What's it like to be naturally clever?

[peopleaskweirdstuff]

I know this is daft but I often wonder what it must be like to be really intelligent, you know like just very knowledgeable and very capable of just doing well in exams without really needing to put the effort in.

I'm trying to resit my exams that I should have passed when I was much younger and I'm
Finding it really hard yet some people hardly need to study and just 'get it' must be amazing to just no you are clever

This is a good summary - I can relate to all of this.

I am not so good at 'polite listening'. I get too bored. So I will just tell everyone what I have worked out - 'here is the answer, now let's move on'. Which of course people find rude. I guess I care less about being rude than being bored.

I am also seriously deficient in other areas (apart from social skills and having a kind of PTSD from the bullying). My driving is terrible (DH would say dangerous). And I loathe cooking because it is simultaneously so stressful and so boring.

I need mental stimulation like I need food.

I always did well at school as l have a very good memory. That's handy in school but can be a disadvantage later on as l never forget a thing so holding grudges can be a problem. Also my memory can nearly be an embarrassment at times as l say things and people are shocked at how l remember while to me it's like adding one and one. I have had to train myself to pull back as its nearly seen as something weird.
Also having quick brain means my mind races ahead and that can be awkward too.
I am a useless singer and would swap a lot of brain power to be able to sing well.
After school all round gifting is far more useful.

It's frustrating because you're constantly waiting for other people to catch up. I'm really good at entertaining myself but find most conversations (except with good friends) slow and boring. I've had to work really hard on my social skills so my impatience doesn't show.

It would be great if I wasn’t so goddamn socially awkward. I’d take being more average on the intelligence scale in exchange for knowing how to read and fit in with people.

agree with a lot of the other posts that most people who are vaguely intelligent have a good grasp of the things they aren't clever at - in my experience it's the fairly unintelligent that think they are great at everything!
Also agree that intelligence doesn't necessarily relate to (at least traditionally measured) success in life.

In terms of exams I find them easy and fairly enjoyable - in the same way if you're good at baking you find making a cake fun and satisfying, or if you're a good runner you can lope around a 5k and enjoy it and get a good time without putting a huge amount of effort in.

Personally I find being f higher than average intelligence just leads to a lot of daydreaming. In school particularly, but still often in work - someone explains something and I 'get' it pretty much straight away, but then they explain it again, and then go over it, then try it a different way for those who didn't get it the first time, then put it into practice....by which time I'd switched off half an hour ago so then looked stupid when asked a question because by that time I'd cycled through half a dozen completely different topics in my head to keep me entertained. So got a reputation as being a bit head-in-the clouds, to the extent teachers were always surprised when I came top of the class with minimum effort at exam time.

Quite useful in work because I chose something I can just 'coast' at without putting much effort in, that pays the bills. I could probably have had a career in something much more intense and well paying but intelligence is just 1 part of a personality - lack of ambition and a fair bit of laziness makes up a lot of mine!

I don't think it's served me well actually. I'm grateful in some ways, I can understand things very well, very quickly
Whilst I've had to work for exams, I can easily plan for this as I know I'll understand everything straight away so I just have to make sure I've read and remembered it all.

Overall though I've struggled my whole life to be happy. I'm very anxious on a very deep level. My brain never stops, I have tried everything, medication, meditation, yoga, mindfulness etc but outside of that moment, nothing helps. I see patterns in everything and overthink most things, I have often pretended Im less able than i am to try and fit in. I've always been envious of people who can just relax and switch off.
I think it's just like anything, things seem great but really we all have our struggles, they just look different in different people.

I've always been called very clever/ gifted. Top of my school, in the newspaper for GCSE results etc. Top uni, eventually got a PhD. I'm very academically intelligent and found academics came very easily to me.

However, I'm horrific at other things. My social skills aren't the best, I'm an awkward anxious person, I get lost anywhere, I'm terrible with names and faces to the point where it's embarrassing, and I'm hopeless with anything DIY / practical.

I often wonder what it's like to be really beautiful, or a national athlete, or an incredible artist etc. We all have our strengths and weaknesses I guess.

I don't know, if you are literally genius level must be hard to relate to average people.

Even if you are slightly ahead of the curve, seems to be quite alienating tbh. I find it's more if you see the nuances of a situation and don't automatically adopt the mainstream view, you will be ostracised.

Oh and I agree with marriage pool being reduced! Also because I'm almost 6 foot! Many men seemed to be turned off by a highly academic woman.

If people don't suddenly adopt the BBC view of everything they are automatically conspiracy theorists. I would say that that if you automatically take the mainstream media version of reality as truth, you are the conspiracy theorist.

You ask for proof and sources? Huh do you ask BBC and Sky of the same?

Drives me mad.

I'm objectively clever and do think of myself as clever too. I'm not going to add a lot of self-effacing guff about not being able to hang a shelf or read a map as I can do that stuff too - or at least the bits I want to do.

What do I think about when I'm moseying about? On the one hand all the usual stuff, what to have for dinner, is DS eating properly etc, but I'm also curious about things and want to find out more. This evening I was driving home from a football match and randomly the Diet of Worms came into my mind, I tried to remember what I knew about it and then googled it when I got home. Increasingly I think being curious is very goid for us.

I was very academic - the classic straight A student, got a first at university. Qualified for Mensa though I never actually joined. All my life, learning has just been fun for me. It still is. I'm the kind of person who studies things for fun. Also love cryptic crosswords, logic problems, word games, learning languages - I just enjoy figuring things out, making connections, the process of thinking.

There are definitely gaps! I'm good with anything logical but not so much spatial/ mechanical reasoning. I'm the sort of person who has to turn a map as I follow it. IKEA furniture is a challenge.

I think the best thing about being 'clever' is just the enjoyment I get from using my brain. I'm also very efficient at work, good multi-tasker, learn fast and remember things easily. If I'm interested in something then I can usually do well in it.

Downside: agree with PP that my brain is hard to turn off. I can never just fall asleep, I lie there for ages just thinking about things I read or heard during the day, flitting from topic to topic or memory to memory for ages.

I can also get quite obsessive about something and get lost down rabbit holes, especially online. I love reading but rarely read a book these days: it's all articles and blog posts and Medium / Substack.

I'm fine socially and have a good circle of friends. I find people interesting. I enjoy a good chat about almost anything as long as it's not sport. But I can be impatient, and I get bored quite easily (which is why the endless mine of info online is dangerous). Overall though, being intelligent has made my life much easier and I'm grateful for it.

I’m perceptive, I learn very quickly and academics were always my area of strength. I can multitask easily and am highly organised at work.

I also have the emotional intelligence of a potted plant, a memory like a sieve when it comes to non work related matters and I look like the back end of a bus.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses and need to learn to value ourselves for what we are, not what we wish we were. Easier said than done, I know.

I am clever and I am concerned with the nature of reality, 99.9% are not. Even as a child I was awed by the stars etc. Nobody seems to care though, it's depressing. Wish I had the self esteem to get into it.

I'm just a twat from a council estate, got good exam results but failed at life.

I am naturally clever, DH is naturally a hard worker.

I’d rather be a hard worker.

I’m intelligent (IQ 158 age 8, but likely decreased since).
I think I’d have done better in life if I wasn’t. I didn’t ever learn to work hard, or organise study (I didn’t have to study), or to do anything that wasn’t last minute.
Uni assignments were started at 10pm the night before they were due. It really didn’t set me up for real life. I’m emotionally intelligent but never had to develop resilience until mid to late 20s and have consequently suffered massive depression. I’m doing well now (mentally, emotionally and career wise) but am certain that if I was less intelligent I’d have developed skills that would have helped me go much further.

I try my best to focus on what’s for supper/ when to take the recycling out! Or to actively notice things around me.
If I don’t, my mind considers every eventuality of every situation and I ruminate on the worst possible outcomes.

I think I’m what people class as clever. But now I’m older I wonder at people who make friends easily, and who keep them, at people who are organised and don’t forget half the things their kids need for school, who can stay on top of everything at home, who can do makeup and hair and generally look well put together. I can read books yes and I passed my exams with flying colours… but it’s not by any stretch what makes a person

I needed the pressure to work so was a last minute crammer and I got excellent results with very little, last minute input. But give me the same exam questions a couple of days later and I would have forgotten what I’d learnt.

I was just good at exams. And last minute essays. The pressure of having only a few days or hours, focussed my mind. Saying that, I did find most stuff easy to understand though.

People who see mathematics as a language rather than a tool are crazy. There are levels, some are well above.

I’m officially genius level by Mensa standards. It’s overrated. And school teachers/ university lecturers seemed to think I was being pedantic/ deliberately obstuse when I asked questions beyond the syllabus they were covering.

IQ doesn't matter. Depends what you do with it.

I would say I'm on the high side of clever. Always enjoyed academic work and have done well in my career. It's opened a lot of doors for me. But I also worked hard too.
I find it sad that people would prefer to be pretty. Looks fade and very beautiful people can struggle too. I reckon you're much more likely to be financially independent if you're clever.

I don’t like it if I’m honest, my brain works at a very fast rate, I read quickly I absorb information easily and I didn’t have to work hard at all when studying. In fact I hardly studied at all. It made me feel like an oddity, I suspect I’m ND but am older so stuff like that wasn’t really discussed when I was young so much.

I taught myself to read before I went to primary school and was reading classic literature by the age of 7.

I can do small talk ok as I have learned to but generally find small talk extremely tedious. My recall of events seemed to frighten people almost.

I'm Mensa-clever, but also autistic. It's great. I wouldn't count as 'successful' in any way, but being intelligent helped me deal with life despite being audhd.
'People who get IQ score between 140 and 145 are considered as genius' - when I was Mensa tested I scored 156. Like a pp, I'm pretty sure mine will have gone down as I aged...