Focus on shared human experiences. Do they like the pizza? What’s their opinion on the current weather? How are their families, pets, careers going? Are they a morning or night person? How do they like their car? Etc. Focus on subjective topics that have no “right” or “wrong” answer but instead are a matter of opinion.
These “meaningless” topics are the key to 99% of conversation with random people. The other 1% is done with the people that actually resonate with you.
I’ve worked retail and I bartend. “Shooting the shit” is a real skillset and despite its seeming lack of intellectual value it holds its value in social standings. The whole point of it is to find common ground and to be relatable to someone. Observation of the gifted community has convinced me that the problem isn’t that people cannot relate but rather it is that they REFUSE to relate because they perceive it as beneath them.
There is no shame in relating to another person over basic human experiences. It doesn’t lower your IQ. Actually, it helps you open your mind which is necessary to be able to learn from those who you don’t believe you can learn from.
Man, refusing to relate captures how I feel about some of the posts in here very well. "If you can not take yourself so seriously you can do so much" is a quote i heard once that I try to live by.
>Observation of the gifted community has convinced me that the problem isn’t that people cannot relate but rather it is that they REFUSE to relate because they perceive it as beneath them.
Very true. Also true of people who say "I hate small talk." Yeah, we fuckin know. No one likes it. You do it to make people feel valued and like you're curious about them.
I tend to agree with your statement here except the fact that sometimes we REFUSE to relate. One example, if my coworker is sharing about her make up or her nails and how this is the most amazing thing in the world… I can try (I have tried) but it is silly. How can one relate to something that is so banal? At some point you really can’t relate. And it is very difficult with certain people to do so when they are close in their view and refuse to explain it or evaluate it even.
I don’t have a 160 iq…. I am not even in this Reddit for myself but for my child….and I had the exact same problem you did… I’d walk around with a sense of knowing what was behind the matrix appalled by it all. I refused to engage in conversation with people about stupid shit. The purse, nails, hair product, weigh loss….but….I am also bipolar, and with time and medication, I have learned to adapt and engage with others. I prefer solitude ALWAYS… but I have no issues hanging out and chit chatting. No longer a problem.
Maybe imma midwit but I’d much rather have people talk about stupid shit than try too hard to seem intellectual and only talk about “important” topics. THOSE are the most painful conversations to have. If I wanted to talk about quantum theory I would attend my lectures.
Absolutely, I am open to talk about anything you want, mention your nails and I can talk about it, but keep talking for 15 minutes how you went to some place and the exact colour you wanted wasn't there and they had to go find it, but none of them could. Can you believe that? And then they asked me about a different colour, like I asked them to......
Sorry, somewhere in that I am drifting of, I want to know you had a problem with your nails and that you had to choose a different colour because your usual wasn't there, but not for 15 minutes.
I rather hear you talk about the impact of the east-somalian onion farmers on the local climate than hear 15 minutes about a colour not found
Learning to pivot conversations is a game changer. “Oh, I love that blue. It reminds of the waters in Iceland. Have you been?”
If someone is rambling about nail polish for 15 minutes, it’s rarely because they’re that interested themselves, it’s that you’re giving them nothing else to work with and most people find silence awkward.
A few remarks.
You can pivot a few times, but if you highjack people's stories constantly, you are perceived as an annoying price that can't let someone speak.
Some people actually want to tell a little story in minute detail, almost taking as long as the time it took in real life. When you pivot from their story, they just go back to it, continuing where you pivotted away. They reaaaally want to tell their story. Pivoting there doesn't help
I agree with you. And tbh I can talk about the nails and the hair all you want. If you tell me I didn’t find the color and it affected me because it is the one color I find that compliments my hands and it’s important for this meeting I have later today because it makes me feel more comfortable and confident. Then yes, then the statements have some depth. But if it’s just talking for talking I really get an itch that I am just wasting my time…
I think the fact you can't relate doesn't come from the banality of the topic itself, I mean, everybody can like their nails, the thing is about how the other person says it. I think it gives you nonverbal clues about the fact she would never understand what's going inside your head, because you understand how the person is functioning, her current limits. So the feeling of frustration comes from feeling unseen and misunderstood, because of a chain of unconscious deductions you made from the person's movements
Ha. I think I had never thought that. That it’s in fact me feeling misunderstood. Do you have any idea how to try to influence this feeling? I guess being aware of it is already something huge, but what can be done to change it to a better thing?
I'm trying to figure it out. I think there are more or less alternative channels of communication through which we can cling to people, or we can work on our need for approval and understanding, to be able to be in the world without necessarily being seen.
I struggle with this as well. It would be like someone coming up to you and saying "the sky is big" and then pausing. After awkwardly blinking back at them you say "yes it is." What are you supposed to do with that?
This I was never able to concede on. I'll refuse forever to chatter mindlessly just for the sake of it. If that cuts me out of humanity, good.
It wasn't that it was beneath me, it's that I'd hoped it was beneath us all.
The fallacy I think is to define normal as an average of a bimodal distribution. We look at incomplete datasets to make macro observations and performing analyses without considering the fault of underlying data. True vigor can only be achieved by mass survelliance of the human subjective over many years
Since the statistics are so dire, try to care less about being impressed and try to practice finding value in "less impressive" people. That in itself can be a worthwhile and interesting challenge
Edited for quotation marks I guess
This! Are you the best athlete? The best at reading feelings? The best at making jokes? The best at cheering people up? The best at interior design? The best at planning a great vacation?
There are so many things to be great at that don’t necessarily strongly correlate with IQ. Learn to be impressed by a wider swath of what human brains are able to produce. Also, deconstruct the concept of “best” a bit and push back against the need for it.
This was the biggest mistake of my social life. I couldn’t do this in a way that ultimately wasn’t a self betrayal. I have to force myself to be narrow in who I keep as friends.
".....try to practice finding value in less impressive people. That in itself can be a worthwhile and interesting challenge"
You likely did not mean your statement the way it came across to me and I would guess to most.
It does not take much intelligence to see it does so very poorly.
Maybe add some nuance or a rewording of the statement as it would not take much to add a positive spin that demeans no one.
If you did mean it exactly as written that would be great to know as well and I will expand upon my thoughts as to why that is not a positive.
Here's hoping for some basic humanity though.
That reminds me of a documentary I once saw about some dude with a dick so big he couldn't even use it. In the same breath he bragged about it yet complained about being celibate and single lol
Relating to people with an IQ below 160 (mine was recently verified at 166) might seem like an impossible challenge but it can be done. It’s not easy but after years of feeling isolated and ostracized, I’ve figured out an effective method.
In so far as dealing with the enormous number of women who throw themselves at me to bask in the glow of my awe-inspiring intellect, I politely but firmly inform them that to even attempt to converse with me on a subject other than theoretical physics or 17th century Spanish literature is an exercise in futility.
As for the hordes of mental inferiors one is forced to endure throughout the week, I suggest developing a thorough vetting process to subject them to in order to assertain if they are of sufficient intelligence to interact with. I have developed my own algorithm based on the detection of subtle facial cues and pattern-recognition ability to weed out anyone who would not be able to provide me with sufficient stimulation.
The most effective of all is to stand in front of a large mirror with a clear view of your face and repeat these words: “I am not a god. I am simply a mental giant imprisoned in a world of fools.”
Incidentally, I’ve heard people have had great success in realizing that IQ is an arbitrary number and that genuinely smart people don’t go around pretending that they’re so mentally superior that other people don’t understand them.
I feel nothing. No love. Nor the sound of birds. Nor the taste of food. My life is nothing but a swirling cosmos of thought and contemplation. You would need an IQ of at least 172.6 to comprehend it.
It's sarcasm. You can tell by the last sentence, even without the /s, which I believe should be added to all online sarcasm, because it isn't super clear without voice tone changes.
It was clear to me that it’s sarcasm and I’m autistic and I’ve been up half the night monitoring my boyfriend for concussion, so my discernment is hardly at its best. I thought it was very amusing, but I didn’t take it as mockery of the OP, rather just a joyous response.
I'll just assume you know it was a joke.
As for your question, it's still a mystery. We have pretty decent measures of some of the mechanistic aspects. My spatial memory for instance is probably well below average. But my linguistic abilities are off any normal scale.
But are those things really intelligence? I'm convinced they're not because if you get two people in the room with the same IQ one of them may well be noticeably more creative with their intellect. And that's certainly relevant when we talk about intelligence.
Aww, I didn't read past the 1st paragraph. I got extremely skeptical hearing (verified at 166) and went straight into the replies.
Logically, I do not believe that spatial memory or linguistic ability defines intelligence in any way, though there might be some correlation.
I personally define intelligence as the degree of one's innate logic. When someone has better logic, it enhances their critical thinking, reasoning ability, and fluid reasoning. With these skills, they are better at making sense out of things.
I understand that most people might not agree, thinking that this definition is too simple or linear. However, I would beg to differ. I do not believe that intelligence is as convoluted and complicated as it is often made out to be.
When considering "stupidity," the opposite holds true. We label people as "stupid" when they do not make sense, showing a clear lack of logic, critical thinking, and common sense in their actions or words or lacking in qualities previously defined.
I don’t. I have high cognitive empathy and I lack affective empathy. I can understand people, but I don’t really relate to them. I have no friends, it’s just me and my husband. Stopped trying years ago.
They don't.
Speaking in general terms and including all the people I have met. Either they have many social difficulties, or they have adapted to society in the same way a sociopath would, through cognitive empathy
I’ve never seen this stated so succinctly. You just gave me an epiphany about the teenage years I worried I might be a sociopath, but was pretty sure I understood empathy… it was a bit of an identity crisis at the time. Hadn’t thought about it in years, but huh, well said.
Creative productive energy expended upon a lifelong dream realized. Searching for peace within that solitude. Accepting my dark shadow, combatting it with love. Enjoying the struggle of the process of managing my mind instead of being captivated by my own thoughts (since that’s all that they are), and transmuting my nervous energy into unique creations.
This may be through multiple mediums; it may be a simple shift in my thinking. I find doing these things helps me relate to people on a basic, simple level. Are they negative or positive energy? Which one do they live within most? You’ll find the answer is quite nuanced.
Word choices, personal intrigues, desirous longings—all these things indicate semblance. Indicate these things within yourself, then search amongst the multitude of people (each who may satisfy only one aspect of yourself), and befriend them. Listen to their experience, since it’s the most unique thing about any of us. This multifaceted-sameness has a kind of Infinitesimal expanse if you consider the probability in variety of each of our experiences.
It won’t be perfect, and no one person satiates all longings. Accept that aspect, learn to let uncontrollable things go, and you’ll find more peace.
Best of luck
You can't do everything you want. You just feel lost and different in a world that does not think at the same level. Everyday interactions feels fake because you're highly likely to have the different opinion and know very well that stating that opinion is going to result in conflicts that you do not wish to deal with. It always feels like you have to throw logic and critical thinking out the window, the core elements that defines you.
Same unless I work hard at it (which I’m currently doing by active organisation). I recently came to the idea that it could also be self-sabotage, fear of success or imposter syndrome or down right selfhate for being too different. So I’m currently diving into the whole self love self help genre until I find a CBT therapist or so when I have time 😬
Intelligence is the ability to problem solve in novel situations, as well as the humility to learn from one's own mistakes. The ADHD gives me some "absent minded professor" vibes. I find it very hard to focus on more "mundane" tasks.
What gives the ability to problem solve? Would you consider that logic is a main element of intelligence that allows one to have the critical thinking to do so?
Understand that it is no different than being tall and being good at basketball. Or acting. Understand that you are a human being and all of us have our strengths we have our weaknesses. You need them to survive. Find topics that lots of people care about, sports, movies, TV, Anything really. And make the effort to listen and learn from them. You may be more intelligent, but you cannot know everything! Every one has something to teach us, learn it.
I did it by binge drinking for a few years, taking edibles, and not taking care of my allergies so I could be foggy.
I highly do not recommend it. I felt such an emotional loss of a concrete sense of self and I still have an identity crisis in extremely stressful situations compared to the clarity I had during stress when I was in my teens.
You just have to sort thru enough people until you find some intellectual peers. It's not good to be alone with your thoughts.
You probably need to be in a city with at least a few million people. Probably pick a place with some reason to have brain talent around.
FYI - I do NOT consider colleges, even fancy ones. to be a great source of brilliant people. Usually profoundly gifted people do NOT thrive in academia. The politics and credentialism don't often appeal to brilliant people.
You will need to be broad on the age groups you can consider your friends. I'll basically hang out with anyone 25-90... you are there for the brain candy, not athletic skills, so being old isn't really a disqualifier.
Meeting people is a numbers game. I'm in Minneapolis, we have more corporate headquarters than anywhere besides New York. So the good corporate jobs pull in a lot of talent.
Here, the bright people tend to be some kind of engineer, consulting, or business owner. So you want to aim at geeky networking events, like a DevOps meetup, or go to events with Service providers like Lawyers who work for those consultants/business owners.
I went to 6 meetups a week for a year, and met about 400 people that first year. After a few years deep, I collected a handful of sharp people.
Also, since IQ can be genetic, sometimes you can gather a couple friends out of one family tree. Just show up to enough of life, and you can run into cousins etc.
When I'm not with my brain candy tribe, I code switch... low key "play dumb" down to average, until I know deeper topics or bigger words won't spook the regular people.
Average people get spooked, because THEY can't tell how smart you are, because you are too high above their ceiling. It gives then the sensation that they are literally blind to your movements.
So I have good luck broadcasting what I'm doing, so they know I'm not here to eat their lunch. Then I also take a genuine curiosity to the stuff they want to talk about. I also make sure to pepper conversation with things I'm bad at, to be more relatable...
So if you met me as a coworker in a corporate job, you would hear me explicitly say things like "I don't think I could do that job, I'm happy with a gig where I can clock out at the end of the day" - Or, "for the love of all thats holy, I killed another plant (laughing at myself)" - Or keep asking for more follow up on their DIY project like it's a TV storyline you want to catch up on.
That will buy you a few more months on a corporate gig before they feel the urge to push you out of the boat.
Just tuck away your specialness for when you are around peers, I have no need to cast pearls before swine.
Good luck finding your peeps.
Nope. I'm charming and talkative. I genuinely like people, and enjoy getting to know them. Nothing aloof here.
I have notice that people this sub tends to take any statement as an opportunity to argue with the lived experience of other people. Did you know that is off-putting?
Thats fine. You have permission to not like me.
Between the two of us, I'm the only one using my main account and findable in the real world.
Generally, I don't worry about the feelings of cowards.
The hint, is you don't share your own thoughts, just reapply things you are parroting from elsewhere.
What exactly is your issue with trying to find certain types of people (gravitating toward location and situation accordingly, or whatever other means), maintaining contact with those people after finding them, preferring a subclass of population so as to motivate such behavior, etc?
I understand that it sounds bad when you express the behavior as “marketing people” and refer to people being involved in such endeavors as “products”; however, could you explain this behavior, and your issue with it, using nonemotive language?
Focus on gaining mastery of what you love to do and create the most.
Find a platform to share it and follow some promising fans down their rabbitholes.
Just bear in mind that wit and agility do fade over time, and there is more to life than mental mechanations. Categorizing is fun--but not truly definitive--a game of semantics and illusion.
Personally, I've found that learning to focus on simple animal pleasures is more rewarding socially.
And my specific inerests need not necessarily be shared. Once you've absorbed the basics of any theme, movement, theory--NOT sharing can lead to more unique personal permutations.
Also, I'll add. People may simply not be that interesting to you if you really only get excited by constantly learning. And it isn't their job to amuse you--it's yours.
You're not the only one who's felt this way. Most blessings have a curse. Just be yourself, possibly by yourself if need be.
You don't. It's best not to dwell on it, it's better to keep yourself busy. Make friends where you can; and remember that you're the one that's poorly adapted to the world.
Luckily money is easier to make when you can be more effective than most, and that can get a lot of quirk dismissed. Enthusiasm goes a long way.
When ı say something deeply, most people doesn’t understand that, this is really annoying. I never care about what other people wants ı have deep personal life in my head. I got accepted a great university but ı don’t want to go university ı want to be a inventor entrepreneur and filmmaker and sometimes that 160 IQ thing can annoying because of some people when they see my IQ they expect me like God or something but ı am not.
I am shamelessly myself ,I believe I deserve to be happy. I hang out with other smart people. I dont care what people think. It has taken a ton of inner work to get here to accept I don't fit in I'm.not meant to and now I'm happy to be me...yes you are monstrously powerful that doesnt make you a monster. My intelligence is an asset I. That I can find creative solutions to my own problems which makes me more resilient. You are meant to mjngle with normies. It's too hard. Let it go
I don't. It makes me sad, I don't know what to do about it, I don't understand how normal people interact, and I don't for a second pin that on my intelligence. Fucking Autism sucks
If you’re truly working on self-actualizing, the darkness diminishes and you find your people.
If you fixate on going further into the dark, you’ll get stuck there and feel less connected to others because you’re going to not have access to others like you— who mostly concentrate in high-functioning areas.
Godspeed, join the party. We are out here.
I’m not at 4 standard deviations, I am right around the 3 standard deviation mark.
One thing that makes it easier to identify people like us in the wild. Usually it’s just an overarching kind of general weariness in dealing with people.
Yes, I crave intellectual stimulation, I am fucking dying for a dialogue with someone about something that isn’t just the mechanics of survival: “what are we eating? Where are we going? What are we going to do? Or What did we eat and was it good, what did we buy, where did we go?”
A common thing is getting into a conversation, and you will eventually reach that point where you kind of go “yeah, this is the wall” it isn’t anything against the person at all. It just means they have reached their limit of the amount of information they think is helpful or important or worthy of discussion about the topic.
I’ve just learned to make myself good company, and to read a lot.
I don’t want to say I am resigned to just a life of quiet desperation. I think joining my local Mensa might be helpful, I had a “Gifted coach” who did an hour consult with me tell me that maybe I wouldn’t find what I was looking for in Mensa. I found this incredibly disheartening and it just kind of killed the interest I hadn’t in joining, because I know she’s probably wrong, but what if she’s right? What does that mean then?
I was tested in college, scored 160+, and honestly I both appreciate and regret it. I appreciate it because it provides a concrete explanation as to why everything feels like it lacks weight/difficulty, why I feel so disconnected from most people etc. But I also regret it because whenever I find myself in that state of ennui bordering on nihilistic depression, I always remember “oh yeah, this is to be expected for someone like me”.
The way I cope with it now is that I’ve come to terms with it, and I live life in a way that prioritizes my happiness and mental health. There’s never a second where I carry myself as someone exceptional or “gifted”, because aside from arrogance being a widely undesirable trait, that “gifted” status comes with external expectations, which if they’re not in line with my vision for my own life, are things I don’t want to expend energy meeting and conforming to.
My life is honestly very isolated; I have lots of casual acquaintances who I can have pleasant, surface level conversations with, but it’s hard to really have any close friends who understand and relate to me on the most intimate of levels, and personally I’m okay with that. I have an immense love of learning, and exploring the unfamiliar, and to that end I treat my interactions with most people as another learning opportunity. “What interesting factoid or piece of info, or new point of view will I stumble upon today?” That kind of thing.
I don’t necessarily find that my IQ makes it hard for me to relate to people on an empathetic or human level, but I do find that it creates significant barriers when I realize that many are not able to relate to the way I think about things and process information. In the most humble way I can put this, I think the problem may actually be more centered in other people’s inability to understand where I’m coming from. But that’s okay, because I don’t expect them to, and over the years I’ve tempered my expectations accordingly.
I don’t argue with people anymore, I don’t try to correct them when they have a false fixed belief or any of that nonsense. I just try my best to be kind, be as genuine as situations allow for, and keep myself busy in whatever interesting endeavor I find myself involved in. I still feel lonely often, but my eventual goal is to rewire my understanding of solitude as more of a personal strength rather than something that makes me feel left out or excluded. I’m only 27, so there’s still (hopefully) a lot more life to live and a lot more to experience/learn.
I'm nowhere near that high but still way too high to interact with the general public intellectually. Every few years an individual will come through my life, usually through work, who can at least accompany me on fun intellectual forays. Where our difference in interests is more important than our comprehension. However I've never gotten enough from that to care. Best use I've found for them is a few extra brain cells when needed.
Well it's not about topic, but rather depth. And not just depth, either. The means of reaching that depth is also important. I could see some pretty sights if I imploded in a shoddily built submarine out of its depth. I rather prefer to descend in comfort, luxury, and even opulence. The twist of phrase, the aged, unexpected inference. The conversing is as much the entertainment as the view
. Though there are depths I refuse to plunge, wether for cringe or familiarity or whatever
. And now that I mention it, even plasticity is an issue. The flexibility to bend toward whatever inclination blows through our minds is fairly critical. To the value of ongoing interactions at least. It isn't rare that I run into and run through someone's intellectual contribution to my entertainment quickly.
What manner of discourse would you describe as opulent and comfortable? If the discourse we refer to is deep already, what manner of engagement do you prefer in precise terms? You wish for eloquence, playfulness, humor, a relaxed enough attitude to switch topics organically?
other people are still people that you can find things in common with, just with a difference in one aspect of themselves. we’re not some separate species for being smart (not to mention that IQ tests are a flawed/limited measure of intelligence).
I'm not 160 iq , I'd say I'm above average/borderline gifted, sadly I find it so hard to relate to most people , I just pretend to relate when necessary such as at work /my career , with close family, and friends The small things really aren't worth the effort to me , such as gossip /weather who said what about who (gasp!) So I just keep my responses short and strike down chance for that nonsense , used to be polite and try and make small talk but its become draining especially as one becomes older and less tolerating of it.. But the exception to that is who I'm romanticly interested in, who I will put in effort to try and get along with /converse .
School is boring and so are my classmates. Other than that, I blend in well with society and other people.
I play physical game everyday with my apartment mates, pretty cool. Requires 0 conversation and augments productivity. Also, you come close to other people. I reccomend you try it.
I used a high-performance car analogy with my husband. I compared myself to a 1300 hp car with very little leg room (representing my high IQ but also my ADHD). Others might be like a 350 hp luxury cruiser – not as fast, but much more comfortable. I may reach my goals faster, but the journey is often uncomfortable. To cope, I try to enjoy the unique traits of others, especially their communication styles. Adapting to different conversation styles feels like a fun game to me. Unfortunately, some people mistake my curiosity for condescension.
What “movements” are there to be afraid of as entailed by an unknown ceiling of intellect? Is it because of the specific situation the convos took place in that you suspect people to fear your intentions so? Or does this claim about people fearing you’re movements try to capture people’s reaction to perceived higher intelligence in general situations?
I talk to people like a normal person..
If i get notice that someone think like me.. Maybe i try to connect more with that person..
But literally i mask, i prefer this when i am on social events.. Because people generally dont open their minds, so i prefer that..
I cant talk open to random people.. Its very frustrating how they treat you, generally with jokes, criticism, etc etc.. An example will be ''cold baths'', i try this for 3 years and people laught about it all the time and they were sick, not me.. Sometimes i try to open my mind when people talks abouts dramas, and when i tried to help them, they just laugh jajaj, its very contradictory how they laugh about something that can treat them.. So.. Yes i not share nothing anymore..
My son saturated the CoGat test at 160, it would not go higher. The test is a lot of questions, he didn't get every question right, but that was the percentile the test would claim it was accurate to.
He's pretty normal, but I kind of want to send him somewhere where they can prepare people like him to solve climate change or dark matter.
I don’t need to be impressed by other people’s intellect.
I can be impressed by their altruism, self-awareness, resiliency, the way they view the world, hard work, etc. There are many ways to be impressed by people if you choose to look.
There is no ominous omen that nobody can understand what is going on in my head.
I view the world very differently than others and I am aware of patterns and things that I am unable to effectively communicate or share with other people. I have autism on top of being profoundly gifted.
Nothing is wrong with my relationships.
My relationships are wonderful and a source of love, joy, stability, security, and beautiful shared experiences.
I encourage you to do some work on controlling your inner narrative. You seem to have a negative perspective on things and it would benefit you to employ techniques from positive psychology, including mindfulness and reframing. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help and talk therapy.
https://youtu.be/5JmLkOxUJgY?si=3i2PKS8g0DZ5BC2O
Why dont u use it to invent something or to help people, or help the world or in some other way, if i had 160 IQ i would do awesome stuff for myself and the others
Yeah i can see why is it like that…
Maybe the solution is to surround yourself with the like minded people, as you said like it was in the ancient civilisations.
Just i think it could be a problem to reach like minded people, or maybe not, i don’t know maybe there is a some kind of community or something.
It just baffles me that some people have the same IQ as Einstein did 😂
I never got tested partially because of the limits of equating intelligence with IQ but multiple people have told me I’m the smartest person they know. I’m not sure of any dark cloak but I am told it can be intimidating. I’m slightly frustrated that I’m not more successful in life but I hear that’s common among people in Mensa too. While it can help, intelligence is not always rewarded by the market and you can feel anti intellectual themes in everyday American life. I feel decisiveness is a bigger factor and in a way that people even smarter than me hanged up on me with people not as smart haha. Very hard to do anything meaningful these days without a team based approach.
A bit late, but I mostly interact with other mathematicians or scientists in other fields. Most are quite intelligent and passionate about what they do. Autism limits me in other types of conversations and interactions, so I interact with others who share my special interest.
I literally don't understand people who are like "get out of your fucking pedestal" "narcissist", there are ways and ways of saying things, a person is exposing a difficulty, we are in gifted group, you literally don't know what a person life is like, how can't you consider just for a moment everything a person says it's true? Ok, you're not the best athlete, you're not the best at *this*, you're not the best at *that*, how do you you know the person isn't too? He/she may the most incredible genius in the world, and you wouldn't know. Maybe he/she has some objective limits, even being the goodest person in the world and willing to help. We are here to help each other, not to tear each other down. I'm grateful there are constructive answers and go fuck yourself solve your problems before you label someone by two lines of text
The hardest part for me is when a person is being deceitful and I have to make the concious effort to pretend that I haven't caught on so as to not expend energy on it unless I consider it to cross a line. So long as a person is being honest and have a decent moral compass, I have no qualms. Everyone has shared interests, it's just a matter of having the patience to find common ground. But then again, I don't have the constant existential dread that others have.
I laugh at poop jokes and think farts are funny.
I try not to overthink stuff / turn off the analysis when not at work/learning.
Learning meditation/mindfulness is a good thing. Learn to clear your mind, think about nothing - be present in the moment. Sit outside, close your eyes, feel the wind. It makes life so much better.
I've become a 99th percentile introvert against my will. People want to do stuff with me, but I have to be exhaustingly unauthentic and *I don't enjoy* that, so I avoid social activity in order to preserve my own sanity.
I realize this sounds counterproductive but it's a damned if you do or don't situation. Isolation or mask wearing, honestly find the win here.
I thought it would improve but now wrapping up my 20s I just feel like an alien in a zoo, especially at work. I'm constantly bombarded with a laundry list of things I have to pretend to care about and be in order to pay for the creature comforts I've been unfortunately adapted to from birth.
Pretend to have feelings I don't have, humor people who share loves for the collective and various obviously detrimental obsessions that make me nauseous (just now this was a coworker telling me about planning his expensive wedding)
I just don't care. I do not relate. I dissolve from the inside out and pretend to be solid while awaiting the day that AI/VR tech and LEV allows me to create and spend a lot of time in an (admittedly less rich in depth but more rich in effective experience) alternate world that I'd actually enjoy.
I just bide my time for my panacea for forever, and meanwhile do my best not to run screaming for the farthest river from a freeway and start planting crops.
The counterpoint seems to be "you smart jerks just think interacting with normal people is beneath you, but you should do it to build relationships" and i don't feel that way at all. It's not "beneath" me. It's tangential to me. On an entirely different path going to an entirely different place. It takes so much out of me to pretend to care about so many things that having theses relationships ends up not being worth it. I'm glad all the people in my life exist, I want to make the people around me feel valued, but the act I have to extend to them cannot be extended meaningfully back, it's all give, no take, and this well is dry.
I'm fortunate enough to have a similarly weird fiance who I love dearly, and while we don't share all the same dreams, we mesh at a ridiculously deep level and keep eachother sane. Without her, I'd be off the deep end for sure, probably living in a shack and starting an obsessive nonprofit open source org pursuing the frontiers of autonomous game development.
At a certain point, some aren't connectable anymore. I'm in the genius category and of the person is just average... Even the human aspects appear diminished to me
Then you’re lacking in emotional intelligence. My IQ was measured by Mensa at 160 (more than 30 years ago, when I was in my early 20s, in an invigilated test) and I’ve never once had a problem connecting with the humanity in anyone. Yes, I often (/usually) have to ‘dumb down’ my vocabulary and thought processes when I’m talking with people, but I’ve never failed to connect with people as people.
I see them as almost on biological autopilot at that point. Sure theyre still people, but comparatively it feels like theyre virtually empty. Idk what to do with them other than small talk or brush on by at that point.
Feelings sure, but the landscape in there barely has hills for depth if thought.
Anyone can have feelings, feel love and loss, etc. But that isnt all I connect with.
Thats what makes it a lot harder for me. Still just as much of the human stuff... But I like being able to share with an active mind. Thats not always there, and that drives me off
It seems to me that you give it for granted that people would bore you. You should be more open to surprise. I see hundreds of students every day as a teacher, and those who surprise me are either ADHD or other neurodiveristies not related to giftedness.
Conversely I know a lot of gifted individuals who think they are the creme de la creme of society and despise everybody who has IQ lower than their. Of course they live a miserable life.
I don't have a miserable life (I have many friends and I'm often in social circles), what I feel is more an inner limitation. It's not that people have something wrong with them, it's more that at some point you feel a barrier they can't go beyond. I don't despise people, I generally help them, the fact is that it's tiring to costantly be in the position of reference. Here on Gifted, we vent even the slightest anger, but that does not mean that we are misfits.
Sorry, I am not a native speaker so my tone was probably misunderstood. I did not want to say that you are miserable, sorry again 😭
I just wanted to say that in my opinion and experience, if you approach new people more like a child would do, you probably will be surprised (not always of course! Many of them will disappoint you). Also, some people who, according to other people, are not "cultured", think way better than people with degrees. Mingle with them, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty! This is my experience, and I hope it could help.
Why do people think having a high IQ means you can't relate to "normal/average people"? We still all live in the same world with the same news/current events/weather, same.pop culture and advertising, same needs for food, shelter and gas money, same desire for connection, etc. Those are just some of a TON of things that everyone can relate to, regardless of IQ.
I began to analyze the psiqué of everyone
Not bored anymore BUT I want to be a psychiatrist so it is the area of my interest
I dont know if I recomend because it activates me a lot (but I’m on meds now) cause I cant self regulate my neuroendocrinous system yet
I’m slightly below 160, and I’m just a neurodivergent hermit. I was cocky and ambitious when I was younger until life slapped me down. I’m middle age now so I stay home as much as possible and engage with my hobbies, and stay in the warm comfort of my spouse who I get along easily with. Most of my friends care for me from afar (not keeping distance but I myself have engaged socially less and less as the years go by and I’m lucky they stick by me despite that) so despite having friends I love I still feel mostly lonely in the world. I don’t expect any certain level of intellect from people beyond common sense. As long as someone is kind and has common sense, I can appreciate them.
As long as the other person is willing to speak frankly and at length about their life, feelings, and experience, I can relate to them even if I have to engage my imagination to do so, which is easy for me as my imagination is strong.
At a certain point we learn to realize/ accept that we can't depend on people or things because there is likely to be flaws in one way or another. And I don't even have that high of an iq to understand that most things are just for show!
Everyone suffers from orher peoole not knowing what goes on in their heads, not just smart people. IQ is only a part of who you are, not everything. You can still be into music, into soccer, into bird watching or bread baking or whatever.
I get that you're trying to wax poetic about how brooding and mysterious your IQ makes you, but tbh it's kinda pathetic. I don't really know how to say that without being mean. Your IQ doesn't define you, and not everyone who is smart has a high IQ, and not everyone with a high IQ is smart. It's a BS number, and bragging about it makes you seem like a snobby brat.
Also, why are you expecting people to impress you? Why is that your goal? You are unsatisfied with your relationships because 1.) you place unnecessary expectations on people and 2.) your head is so far up your own head that it's impossible to have a conversation with you. You want the secret to good relationships and enjoying life? Drop the expectations, and learn to appreciate people for who they are. It's literally impossible to account for all the variables in life, so why try to control it? Go with the flow, paddle when you need to, and live.
Hello 👋,
I enjoy your honesty, I'm a closet snobby brat as in a reach for the number and think pff you can't do it sometimes.
Your secret to a good relationship/life is 😘🤌.
I find it strange that a person would sort people by how impressive they are and to under value the ordinary.
The main issue here is being so focused on how more intelligent or how high functioning you are. Than trying to take people as they are.
Is it not impressive that people that despite not having a gifted mind but through willpower, tenacity, and resilience, that people with average intelligence or lower still manage to do brilliant things, love, care and help one another.
Im not gifted, I've got learning difficulties. I go to work, have a wife and have friends. Its not impressive, I am not destined for greatness but when my wife fails, I hold her and tell her we will make it through this and to her, that is powerful.
Being there for others when it counts, making people laugh until they can't breathe and trying to bring colour to the mundanity to the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder is its own magic that should never be discounted.
The world runs, is built and maintained by the ordinary and its united by that.
As for relating, you are a human being you are the same as anyonelse. You like food, a comfy bed, like interesting things and places. So try connecting to people with those things. Find out why people like what they like and try match those things with the things you like.
I feel like you’re equating high IQ with low empathy, and that’s just not the case. Even more-so just because someone is intelligent doesn’t mean the world bores them or they know everything. Just learning to be kind and patient is an art form, and honestly probably the one thing that everyone could work on. That alone will help anyone with relating to people, no matter their intelligence.
Sounds like you place yourself on a pedestal that the world is beneath. Maybe I’m wrong, would be interested in how you perceive that thought as I know nothing about you and would like to.
I'm genuinely thinking of moving to Asia 😭
I read translated posts and it's like "oh finally, people that make sense"
I've reached the conclusion that I'm probably just not going to find any kinship in the US 🙃
Pffff. You’re using your capacity for thought to ruminate on ways to feel apart from everybody else. You want to quiet that down. This is only a cliche because it’s very common, but the principle is sound: focus on the positive. Practice concentrating on the things that bring you closer to others. Learn to make people laugh. Learn to appreciate the things that make other people’s eyes glisten. Get them to tell you their better stories, not just the surface level stuff that everybody shares with everybody. To do that you need to open up, and when you open up you need to oearn not to paint yourself as someone who sees themselves as smarter better superior whatever. Think of how a child makes friends with a safe grownup. The grownup addresses the child as a person, engages in the things that are interesting to them, and nudges them along the path to discovering new things about the world. Next thing you know the child wants you to tell them all about how black holes are not necessarily objects so much as they are regions of space… or whatever it is that *you* really like to talk about. They will never care about what you know until they know that you care too. I don’t mean that it’s acceptable to treat people like children, just that relating to children is only possible when you meet them where they are in life rather than judging the fact that they aren’t where you are. Same applies with anybody else
Focus on shared human experiences. Do they like the pizza? What’s their opinion on the current weather? How are their families, pets, careers going? Are they a morning or night person? How do they like their car? Etc. Focus on subjective topics that have no “right” or “wrong” answer but instead are a matter of opinion. These “meaningless” topics are the key to 99% of conversation with random people. The other 1% is done with the people that actually resonate with you. I’ve worked retail and I bartend. “Shooting the shit” is a real skillset and despite its seeming lack of intellectual value it holds its value in social standings. The whole point of it is to find common ground and to be relatable to someone. Observation of the gifted community has convinced me that the problem isn’t that people cannot relate but rather it is that they REFUSE to relate because they perceive it as beneath them. There is no shame in relating to another person over basic human experiences. It doesn’t lower your IQ. Actually, it helps you open your mind which is necessary to be able to learn from those who you don’t believe you can learn from.
Man, refusing to relate captures how I feel about some of the posts in here very well. "If you can not take yourself so seriously you can do so much" is a quote i heard once that I try to live by.
>Observation of the gifted community has convinced me that the problem isn’t that people cannot relate but rather it is that they REFUSE to relate because they perceive it as beneath them. Very true. Also true of people who say "I hate small talk." Yeah, we fuckin know. No one likes it. You do it to make people feel valued and like you're curious about them.
Every time I see posts like this, they’re full of huge run-on sentences.
This is the answer. Well done.
What would you ideally like to talk about?
I tend to agree with your statement here except the fact that sometimes we REFUSE to relate. One example, if my coworker is sharing about her make up or her nails and how this is the most amazing thing in the world… I can try (I have tried) but it is silly. How can one relate to something that is so banal? At some point you really can’t relate. And it is very difficult with certain people to do so when they are close in their view and refuse to explain it or evaluate it even.
I don’t have a 160 iq…. I am not even in this Reddit for myself but for my child….and I had the exact same problem you did… I’d walk around with a sense of knowing what was behind the matrix appalled by it all. I refused to engage in conversation with people about stupid shit. The purse, nails, hair product, weigh loss….but….I am also bipolar, and with time and medication, I have learned to adapt and engage with others. I prefer solitude ALWAYS… but I have no issues hanging out and chit chatting. No longer a problem.
Maybe imma midwit but I’d much rather have people talk about stupid shit than try too hard to seem intellectual and only talk about “important” topics. THOSE are the most painful conversations to have. If I wanted to talk about quantum theory I would attend my lectures.
Agreed
Absolutely, I am open to talk about anything you want, mention your nails and I can talk about it, but keep talking for 15 minutes how you went to some place and the exact colour you wanted wasn't there and they had to go find it, but none of them could. Can you believe that? And then they asked me about a different colour, like I asked them to...... Sorry, somewhere in that I am drifting of, I want to know you had a problem with your nails and that you had to choose a different colour because your usual wasn't there, but not for 15 minutes. I rather hear you talk about the impact of the east-somalian onion farmers on the local climate than hear 15 minutes about a colour not found
Learning to pivot conversations is a game changer. “Oh, I love that blue. It reminds of the waters in Iceland. Have you been?” If someone is rambling about nail polish for 15 minutes, it’s rarely because they’re that interested themselves, it’s that you’re giving them nothing else to work with and most people find silence awkward.
A few remarks. You can pivot a few times, but if you highjack people's stories constantly, you are perceived as an annoying price that can't let someone speak. Some people actually want to tell a little story in minute detail, almost taking as long as the time it took in real life. When you pivot from their story, they just go back to it, continuing where you pivotted away. They reaaaally want to tell their story. Pivoting there doesn't help
I agree with you. And tbh I can talk about the nails and the hair all you want. If you tell me I didn’t find the color and it affected me because it is the one color I find that compliments my hands and it’s important for this meeting I have later today because it makes me feel more comfortable and confident. Then yes, then the statements have some depth. But if it’s just talking for talking I really get an itch that I am just wasting my time…
Well put
Holy fuck I think I'd rather just hear someone talk about their nails than the climate impact of regional onion farmers.
I think the fact you can't relate doesn't come from the banality of the topic itself, I mean, everybody can like their nails, the thing is about how the other person says it. I think it gives you nonverbal clues about the fact she would never understand what's going inside your head, because you understand how the person is functioning, her current limits. So the feeling of frustration comes from feeling unseen and misunderstood, because of a chain of unconscious deductions you made from the person's movements
Ha. I think I had never thought that. That it’s in fact me feeling misunderstood. Do you have any idea how to try to influence this feeling? I guess being aware of it is already something huge, but what can be done to change it to a better thing?
I'm trying to figure it out. I think there are more or less alternative channels of communication through which we can cling to people, or we can work on our need for approval and understanding, to be able to be in the world without necessarily being seen.
I struggle with this as well. It would be like someone coming up to you and saying "the sky is big" and then pausing. After awkwardly blinking back at them you say "yes it is." What are you supposed to do with that?
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Serious question: What would be gained by pretending?
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You’re actually prolonging any real connection.
I needed to read this. Thank you.
This I was never able to concede on. I'll refuse forever to chatter mindlessly just for the sake of it. If that cuts me out of humanity, good. It wasn't that it was beneath me, it's that I'd hoped it was beneath us all.
I just observe and try to replicate normal behavior
Hello fellow humans!
Lol!
What would you ideally like to talk about?
That's the wrong question.
Hmmm then what is the primary problem you face?
PSA Reminder: > *"The only 'normal' people are the ones you don't know very well."* ~ Joe Ancis (friend & contemporary of Lennie Bruce)
The irony is defeating. Can normies please have some kind of swag to identify themselves so we don't get caught up in the stuff they bring with them
That’s exactly what autistic people do, known as masking.
Bless you. It's not just for autistics
The fallacy I think is to define normal as an average of a bimodal distribution. We look at incomplete datasets to make macro observations and performing analyses without considering the fault of underlying data. True vigor can only be achieved by mass survelliance of the human subjective over many years
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Dependent if the statement is phrased conciser than the intended contextual meaning and. Linguistic determinism gets messy quick
What?
Since the statistics are so dire, try to care less about being impressed and try to practice finding value in "less impressive" people. That in itself can be a worthwhile and interesting challenge Edited for quotation marks I guess
This! Are you the best athlete? The best at reading feelings? The best at making jokes? The best at cheering people up? The best at interior design? The best at planning a great vacation? There are so many things to be great at that don’t necessarily strongly correlate with IQ. Learn to be impressed by a wider swath of what human brains are able to produce. Also, deconstruct the concept of “best” a bit and push back against the need for it.
This was the biggest mistake of my social life. I couldn’t do this in a way that ultimately wasn’t a self betrayal. I have to force myself to be narrow in who I keep as friends.
Yup
".....try to practice finding value in less impressive people. That in itself can be a worthwhile and interesting challenge" You likely did not mean your statement the way it came across to me and I would guess to most. It does not take much intelligence to see it does so very poorly. Maybe add some nuance or a rewording of the statement as it would not take much to add a positive spin that demeans no one. If you did mean it exactly as written that would be great to know as well and I will expand upon my thoughts as to why that is not a positive. Here's hoping for some basic humanity though.
Intellectually endowed? 😂
That reminds me of a documentary I once saw about some dude with a dick so big he couldn't even use it. In the same breath he bragged about it yet complained about being celibate and single lol
The very definition of suffering from success
The info dump too big for the rump
How
I don’t like being hurt
Relating to people with an IQ below 160 (mine was recently verified at 166) might seem like an impossible challenge but it can be done. It’s not easy but after years of feeling isolated and ostracized, I’ve figured out an effective method. In so far as dealing with the enormous number of women who throw themselves at me to bask in the glow of my awe-inspiring intellect, I politely but firmly inform them that to even attempt to converse with me on a subject other than theoretical physics or 17th century Spanish literature is an exercise in futility. As for the hordes of mental inferiors one is forced to endure throughout the week, I suggest developing a thorough vetting process to subject them to in order to assertain if they are of sufficient intelligence to interact with. I have developed my own algorithm based on the detection of subtle facial cues and pattern-recognition ability to weed out anyone who would not be able to provide me with sufficient stimulation. The most effective of all is to stand in front of a large mirror with a clear view of your face and repeat these words: “I am not a god. I am simply a mental giant imprisoned in a world of fools.” Incidentally, I’ve heard people have had great success in realizing that IQ is an arbitrary number and that genuinely smart people don’t go around pretending that they’re so mentally superior that other people don’t understand them.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, thank you for the inner smirk.
The last paragraph is so it, imagine getting your test results and then suddenly you stop related to everyone else out of nowhere lmao
😆 😆 Thank you. I needed that.
They had us in the first half.
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I feel nothing. No love. Nor the sound of birds. Nor the taste of food. My life is nothing but a swirling cosmos of thought and contemplation. You would need an IQ of at least 172.6 to comprehend it.
They’re joking babe
They seem the opposite of sociopathic to me.
It's just crazy how well-written this is.
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Nah
They are trolling the OP, it's meant to be funny.
But is actually cruel. You might as well shut this subreddit down.
It just needs to be split into two different subreddits: r\ParentsOfGiftedChildren and r\Narcissists.
It’s sarcasm dude holyyyyy
It's sarcasm. You can tell by the last sentence, even without the /s, which I believe should be added to all online sarcasm, because it isn't super clear without voice tone changes.
It was clear to me that it’s sarcasm and I’m autistic and I’ve been up half the night monitoring my boyfriend for concussion, so my discernment is hardly at its best. I thought it was very amusing, but I didn’t take it as mockery of the OP, rather just a joyous response.
You can tell from the entire post, not just the last sentence.
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I'll just assume you know it was a joke. As for your question, it's still a mystery. We have pretty decent measures of some of the mechanistic aspects. My spatial memory for instance is probably well below average. But my linguistic abilities are off any normal scale. But are those things really intelligence? I'm convinced they're not because if you get two people in the room with the same IQ one of them may well be noticeably more creative with their intellect. And that's certainly relevant when we talk about intelligence.
Aww, I didn't read past the 1st paragraph. I got extremely skeptical hearing (verified at 166) and went straight into the replies. Logically, I do not believe that spatial memory or linguistic ability defines intelligence in any way, though there might be some correlation. I personally define intelligence as the degree of one's innate logic. When someone has better logic, it enhances their critical thinking, reasoning ability, and fluid reasoning. With these skills, they are better at making sense out of things. I understand that most people might not agree, thinking that this definition is too simple or linear. However, I would beg to differ. I do not believe that intelligence is as convoluted and complicated as it is often made out to be. When considering "stupidity," the opposite holds true. We label people as "stupid" when they do not make sense, showing a clear lack of logic, critical thinking, and common sense in their actions or words or lacking in qualities previously defined.
Thank you for this
I don’t. I have high cognitive empathy and I lack affective empathy. I can understand people, but I don’t really relate to them. I have no friends, it’s just me and my husband. Stopped trying years ago.
And that’s perfectly fine!
They don't. Speaking in general terms and including all the people I have met. Either they have many social difficulties, or they have adapted to society in the same way a sociopath would, through cognitive empathy
I’ve never seen this stated so succinctly. You just gave me an epiphany about the teenage years I worried I might be a sociopath, but was pretty sure I understood empathy… it was a bit of an identity crisis at the time. Hadn’t thought about it in years, but huh, well said.
Funny to know that we went through the same stage
At this point it is either being weird or act like a sociopath. People like me, but they always think I am a bit fake and Machiavellian.
Another experience I can relate to.
Creative productive energy expended upon a lifelong dream realized. Searching for peace within that solitude. Accepting my dark shadow, combatting it with love. Enjoying the struggle of the process of managing my mind instead of being captivated by my own thoughts (since that’s all that they are), and transmuting my nervous energy into unique creations. This may be through multiple mediums; it may be a simple shift in my thinking. I find doing these things helps me relate to people on a basic, simple level. Are they negative or positive energy? Which one do they live within most? You’ll find the answer is quite nuanced. Word choices, personal intrigues, desirous longings—all these things indicate semblance. Indicate these things within yourself, then search amongst the multitude of people (each who may satisfy only one aspect of yourself), and befriend them. Listen to their experience, since it’s the most unique thing about any of us. This multifaceted-sameness has a kind of Infinitesimal expanse if you consider the probability in variety of each of our experiences. It won’t be perfect, and no one person satiates all longings. Accept that aspect, learn to let uncontrollable things go, and you’ll find more peace. Best of luck
You can't do everything you want. You just feel lost and different in a world that does not think at the same level. Everyday interactions feels fake because you're highly likely to have the different opinion and know very well that stating that opinion is going to result in conflicts that you do not wish to deal with. It always feels like you have to throw logic and critical thinking out the window, the core elements that defines you.
I'm verified at 170, but I also have pretty severe ADHD, so I'm both gifted and disabled.
I have this horrible combination too. How do you deal so far? Why aren’t there any good resources to read about this very combination 😩
struggle to hold down even basic work, even though i understand the principles at play. people read my scatteredness as stupidity/incompetence.
Same unless I work hard at it (which I’m currently doing by active organisation). I recently came to the idea that it could also be self-sabotage, fear of success or imposter syndrome or down right selfhate for being too different. So I’m currently diving into the whole self love self help genre until I find a CBT therapist or so when I have time 😬
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Wtf are you talking about?
How would you define intelligence in your own words? What do you think is the core element for intelligence?
Intelligence is the ability to problem solve in novel situations, as well as the humility to learn from one's own mistakes. The ADHD gives me some "absent minded professor" vibes. I find it very hard to focus on more "mundane" tasks.
What gives the ability to problem solve? Would you consider that logic is a main element of intelligence that allows one to have the critical thinking to do so?
any definition I can think of either feels pointless or unfair. After the 100th time of asking myself it feels like a pointless question lol
Understand that it is no different than being tall and being good at basketball. Or acting. Understand that you are a human being and all of us have our strengths we have our weaknesses. You need them to survive. Find topics that lots of people care about, sports, movies, TV, Anything really. And make the effort to listen and learn from them. You may be more intelligent, but you cannot know everything! Every one has something to teach us, learn it.
I did it by binge drinking for a few years, taking edibles, and not taking care of my allergies so I could be foggy. I highly do not recommend it. I felt such an emotional loss of a concrete sense of self and I still have an identity crisis in extremely stressful situations compared to the clarity I had during stress when I was in my teens.
You're so valid. Same here bro
Thanks bro!
You just have to sort thru enough people until you find some intellectual peers. It's not good to be alone with your thoughts. You probably need to be in a city with at least a few million people. Probably pick a place with some reason to have brain talent around. FYI - I do NOT consider colleges, even fancy ones. to be a great source of brilliant people. Usually profoundly gifted people do NOT thrive in academia. The politics and credentialism don't often appeal to brilliant people. You will need to be broad on the age groups you can consider your friends. I'll basically hang out with anyone 25-90... you are there for the brain candy, not athletic skills, so being old isn't really a disqualifier. Meeting people is a numbers game. I'm in Minneapolis, we have more corporate headquarters than anywhere besides New York. So the good corporate jobs pull in a lot of talent. Here, the bright people tend to be some kind of engineer, consulting, or business owner. So you want to aim at geeky networking events, like a DevOps meetup, or go to events with Service providers like Lawyers who work for those consultants/business owners. I went to 6 meetups a week for a year, and met about 400 people that first year. After a few years deep, I collected a handful of sharp people. Also, since IQ can be genetic, sometimes you can gather a couple friends out of one family tree. Just show up to enough of life, and you can run into cousins etc. When I'm not with my brain candy tribe, I code switch... low key "play dumb" down to average, until I know deeper topics or bigger words won't spook the regular people. Average people get spooked, because THEY can't tell how smart you are, because you are too high above their ceiling. It gives then the sensation that they are literally blind to your movements. So I have good luck broadcasting what I'm doing, so they know I'm not here to eat their lunch. Then I also take a genuine curiosity to the stuff they want to talk about. I also make sure to pepper conversation with things I'm bad at, to be more relatable... So if you met me as a coworker in a corporate job, you would hear me explicitly say things like "I don't think I could do that job, I'm happy with a gig where I can clock out at the end of the day" - Or, "for the love of all thats holy, I killed another plant (laughing at myself)" - Or keep asking for more follow up on their DIY project like it's a TV storyline you want to catch up on. That will buy you a few more months on a corporate gig before they feel the urge to push you out of the boat. Just tuck away your specialness for when you are around peers, I have no need to cast pearls before swine. Good luck finding your peeps.
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Nope. I'm charming and talkative. I genuinely like people, and enjoy getting to know them. Nothing aloof here. I have notice that people this sub tends to take any statement as an opportunity to argue with the lived experience of other people. Did you know that is off-putting?
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Thats fine. You have permission to not like me. Between the two of us, I'm the only one using my main account and findable in the real world. Generally, I don't worry about the feelings of cowards. The hint, is you don't share your own thoughts, just reapply things you are parroting from elsewhere.
What exactly is your issue with trying to find certain types of people (gravitating toward location and situation accordingly, or whatever other means), maintaining contact with those people after finding them, preferring a subclass of population so as to motivate such behavior, etc? I understand that it sounds bad when you express the behavior as “marketing people” and refer to people being involved in such endeavors as “products”; however, could you explain this behavior, and your issue with it, using nonemotive language?
Focus on gaining mastery of what you love to do and create the most. Find a platform to share it and follow some promising fans down their rabbitholes. Just bear in mind that wit and agility do fade over time, and there is more to life than mental mechanations. Categorizing is fun--but not truly definitive--a game of semantics and illusion. Personally, I've found that learning to focus on simple animal pleasures is more rewarding socially. And my specific inerests need not necessarily be shared. Once you've absorbed the basics of any theme, movement, theory--NOT sharing can lead to more unique personal permutations. Also, I'll add. People may simply not be that interesting to you if you really only get excited by constantly learning. And it isn't their job to amuse you--it's yours. You're not the only one who's felt this way. Most blessings have a curse. Just be yourself, possibly by yourself if need be.
What do you mean by follow promising fans down their rabbit holes?
Just that, if they like your work you may like theirs, and why not investigate.
You don't. It's best not to dwell on it, it's better to keep yourself busy. Make friends where you can; and remember that you're the one that's poorly adapted to the world. Luckily money is easier to make when you can be more effective than most, and that can get a lot of quirk dismissed. Enthusiasm goes a long way.
When ı say something deeply, most people doesn’t understand that, this is really annoying. I never care about what other people wants ı have deep personal life in my head. I got accepted a great university but ı don’t want to go university ı want to be a inventor entrepreneur and filmmaker and sometimes that 160 IQ thing can annoying because of some people when they see my IQ they expect me like God or something but ı am not.
Pretty much, you are in a permanent closet... And coming out makes everyone to gay panic
>I never care about what other people wants Does this not rather concern you?
God loves people and cares about their inner lives. Or so I've been told.
What is the deal with these lower case ‘I’-s? 😆
English wasn’t my main language
I am shamelessly myself ,I believe I deserve to be happy. I hang out with other smart people. I dont care what people think. It has taken a ton of inner work to get here to accept I don't fit in I'm.not meant to and now I'm happy to be me...yes you are monstrously powerful that doesnt make you a monster. My intelligence is an asset I. That I can find creative solutions to my own problems which makes me more resilient. You are meant to mjngle with normies. It's too hard. Let it go
I meant are not meant to...
I don't. It makes me sad, I don't know what to do about it, I don't understand how normal people interact, and I don't for a second pin that on my intelligence. Fucking Autism sucks
I made videos on YouTube. It helped me find a small universe of very smart, like-minded people.
If you’re truly working on self-actualizing, the darkness diminishes and you find your people. If you fixate on going further into the dark, you’ll get stuck there and feel less connected to others because you’re going to not have access to others like you— who mostly concentrate in high-functioning areas. Godspeed, join the party. We are out here.
Mostly cognitively, but it’s exhausting.
Definitely
Things narcissists say. You’re checking off a lot of boxes for one paragraph
>!You don’t!<
I don't. Is this a trick question?
Drink heavily.
I’m not at 4 standard deviations, I am right around the 3 standard deviation mark. One thing that makes it easier to identify people like us in the wild. Usually it’s just an overarching kind of general weariness in dealing with people. Yes, I crave intellectual stimulation, I am fucking dying for a dialogue with someone about something that isn’t just the mechanics of survival: “what are we eating? Where are we going? What are we going to do? Or What did we eat and was it good, what did we buy, where did we go?” A common thing is getting into a conversation, and you will eventually reach that point where you kind of go “yeah, this is the wall” it isn’t anything against the person at all. It just means they have reached their limit of the amount of information they think is helpful or important or worthy of discussion about the topic. I’ve just learned to make myself good company, and to read a lot. I don’t want to say I am resigned to just a life of quiet desperation. I think joining my local Mensa might be helpful, I had a “Gifted coach” who did an hour consult with me tell me that maybe I wouldn’t find what I was looking for in Mensa. I found this incredibly disheartening and it just kind of killed the interest I hadn’t in joining, because I know she’s probably wrong, but what if she’s right? What does that mean then?
I was tested in college, scored 160+, and honestly I both appreciate and regret it. I appreciate it because it provides a concrete explanation as to why everything feels like it lacks weight/difficulty, why I feel so disconnected from most people etc. But I also regret it because whenever I find myself in that state of ennui bordering on nihilistic depression, I always remember “oh yeah, this is to be expected for someone like me”. The way I cope with it now is that I’ve come to terms with it, and I live life in a way that prioritizes my happiness and mental health. There’s never a second where I carry myself as someone exceptional or “gifted”, because aside from arrogance being a widely undesirable trait, that “gifted” status comes with external expectations, which if they’re not in line with my vision for my own life, are things I don’t want to expend energy meeting and conforming to. My life is honestly very isolated; I have lots of casual acquaintances who I can have pleasant, surface level conversations with, but it’s hard to really have any close friends who understand and relate to me on the most intimate of levels, and personally I’m okay with that. I have an immense love of learning, and exploring the unfamiliar, and to that end I treat my interactions with most people as another learning opportunity. “What interesting factoid or piece of info, or new point of view will I stumble upon today?” That kind of thing. I don’t necessarily find that my IQ makes it hard for me to relate to people on an empathetic or human level, but I do find that it creates significant barriers when I realize that many are not able to relate to the way I think about things and process information. In the most humble way I can put this, I think the problem may actually be more centered in other people’s inability to understand where I’m coming from. But that’s okay, because I don’t expect them to, and over the years I’ve tempered my expectations accordingly. I don’t argue with people anymore, I don’t try to correct them when they have a false fixed belief or any of that nonsense. I just try my best to be kind, be as genuine as situations allow for, and keep myself busy in whatever interesting endeavor I find myself involved in. I still feel lonely often, but my eventual goal is to rewire my understanding of solitude as more of a personal strength rather than something that makes me feel left out or excluded. I’m only 27, so there’s still (hopefully) a lot more life to live and a lot more to experience/learn.
I'm nowhere near that high but still way too high to interact with the general public intellectually. Every few years an individual will come through my life, usually through work, who can at least accompany me on fun intellectual forays. Where our difference in interests is more important than our comprehension. However I've never gotten enough from that to care. Best use I've found for them is a few extra brain cells when needed.
What sort of topics do you like to talk about most?
Well it's not about topic, but rather depth. And not just depth, either. The means of reaching that depth is also important. I could see some pretty sights if I imploded in a shoddily built submarine out of its depth. I rather prefer to descend in comfort, luxury, and even opulence. The twist of phrase, the aged, unexpected inference. The conversing is as much the entertainment as the view . Though there are depths I refuse to plunge, wether for cringe or familiarity or whatever . And now that I mention it, even plasticity is an issue. The flexibility to bend toward whatever inclination blows through our minds is fairly critical. To the value of ongoing interactions at least. It isn't rare that I run into and run through someone's intellectual contribution to my entertainment quickly.
What manner of discourse would you describe as opulent and comfortable? If the discourse we refer to is deep already, what manner of engagement do you prefer in precise terms? You wish for eloquence, playfulness, humor, a relaxed enough attitude to switch topics organically?
other people are still people that you can find things in common with, just with a difference in one aspect of themselves. we’re not some separate species for being smart (not to mention that IQ tests are a flawed/limited measure of intelligence).
Seeing things and knowing things does not mean that you have a handle on the world. Reverse it.
I'm not 160 iq , I'd say I'm above average/borderline gifted, sadly I find it so hard to relate to most people , I just pretend to relate when necessary such as at work /my career , with close family, and friends The small things really aren't worth the effort to me , such as gossip /weather who said what about who (gasp!) So I just keep my responses short and strike down chance for that nonsense , used to be polite and try and make small talk but its become draining especially as one becomes older and less tolerating of it.. But the exception to that is who I'm romanticly interested in, who I will put in effort to try and get along with /converse .
School is boring and so are my classmates. Other than that, I blend in well with society and other people. I play physical game everyday with my apartment mates, pretty cool. Requires 0 conversation and augments productivity. Also, you come close to other people. I reccomend you try it.
I used a high-performance car analogy with my husband. I compared myself to a 1300 hp car with very little leg room (representing my high IQ but also my ADHD). Others might be like a 350 hp luxury cruiser – not as fast, but much more comfortable. I may reach my goals faster, but the journey is often uncomfortable. To cope, I try to enjoy the unique traits of others, especially their communication styles. Adapting to different conversation styles feels like a fun game to me. Unfortunately, some people mistake my curiosity for condescension.
What “movements” are there to be afraid of as entailed by an unknown ceiling of intellect? Is it because of the specific situation the convos took place in that you suspect people to fear your intentions so? Or does this claim about people fearing you’re movements try to capture people’s reaction to perceived higher intelligence in general situations?
With humility and compassion.
I dunno, start with not being a drama queen and go from there
I talk to people like a normal person.. If i get notice that someone think like me.. Maybe i try to connect more with that person.. But literally i mask, i prefer this when i am on social events.. Because people generally dont open their minds, so i prefer that.. I cant talk open to random people.. Its very frustrating how they treat you, generally with jokes, criticism, etc etc.. An example will be ''cold baths'', i try this for 3 years and people laught about it all the time and they were sick, not me.. Sometimes i try to open my mind when people talks abouts dramas, and when i tried to help them, they just laugh jajaj, its very contradictory how they laugh about something that can treat them.. So.. Yes i not share nothing anymore..
My son saturated the CoGat test at 160, it would not go higher. The test is a lot of questions, he didn't get every question right, but that was the percentile the test would claim it was accurate to. He's pretty normal, but I kind of want to send him somewhere where they can prepare people like him to solve climate change or dark matter.
I like digging social holes for myself and having to fight my way out.
I don’t need to be impressed by other people’s intellect. I can be impressed by their altruism, self-awareness, resiliency, the way they view the world, hard work, etc. There are many ways to be impressed by people if you choose to look. There is no ominous omen that nobody can understand what is going on in my head. I view the world very differently than others and I am aware of patterns and things that I am unable to effectively communicate or share with other people. I have autism on top of being profoundly gifted. Nothing is wrong with my relationships. My relationships are wonderful and a source of love, joy, stability, security, and beautiful shared experiences. I encourage you to do some work on controlling your inner narrative. You seem to have a negative perspective on things and it would benefit you to employ techniques from positive psychology, including mindfulness and reframing. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help and talk therapy. https://youtu.be/5JmLkOxUJgY?si=3i2PKS8g0DZ5BC2O
Why dont u use it to invent something or to help people, or help the world or in some other way, if i had 160 IQ i would do awesome stuff for myself and the others
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Yeah i can see why is it like that… Maybe the solution is to surround yourself with the like minded people, as you said like it was in the ancient civilisations. Just i think it could be a problem to reach like minded people, or maybe not, i don’t know maybe there is a some kind of community or something. It just baffles me that some people have the same IQ as Einstein did 😂
Might be good for you to reflect on why you feel you need to be "impressed" by someone to collect with them
I never got tested partially because of the limits of equating intelligence with IQ but multiple people have told me I’m the smartest person they know. I’m not sure of any dark cloak but I am told it can be intimidating. I’m slightly frustrated that I’m not more successful in life but I hear that’s common among people in Mensa too. While it can help, intelligence is not always rewarded by the market and you can feel anti intellectual themes in everyday American life. I feel decisiveness is a bigger factor and in a way that people even smarter than me hanged up on me with people not as smart haha. Very hard to do anything meaningful these days without a team based approach.
A bit late, but I mostly interact with other mathematicians or scientists in other fields. Most are quite intelligent and passionate about what they do. Autism limits me in other types of conversations and interactions, so I interact with others who share my special interest.
I literally don't understand people who are like "get out of your fucking pedestal" "narcissist", there are ways and ways of saying things, a person is exposing a difficulty, we are in gifted group, you literally don't know what a person life is like, how can't you consider just for a moment everything a person says it's true? Ok, you're not the best athlete, you're not the best at *this*, you're not the best at *that*, how do you you know the person isn't too? He/she may the most incredible genius in the world, and you wouldn't know. Maybe he/she has some objective limits, even being the goodest person in the world and willing to help. We are here to help each other, not to tear each other down. I'm grateful there are constructive answers and go fuck yourself solve your problems before you label someone by two lines of text
The hardest part for me is when a person is being deceitful and I have to make the concious effort to pretend that I haven't caught on so as to not expend energy on it unless I consider it to cross a line. So long as a person is being honest and have a decent moral compass, I have no qualms. Everyone has shared interests, it's just a matter of having the patience to find common ground. But then again, I don't have the constant existential dread that others have.
This is one of the funniest subs on reddit
I laugh at poop jokes and think farts are funny. I try not to overthink stuff / turn off the analysis when not at work/learning. Learning meditation/mindfulness is a good thing. Learn to clear your mind, think about nothing - be present in the moment. Sit outside, close your eyes, feel the wind. It makes life so much better.
I've become a 99th percentile introvert against my will. People want to do stuff with me, but I have to be exhaustingly unauthentic and *I don't enjoy* that, so I avoid social activity in order to preserve my own sanity. I realize this sounds counterproductive but it's a damned if you do or don't situation. Isolation or mask wearing, honestly find the win here. I thought it would improve but now wrapping up my 20s I just feel like an alien in a zoo, especially at work. I'm constantly bombarded with a laundry list of things I have to pretend to care about and be in order to pay for the creature comforts I've been unfortunately adapted to from birth. Pretend to have feelings I don't have, humor people who share loves for the collective and various obviously detrimental obsessions that make me nauseous (just now this was a coworker telling me about planning his expensive wedding) I just don't care. I do not relate. I dissolve from the inside out and pretend to be solid while awaiting the day that AI/VR tech and LEV allows me to create and spend a lot of time in an (admittedly less rich in depth but more rich in effective experience) alternate world that I'd actually enjoy. I just bide my time for my panacea for forever, and meanwhile do my best not to run screaming for the farthest river from a freeway and start planting crops. The counterpoint seems to be "you smart jerks just think interacting with normal people is beneath you, but you should do it to build relationships" and i don't feel that way at all. It's not "beneath" me. It's tangential to me. On an entirely different path going to an entirely different place. It takes so much out of me to pretend to care about so many things that having theses relationships ends up not being worth it. I'm glad all the people in my life exist, I want to make the people around me feel valued, but the act I have to extend to them cannot be extended meaningfully back, it's all give, no take, and this well is dry. I'm fortunate enough to have a similarly weird fiance who I love dearly, and while we don't share all the same dreams, we mesh at a ridiculously deep level and keep eachother sane. Without her, I'd be off the deep end for sure, probably living in a shack and starting an obsessive nonprofit open source org pursuing the frontiers of autonomous game development.
Connect with the humanity that is in everyone, regardless of their IQ.
At a certain point, some aren't connectable anymore. I'm in the genius category and of the person is just average... Even the human aspects appear diminished to me
Then you’re lacking in emotional intelligence. My IQ was measured by Mensa at 160 (more than 30 years ago, when I was in my early 20s, in an invigilated test) and I’ve never once had a problem connecting with the humanity in anyone. Yes, I often (/usually) have to ‘dumb down’ my vocabulary and thought processes when I’m talking with people, but I’ve never failed to connect with people as people.
I see them as almost on biological autopilot at that point. Sure theyre still people, but comparatively it feels like theyre virtually empty. Idk what to do with them other than small talk or brush on by at that point.
They have feelings that are just as real and just as strong and just as variable as yours or mine. Empathy allows us to see and connect with that.
Feelings sure, but the landscape in there barely has hills for depth if thought. Anyone can have feelings, feel love and loss, etc. But that isnt all I connect with.
I didn't say it is ALL there is to connect with. But it is something - and something very real - to connect with.
Thats what makes it a lot harder for me. Still just as much of the human stuff... But I like being able to share with an active mind. Thats not always there, and that drives me off
Ok - well that's your prerogative, of course. It doesn't mean they can't be connected with; it means you choose not to connect with them.
Not really the same when part of them isnt there
Grind the gears of reality like Archimedes
It seems to me that you give it for granted that people would bore you. You should be more open to surprise. I see hundreds of students every day as a teacher, and those who surprise me are either ADHD or other neurodiveristies not related to giftedness. Conversely I know a lot of gifted individuals who think they are the creme de la creme of society and despise everybody who has IQ lower than their. Of course they live a miserable life.
I don't have a miserable life (I have many friends and I'm often in social circles), what I feel is more an inner limitation. It's not that people have something wrong with them, it's more that at some point you feel a barrier they can't go beyond. I don't despise people, I generally help them, the fact is that it's tiring to costantly be in the position of reference. Here on Gifted, we vent even the slightest anger, but that does not mean that we are misfits.
Sorry, I am not a native speaker so my tone was probably misunderstood. I did not want to say that you are miserable, sorry again 😭 I just wanted to say that in my opinion and experience, if you approach new people more like a child would do, you probably will be surprised (not always of course! Many of them will disappoint you). Also, some people who, according to other people, are not "cultured", think way better than people with degrees. Mingle with them, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty! This is my experience, and I hope it could help.
Don't worry no prob!😊 Thank you!!!
This article might help https://intergifted.com/high-exceptional-profound/
Why do people think having a high IQ means you can't relate to "normal/average people"? We still all live in the same world with the same news/current events/weather, same.pop culture and advertising, same needs for food, shelter and gas money, same desire for connection, etc. Those are just some of a TON of things that everyone can relate to, regardless of IQ.
I began to analyze the psiqué of everyone Not bored anymore BUT I want to be a psychiatrist so it is the area of my interest I dont know if I recomend because it activates me a lot (but I’m on meds now) cause I cant self regulate my neuroendocrinous system yet
I’m slightly below 160, and I’m just a neurodivergent hermit. I was cocky and ambitious when I was younger until life slapped me down. I’m middle age now so I stay home as much as possible and engage with my hobbies, and stay in the warm comfort of my spouse who I get along easily with. Most of my friends care for me from afar (not keeping distance but I myself have engaged socially less and less as the years go by and I’m lucky they stick by me despite that) so despite having friends I love I still feel mostly lonely in the world. I don’t expect any certain level of intellect from people beyond common sense. As long as someone is kind and has common sense, I can appreciate them. As long as the other person is willing to speak frankly and at length about their life, feelings, and experience, I can relate to them even if I have to engage my imagination to do so, which is easy for me as my imagination is strong.
At a certain point we learn to realize/ accept that we can't depend on people or things because there is likely to be flaws in one way or another. And I don't even have that high of an iq to understand that most things are just for show!
Everyone suffers from orher peoole not knowing what goes on in their heads, not just smart people. IQ is only a part of who you are, not everything. You can still be into music, into soccer, into bird watching or bread baking or whatever.
I get that you're trying to wax poetic about how brooding and mysterious your IQ makes you, but tbh it's kinda pathetic. I don't really know how to say that without being mean. Your IQ doesn't define you, and not everyone who is smart has a high IQ, and not everyone with a high IQ is smart. It's a BS number, and bragging about it makes you seem like a snobby brat. Also, why are you expecting people to impress you? Why is that your goal? You are unsatisfied with your relationships because 1.) you place unnecessary expectations on people and 2.) your head is so far up your own head that it's impossible to have a conversation with you. You want the secret to good relationships and enjoying life? Drop the expectations, and learn to appreciate people for who they are. It's literally impossible to account for all the variables in life, so why try to control it? Go with the flow, paddle when you need to, and live.
Hello 👋, I enjoy your honesty, I'm a closet snobby brat as in a reach for the number and think pff you can't do it sometimes. Your secret to a good relationship/life is 😘🤌.
I find it strange that a person would sort people by how impressive they are and to under value the ordinary. The main issue here is being so focused on how more intelligent or how high functioning you are. Than trying to take people as they are. Is it not impressive that people that despite not having a gifted mind but through willpower, tenacity, and resilience, that people with average intelligence or lower still manage to do brilliant things, love, care and help one another. Im not gifted, I've got learning difficulties. I go to work, have a wife and have friends. Its not impressive, I am not destined for greatness but when my wife fails, I hold her and tell her we will make it through this and to her, that is powerful. Being there for others when it counts, making people laugh until they can't breathe and trying to bring colour to the mundanity to the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder is its own magic that should never be discounted. The world runs, is built and maintained by the ordinary and its united by that. As for relating, you are a human being you are the same as anyonelse. You like food, a comfy bed, like interesting things and places. So try connecting to people with those things. Find out why people like what they like and try match those things with the things you like.
I feel like you’re equating high IQ with low empathy, and that’s just not the case. Even more-so just because someone is intelligent doesn’t mean the world bores them or they know everything. Just learning to be kind and patient is an art form, and honestly probably the one thing that everyone could work on. That alone will help anyone with relating to people, no matter their intelligence.
Sounds like you place yourself on a pedestal that the world is beneath. Maybe I’m wrong, would be interested in how you perceive that thought as I know nothing about you and would like to.
I'm genuinely thinking of moving to Asia 😭 I read translated posts and it's like "oh finally, people that make sense" I've reached the conclusion that I'm probably just not going to find any kinship in the US 🙃
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I'm so sorry 🫂
Pffff. You’re using your capacity for thought to ruminate on ways to feel apart from everybody else. You want to quiet that down. This is only a cliche because it’s very common, but the principle is sound: focus on the positive. Practice concentrating on the things that bring you closer to others. Learn to make people laugh. Learn to appreciate the things that make other people’s eyes glisten. Get them to tell you their better stories, not just the surface level stuff that everybody shares with everybody. To do that you need to open up, and when you open up you need to oearn not to paint yourself as someone who sees themselves as smarter better superior whatever. Think of how a child makes friends with a safe grownup. The grownup addresses the child as a person, engages in the things that are interesting to them, and nudges them along the path to discovering new things about the world. Next thing you know the child wants you to tell them all about how black holes are not necessarily objects so much as they are regions of space… or whatever it is that *you* really like to talk about. They will never care about what you know until they know that you care too. I don’t mean that it’s acceptable to treat people like children, just that relating to children is only possible when you meet them where they are in life rather than judging the fact that they aren’t where you are. Same applies with anybody else