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 brother bought me a set of ‘odd socks’ for Christmas one year, he clearly doesn’t know me at all! I took them to a charity shop I’d feel all wrong for the day knowing I had odd socks on!

It's likely just for effect but I've now worked with 2 senior professionals who ended up diagnosed with early onset dementia early 50s so difficult to diagnose even nowadays as each was labeled with something else to begin with. So I'm much more mindful of this now . Horrible for them and their families

It's mismatched shoes she's put on, not mismatched socks!

My ex SIL and all her sisters do this, it’s absolutely infuriating and I think they’re a bunch of weirdos.

All intelligent professionals yet claim, with a tinkly laugh they don’t know how to change a lightbulb or put petrol in the car, it’s pathetic. .

My sister
She's been perfect the art of appearing to be an airhead for 40 years.

If someone was being hopeless with tech and it was endless I think I'd write the instructions up and stick them somewhere bleeding obvious.

I've been explaining the world to my highly intelligent mother my whole life.

The first time I took her to Pret for a sandwich she looked around wildly and said 'what are we supposed to DO?'.

It is not endearing.

I could be your MIL honest I think my brain is just in overload. I'm intelligent, have a very responsible, busy stressful job and I'm very good at it. In my 60's now and it's like my memory has fucked off or my job takes all my brain power.

Tech stuff is beyond me and it is honestly easier to get someone to do it for me rather than teach me. For example I've just spent £40 on a mini CD player cos I can't get the hang of streaming music ffs.

I get my words mixed up and have put clothes on inside out 'cos I'm not concentrating. I have turned into the woman I used to tut at in a queue in a shop. I have never used a lawnmower. Skills I learned years ago I can do no bother but learning new skills is a lot harder.

I don't have a tinkley laugh but I do shrug my shoulders and say can you just do it for me please, I even piss myself off sometimes.

I know quite a few, all neurodivergent. I have a pretty high IQ. Stuff other people might spend days, weeks, months struggling with, I can turn around without batting an eyelid. Planning a journey however is very stressful. I can do it of course but I would much rather someone else organised the basics for me.

People struggle to understand how I can be so capable and yet so incompetent at the same time. I've spent a lifetime dealing with the frustration of others who assume that I'm being deliberately dense or lazy. It's had an awful effect on my self esteem and destroyed any hope of a career which I try not to dwell on because it's tragic really. I probably am gifted with much to offer but the world doesn't want outliers like me.

I remember a girl decades ago who once showed up for work with a smear of toothpaste on her nose. Pretty sure that was genuine. However all the fuss, attention and laughter she received that day, resulted in many more tiresome 'toothpaste moments'.

It's useful to bear in mind that many intelligent women have grown up and spent a considerable portion of their careers and adult life being told 'nobody likes a smart arse', 'stop showing off', 'you think you're so bloody smart, don't you?' and variations upon the theme of Intelligent Woman = bad = must be brought down to size.

For an example, my ex banned me from watching documentaries or quiz shows, chucked out my bookcase and all my books because I was 'showing off' by having them in the flat and if I ever dared to answer any question that might suggest I had more on my mind than the latest episode of Big Brother, he was so fucking furious that I'd hear all about my humiliating him after about a week of being completely ignored. He wasn't particularly uneducated, he just hated women that could think.

It's hard to get past decades of social programming.

Don't give her attention and she will soon get fed up doing stupid things.

No. But I do know lots of people who really are quite dim, actually stupid. But not anyone who pretends. The pp with the dim £45k Sarah, that would get on my nerves and I'd eventually refuse.

Has she always been like that @Santaslittlehelper83 or is it a new thing? Does she live alone? Does your DH have siblings?

I used to work with a woman in her mid-twenties(I mention her age to refute in part the assertion that she’s been brought up with the “boys don’t like clever girls” schtick. I highly doubt it). I didn’t know her very well but assumed she was a bit dizzy as she was constantly struggling with turning her computer on in the morning and asking male colleagues to help her press print/insert command.

Turns out she had a 1st class degree in computer science. Oh how we all laughed. 😣

No I dont know anyone who does it for attention.

I do know a few people who use it as a ploy to say rude things. Eg: if they want to be catty about a holiday destination choice: “so are they going to Dubai for work?” “ No, a holiday.” “ Oh?! I thought people only went there for work.” Or a wedding venue: “ Did they get a big discount then? I guess that’s why they chose it.”

Yes certainly as long as I've known her (10 years), DH thinks she's always been a bit like this but has been worse in that time period. He has one sibling but it's a strained relationship unfortunately so they don't really speak. MIL lives alone, we see her a couple of times a month.

i think this is a bit like what I was referring to with the rude comment thing. Did she not mean: “ this is really not the sort of place I would normally choose to eat. There are no proper waiting staff.”

I remember going to my first boyfriend’s house and being offered a bun byhis mum. I was starving and it looked delicious but I refused it several times as It was rather a large bun and I was too embarrassed to open my mouth as wide as I would have needed to bite into it. Wish I’d thought of the itty bitty broken off bits approach …

Sounds a bit like someone I know, ridiculously clever but could easily turn up in inside put clothes. I think it's actually adhd though.

Yes that’s definitely the vibe I got too. That annoying faux confusion that you see a lot here like ‘I don’t GET Elf on the Shelf?’

The tinkly laugh person now sadly in my professional circle also has a fake put on high pitched voice. We know it's fake because occasionally she forgets.

It's all so insincere and yet somehow acceptable - lots of mistakes are made, tinkly laugh, baby voice and someone has to sort out the mess. They are extremely manipulative too, complaining with the baby voice.

Struggle not to reply in kind. Fuck me, I hope its not catching

At work . People who pretend not to know or understand things . Who have worked in the department for 20 years plus . Weaponised incompetence I believe it's called.

I know many people who are stupid, wether they do it for attention or because they are actually in fact stupid is yet to be d3cided 😂

Oh really? I love odd socks, as long as they're from the same 'set' of socks. I can't do socks that are different lengths or fabrics.

it help that I have to buy kids socks (women's socks are too big) so lots of 'sets' of socks.

it's just a bit of fun, where's the harm??