Do you know anyone that pretends to be stupid for attention?

[Santaslittlehelper83]

Light hearted thread really.....My MIL does this and I can't get my head around it. She's early 60's, in good health and holds down a professional role. I know people with think 'how do you know She's not really stupid', but it's so fake and obviously an attention thing....she does the whole tinkly fake laugh and 'oh what am I like' lol! Examples have been saying the wrong thing like calling it 'Facelift' instead of Facebook, putting on odd shoes or wearing clothes inside out. Me and DH ignore it now and refuse to pander to the whole thing. I've never known anyone to pretend to be like this...anyone else? She does other crazy shit for attention...feigning illness etc, but I've come across that sort of thing before.

My Mum pretends to be thick so that you do stuff for her she can't be bothered to make the effort to sort out. She held down a good job for donkeys years yet can't manage to add a gift voucher to her Amazon account or download an app on her iPad. When called out on it she admits she'd rather just let us do it for her than learn how to do it herself. Good job we love her!

I do know several teenage boys who pretend to be dumb to fit in with their peers, if that counts.

I think what OP is referring to is learned helplessness.

I have a colleague who does wthis. She is always ‘confused’ and it means that other people get frustrated and step in to do her role fir her. Her entire fucking job involves interviewing people, writing down their answers and then scanning the file. She has been doing it for 11 years but still every single day pretends multiple times a day that she cannot remember how to scan something. ‘Oh I don’t know how to do theis’ is repeated about 13 times a day. My weak as piss manager just says ‘can someone help Sarah please?’ she ‘earns’ 45 k which is more than anyone else and she is fucking useless.

This is my in laws too.

She's either in the early stages of dementia or she's so scared and unhappy she's doing things that demean her simply to get attention. Either way she needs love and support, not disdain. Shame on both of you.

You are being wet

I’m intelligent, hold down a professional job etc. I also use wrong/random words for things, I don’t do it for effect. It is part of the brain fog related to my fibromyalgia - which only my husband and doctor knows I have. Don’t assume you know everything about a person.

yes. also mil. pretends not to know what stuff is "oh cava, im not sure if I've ever had that, is it fizzy wine?" etc. Ive been serving it to her for the last 15 years, and have the same conversation every time.

generally seems unknowledgeable about the world and foods. i find it tiresome because it doesn't seem sincere.

Yes! I went to school with one of those. She would always act ditzy and say things like “oops, I’m just so blonde!”, but mysteriously would only drop a few IQ points in the company of boys and managed to be competent when there were only other girls around.

We went to a grammar school so she definitely wasn’t just thick; she’s now a teacher herself and seems to have grown out of it.

I vaguely know a woman who does this to some extent. Eg, she's a very accomplished watercolour artisr. She posts her work to our WhatsApp group. She says they're not very good, and that she's not happy with them, and says she just puts them in a drawer, because she just enjoys the actual painting process. Group members all swoon over them (they're good, they really are).
In reality, she has turned a number of them into greetings cards which she sells; she undertakes paid commissions (eg pet portaits); and has for some time been teaching art classes! I guess she's just insecure (despite having a senior leadership role before retirement).

It's definitely a learned skill. The problem is that we learn from what received positive feedback and the dumb routine does get a lot of laughs and good responses more often than not. I remember falling into this trap when quite young and being really annoyed when somebody said something about my intelligence that really insulted me as I'm degree educated and they very much weren't. I learnt very quickly it wasn't doing me the favours I thought it had been.

A lot of "celebrities" do this as if it's some achievement to be as thick as shit. It's very annoying.

I have known people like this over the years. I’ve always given them a wide berth because it’s as irritating AF.

Yes, a few, all female. Strangely they only acted like this in the presence of men, all giggly, flipping their hair, taking forever to eat something by breaking it up into tiny bits and eating each bit separately and slowly even a sandwich or biscuit. This particularly annoyed me, as if implying oh I'm so dainty and feminine, I can't possibly take a whole bite of xxx like other people. Silly attention-seeking twats like this are not doing womankind any favours by pandering to men.

I do the saying the wrong word or name a lot. So saying Facelift instead of Facebook doesn’t feel weird to me,

I know many people who wear mismatched socks. And some if regularly put their stuff inside out.

I susie t that the ‘oh what am I lIke’ started as a way to hide how uncomfortable she was about it. Make a joke of it iyswim.

The rest sounds more like she isn’t concentrating or has some brain fog.

It doesn’t mean she wants people to think she is stupid though. What a strange assumption.

You know many who wear mismatched socks?? Actually many?? And some who regularly wear their clothes inside out? What’s wrong with them? Because that really isn’t normal.

My mum does exactly the same. Very senior nurse. Can work complex medical equipment. Claims she can't work the lawnmower.

Ok mum.

@tuvamoodyson DH is one who wears mismatched socks regularly. He doesn’t care.

Clothes inside out? At Tshirt is very easy to put inside out wo realising. Jumpers too.

But even if you think it’s not normal, then what do you think is going on? Assuming it’s not a new thing, it’s not dementia.

🙄

'Early stages of dementia' is the new 'could it be ASD' on MN.

Esp if it has been going in fir a long time, like it seems to be the case here.

No…putting clothes on inside out is not especially easy and very easily remedied. No idea what’s going on, but why, if you are a functioning adult, you can’t pair up socks or wear your clothes properly is beyond me. Anyway, each to their own…

The only person I know who wears mismatched socks does it intentionally, they think it's 'quirky'.

It may be easy to put something on inside out (I've never done it because I don’t get dressed in the dark), but I'd be concerned if someone did it repeatedly and didn't notice until it was pointed out.

I look after a wide range of children and they don't even do that, the most you get is shoes on the wrong feet.

Yes I worked with someone like that but she only did it when men were present. Silly giggly laugh every time she spoke, made up cutesy words for things, pretended not to know how to do things so the big strong men would help.
She never acted like that when it was just women.