick as two short planks!!

A standard IQ test is based on the ability to recognise patterns and shapes, patterns including patterns of numbers and such like. I took the Mensa test and scored 145 and am eligible to join Mensa.

But, and it's a big BUT, it doesn't improve your ability to learn or to absorb knowledge and it most certainly doesn't mean you have a higher degree of commonsense (I can vouch for this one!)

My OH had the same IQ as me and the only thing it did for him was to make him extremely good at Sudoku, which is of course, a pattern! We used to laugh and joke about our 'astonishing ability'

Those who brag about it might have a high score but they are fools in every other way and obviously lacking in so many other areas they feel the need to brag about the ability to complete a rather basic test.