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How to react when you meet someone smarter than you?

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by TLC, Feb 11, 2014.

  1. TLC

    TLC Guest

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    I don't know how to react, I just go insane thinking 'why can't I be that intelligent?'
     
  2. willycubed28

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    Here is the thing. They are not smarter than you. You are probably more smart in other areas, and this is okay. You are intelligent in other areas.
     
  3. TLC

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    Hey, that's some good advice, I never thought of it that way.
     
  4. BookDragon

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    That doesn't offer a lot of comfort, however, if you don't know what is is you're better at or don't think you're good at anything...

    Anyway, you have two types of smart people. Decent people, and The Rest.

    A decent smart person, you don't need to react to. You'll notice, they'll notice and they won't rub it in your face. The rest, don't deserve a different reaction, since they are too up themselves to notice anyway.
     
  5. willycubed28

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    Believe me I had your way of thinking for a long time. I thought that some of my friends were more smart than me. Then I was told "You are intelligent. You are intelligent in social things, theatre..etc..."
     
  6. TLC

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    I do think of myself as a smart person, and I'd like to consider myself a 'decent smart person', I was also top of my classes at school in some subjects.

    Then I met people that go to Cambridge university.......

    Now I feel envy and inferiority.
     
  7. BookDragon

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    Why? I've met plenty of people who went to cambridge and only a handful were worth the time of day, brains or otherwise.
     
  8. mbanema

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    Everyone brings something different to the table. :slight_smile:
     
  9. TLC

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    Yeah, arrogant smart guys are the worse,.....they can make you feel inferior. It sucks.

    But yes, at the end of the day, everyone does bring something different to the table. :slight_smile:
     
  10. Skaros

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    I feel inferior... But I only focus on science, biology and chemistry to be more precise. I could care less if people are more smart than me in other aspects. Do you think I care if you know everything about the civil war and how to cook a perfect pie?
     
  11. Sorceress of Az

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    Personalities are half of what makes me attracted to a person,
    Inteligence is one thing I find attractive.

    I have taken several IQ test, got a super genius level IQ, so if I met some one smarter then me I would be thinking: "OMG, this person is so smart I'm getting a brainer." lol
     
  12. Gen

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    "Can't say I ever have...."

    Seriously, intelligence is subjective. None of us are omniscient or completely superior; we all have very distinct and unique skills and weaknesses. Fortunately, there isn't one section of lives or careers that we will ever be required to be the best at everything. Focus on the positives within your ability and the goals that you wish to achieve and don't allow yourself to be boggled down by any other unnecessary insecurities.
     
  13. Simple Thoughts

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    Don't let someone being 'smarter' get you down.

    Everyone has their own qualities to bring. Besides even intelligence can be broken down to areas. Some people are socially intelligent, some people are really good with hands on tasks, and other people are book smart :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

    It's really silly to get yourself down over that. It's easy though. I spent a long time thinking I was dumb. Hell, I still on occasion catch myself doing it, but I'm better about it than I used to be :slight_smile:
     
  14. Argentwing

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    As someone who (reluctantly) can claim "smarter than average" I can say the best thing to do is learn from them. I've been in advanced courses for most of my life, and even so, there were plenty of people in there way smarter than I am. Granted a few were extremely arrogant about it, but sometimes they were right, or saw a crazy solution to a problem that nobody else conceived of.

    Talking to "smart people" doesn't have to be an us vs. them battle either. If the supposed smart people act as smart as they're told they are, they will work with you rather than lord intelligence over you. Because like the first reply said, they aren't better across the board. **The way I think about things can be pretty different. Sometimes it's great (I am my own spell check and can talk about the intricacies of history or astrodynamics for hours) and sometimes it sucks (social skills do NOT come naturally to me to the point where I worry I brush up against the autism spectrum). So make friends with the people who know big words and maybe they'll share the meanings with you. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
     
    #14 Argentwing, Feb 11, 2014
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2014
  15. AudreyB

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    Okay, gonna let out my ugly side here again. But EC is about as tolerant a place on the web as I have ever been to and I am hoping that also translates to forgiveness.

    But in all modesty, I have yet to encounter the person who is. I've never been tested, but I'm certain my IQ must be up in the ~160 range.

    That said, it's horrible. Yes, horrible. I know that sounds like, "Pity me, I'm so smart", but I swear it's not. It's genuine disgust and despair. I honestly despise my own high intelligence. If only because of how isolated it makes me. People always come to me for the answers, but I have no one to go to for answers. People who do genuinely try to help me with insight are woefully inept to the task, as anything they offer I have inevitably, infallibly considered and discarded well in advance of their "epiphany". That further intensifies my despair because it strikes me that I must be completely beyond all help. I've gone through a couple of therapists that way and see no point in trying another.

    Couple other pitfalls about it include always having play the phony and "dumb" myself down just to be able to interact with other people. If I try to be "myself" around others, I get looked at as if I had just descended from outer space. (This one isn't as bad, since I'm more or less always "performing", about a lot of things including my gender identity/sexuality; I sometimes feel that there really is no me, that my whole "personality" is charade and facade.) The other is the fact that, because everything is so easy for me, my abilities are never challenged to really achieve my potential. I'm speaking mostly academically here, the standards of which seem such a farce to me. For example, I recall the very first college essay I handed in, my professor and honors advisor accused me of plagiarism and threatened to have me expelled. He claimed that in his 30 years of tenured professorship, he had never seen an undergrad paper nearly so advanced. I was genuinely surprised, since I sincerely thought I had simply handed in a "college paper" (which was written the night before) and hadn't done anything really remarkable. At any rate, I directed him to my other professors who were able to confirm my writing style in the paper I turned in and got him off my back. (He only gave me a B, though, ostensibly out of sour grapes.) Since then, I've learned to "dumb down" my college assignments, and probably as a result of that, I have contempt for and find no real inspiration in them.

    So, am I a genius? Probably. But don't buy into the status of what that's supposed to entail. In this life, industry, stamina and single-mindedness are all immensely more indicative factors of achievement (none of which I possess). For myself personally, I feel I've gone absolutely nowhere with my supposedly-prodigious talents. (Only as of several weeks ago, a few months after turning 37, do I feel like I've finally achieve anything of merit professionally.) I spend nearly all of my free time in bed, alone, playing on the internet. If that doesn't give one perspective on how much one should truly be "intimidated" by high intelligence, I don't know what does. So, hopefully, I've offered something to help the OP feel better about himself.

    I'll go crawl under some furniture now.
     
  16. Mlpwoof

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    I might be the non decent smart one... But I rub it in a soft hearted kind of way to the people I know won't care
     
  17. justjade

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    I prefer to think of them as being of a different type of intelligence. I like it when I meet someone who knows more than I do or who is more cultured. It gives me a chance to learn, which is really enjoyable for me.
     
  18. Huma

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    If I find them attractive, I gaze at them with amazement, speechless. If they're unattractive, I neither react nor think they're smarter than me. :dry:
     
  19. Nikky DoUrden

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    I don't agree with the IQ definition of intelligence. Feynman had 130. nuff said.
     
  20. chivalrous

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    I usually just compliement them on there intellect every chance I get.
    Beyond that nothing changes as i would most likely beat them at other qualities.