Intellectually incompatible

[Secondsight]

I've posted before about this. I haven't had this with anyone else but I'm beginning to see a side to myself I don't like. I think my DP is far more intelligent than me and I'm beginning to feel like I have some inferiority complex rather than just accept I can't know everything. It's got to the point where its affecting the relationship. Although he thinks I am intelligent but I just think it makes me come across as stupid if for example I watch something and I don't know the names of the actors in it etc. Today he had said that he had found a dvd of a film Peter seller's was in and it wasn't good but then reemed off four titles of films he liked of his he'd watched at a young age. I'd never heard of the films and rather than just accept that I said I hadn't heard of any of them and it just made me feel inadequate. This happens alot and I just don't understand why, most people would just accept they didn't know and marvel at how clever he is!
He just says there's things I know that he doesn't and I've had much the same response on here but it doesn't make me feel any better.

You're the best looking person I've been out with, the cleverest, the nicest the sexiest and that is alot of pressure

No - it's not - bask in being the centre of his world. The pressure would be on if he thought you distinctly average and sexually unattractive

OP I think you are confusing intelligence and education.
He knows more stuff than you perhaps? Or stuff that is considered more academic?

Reading your updates you just seem to have general self confidence issues.

Gobsmacked by the realisation that Peter Sellers has passed out of public consciousness. He was astonishingly famous in the 1960s and 70s, international number one movies, hit singles and albums, on all the chat shows, married incredibly famous sex symbols, shagged Princess Margaret: but yes, not much of his work has stood the rest of time. The Goons is the basis of most of British comedy but very few people under thirty have ever heard it.

Back to your problem OP - some people have brains that absorb random facts without trying and some people don’t. You need to make your peace with that, and realise that there’s only a limited correlation between that sort of memory and intelligence.

Everyone out there knows something I don't.

I know something that most other people don't (that something is different depending on what the other person knows)

I'm reasonably intelligent but have a crap memory, particularly for names and faces - but I remember some totally trivial crap.

I know a little about a lot of things - I am not really an expert in anything.

I never feel disadvantaged or put down by people with genuinely high intelligence or a better education.

I am sometimes 'on the back foot' with insecure people who try to make themselves look better or above others.

How old are you and how old is your boyfriend? Is he more “worldly”, as in generally more experienced at life?

Do you come from a family who treated you like you’re a bit thick; are you the youngest? Did you struggle at school or anything?

Sounds like you’re being really hard on yourself.

It’s really ok not to know everything.

I didn't do well at school and was considered thick I think by my DM, she never encouraged me however I've done well professionally and this hasn't been an issue up until now. I've discussed this with my DP and hes very understanding I get that there's things I know and he doesn't so I don't have an explanation as to why I feel like this.

I think him knowing Peter Sellers films is a strange thing to be worried about. I've only seen The Lady Killers but I had to Google Peter Sellers films to know that was one and only knew the film as an Alec Guiness film, it's a slap stick comedy, hardly Citizen Kane. Cultural capital is not a sign of intelligence but if your DP is making you feel inferior because he's seen films you haven't that's not nice. Or do you feel awkward because you know less information about some things? Are you much younger than him? Peter Sellers died when I was a child and I'm nearly 50, I'd imagine a lot of people younger than me wouldn't know about him at all. Please don't worry, your DP is attracted to you so even if you don't have a geeky knowledge of films that doesn't matter.

A previous boyfriend kind of put me on a pedestal but then expressed huge disappointment when I 'let him down' by not living up to the vision he had of me.

I hope that isn't what is happening with you.

He isn't an intellectual he is a nerd and nerds are extremely boring.
I don't know any of those things but I have a 2:1 degree and a professional career.
My ex was always going on about how highly he scored in mensa but was actually as thick as two short planks with no qualifications. I can't answer mensa questions because those type of questions don't suit everyone.

The only reason I knew who he was is that my DM loved him but I can't name a film. I think he has a capacity to retain lots of information and is very wired. My DP that is not Peter sellers! He will watch lots of programmes read until really late so he's like a walking encyclopedia. Which is a bit much. I sound like a bumpkin now but he uses some vocabulary I've never heard of and I don't hear other people using it!
I shouldn't feel inadequate but I suppose I just think he needs someone he can converse with on his level.
He just presumes I know what he's talking about.

Hecateh
I fear that that maybe it. I'm usually confident I'm graduating next month with a 2.1. I just feel I can't live up to this image he has of me.

Ah well that’s it. YOU judge you, so you expect others to do so too.

Do you judge people sometimes and find them wanting?

I should imagine everyone is judged by others. The question really is what to do about it.

I just feel I can't live up to this image he has of me. But you don’t need to live up to it. He sees you exactly the way you are and still thinks that you’re beautiful, clever, nice etc. It’s his opinion.

So your decision is whether you think the problem lays with him having unrealistic expectations of you, as Hecateh experienced, or whether you have low self esteem and need to work on yourself, or whether you feel under too much pressure being his ‘the most...’ and want him to back off a bit. Once you work out which it is, you can decide what to do about it.

He just presumes I know what he's talking about.

I would just say, I hadn’t seen any of those films-it’s not shameful!

DH and I both have good degrees and P/G qualifications between us but it doesn’t mean I’ve seen every film he’s seen and vice versa. It doesn’t make the other one thick either.

Try not to overthink this.

I think there might be a connection here that your mum was a fan of Peter Sellers, AND treated you like you were a bit thick. That kind of dismissive/belittling attitude from a parent can haunt you forever.

Do you find your boyfriend in any way patronising?

Is he much older than you?

This is ONLY my experience, but may be relevant, or probably won't...

Degree educated, good at the job, but one colleague in particular has this way of talking about such obscure things, in away that implies common knowledge. I seem to constantly be saying "umm I don't know what you mean ". He uses vocabulary not muttered since Charles Dickens era and he has a general air of competence.

So for years and years I had to accept that I was a moronic minion to his majesty. But then I got dumped with 8 of his cases, all late, all maladministered, all totally incompetent

What I learnt and what fits the scenario you describe in my opinion, is that HE felt intimidated by ME and was projecting this on to me by covert means.

Now, if you are high up on this pedestal and he is your average guy, he MAY feel that he needs to prove that he is not inferior...to your detriment.

OR he could be a highly gifted intellectual ...such people do not tend to use fancy words...they do not need to

I think Hecateh has it. This has red flags all over it for me.

The top of a pedestal is a dangerous and insecure place to be.

Gobsmacked by the realisation that Peter Sellers has passed out of public consciousness

Friend of a friend recently called her baby Sid James. Didn't have a clue.

I have to say if you're still an undergrad and this guy is a bit older / more worldly then my spidey senses are tingling a bit too. Look after yourself OP, don't take any shit.

Everyone has slightly different knowledge, we all retain different information. My husband can name many songs from the first couple of bars or words; my mind is humming along because I remember the melody but can't name it.

I remember literary plots and characters and can identify quite a few pieces of art while he's looking blank.

It doesn't make either of us more clever.

However, I feel that your situation is somewhat different. Tread carefully, if he does have you on a pedestal because what he thinks about you isn't necessarily the real YOU.

I'm academically more clever than DP. I have better general knowledge.He is more intelligent about practical things.
It's never mattered with us.
Is the rest of the relationship good?

Where do I start?
He said he has to change what he says to me incase I get annoyed and I've agreed that I do get annoyed.
I just felt when he went through the films it was as if I should know when it's just not common knowledge. There's no doubt he has alot of knowledge and I'm not the right person to share it with.
He told me about a film he'd seen and more or less told me the whole plot, and I said most people would just tell you abit about it.
He is very insecure and worries he's boring, but I'm beginning to feel I can't talk about anything without it seeming banal.
The problem with being on a pedastal is that everything is brilliant until I'm not happy about something and then he will bring things into the argument.
We were on holiday last year and he sat with the newspaper and asked me a question which I thought he needed help with I didn't know the answer I really hadn't given it enough thought so he told me and then I said I thought it maybe that and he then said, "well why didn't you say it then?
I just felt really stupid and it turned into another argument. I said I hadn't realised he knew the answer but he was just saying we were doing a quiz together.
He says me getting annoyed means I don't really want to be with him. This doesn't happen all the time. In a way he has made me see a side I don't like to myself.
I didn't feel like this with my ex DH he was more intelligent but not culturally.
So with my DP it's "that film where so and so does such and such its incredible...." and I'm just lost. I've said I don't know these films or television series I'm more of a doer.
He doesn't get annoyed if I ask him if he's being to Certain countries etc.
He was in an abusive relationship for 23 years but that's for another post.
I've explained to him that my DM didn't want to know, I was in care from age 12 and I didn't really have a parent to do things with and take an interest (that's not his fault!) but I've discussed how I feel about this on numerous occasions.
He's 55 and I'm 53 so Peter Sellers was on the television when we were children and it was funny. He said he knew the title of the films because he'd watched them when he was 7.
The problem is you are only hearing my side of this. It should just be a rational thing such as it all balances out and partnerships should be equal but I feel irrational and think it's an emotional thing.
I told him I felt as if I was in a competition with him.

I wouldn’t be in a relationship with someone who wasn’t my intellectual equal, or equally widely-read, but all of your examples seem fairly trivial in themselves, and are about pop-cultural knowledge, like the plots of films, or actors’ back catalogues, not whether you understand what the backstop is, or can tell George Eliot from TS Eliot?