I’m writing about being a weirdo and how I mask it on the daily. Here is yesterday’s post about how I pretty much keep my trap shut about, well, almost everything. In particular, about intelligence/empathy.
I was trying to tease out why people react so negatively about someone plainly saying they were intelligent/empathetic in a way they wouldn’t with someone who says they are very good at basketball/playing piano, etc. I was saying because the ability to do something is more concrete and measurable, but I think it’s also because…how do I say this?
OK. I’m just going to muse it out as I write.
Everyone has a brain of varying function. I don’t think that’s too controversial to say. But, almost everyone has mobility to a certain extent, too. We can talk about the latter (thoughtfully), but there doesn’t seem a way to talk about the former. I have seen people try to talk about their intelligence in forums while qualifying it every way left of Sunday, and people still jumped on them.
“Oh, you think you’re so smart, do you??”
“There’s someone smarter than you!”
“You’re not the smartest person in the room.”
I’m paraphrasing, but this was in response to someone carefully saying they were oftentimes ahead of other people in figuring things out (in a work blog). The commenter was judicious about what he was saying, extremely so. So many qualifiers about with the gist being that he worked twice as fast as other people and had to find ways to talk to them so they could understand what he was saying.
I nodded my head sympathetically as Iwas reading. I thought he had put it very carefully and underplayed it as much as he could and still get his point across. But it wasn’t enough for most commenters and there were several angry comments chastizing him for saying anything at all. This was on a blog that skews progressive, which I think is actally part of the problem. There’s been a push in that demographic to downplay anything intelligence-related, including college. Again, I’m talking mostly about the Ask A Manager website. I’ve noticed in the last few years, there’s been an uptick in saying college is overrated. But, at the same time, everyone saying this has gone to college. I find the disconnect amusing, quite frankly.
The other one I find funny is how people will say very loudly that nepotism is bad! But, if they tell a colleague about their (the commenter’s) kid’s job search, that’s completely different! WHich falls into this post quite nicely, actually.
Back to the issue of mentioning intelligence/empathy. It’s wild to me in a country that is very much about individuality and doing things for oneself, it’s verboten to talk about one’s own intelligence or empathy.
I do understand, especially with the latter, how it’s the ones who aren’t empathetic (or at least not in a good way) who like to trumpet that they are empaths. It’s like any other specific aspect of one’s being, really. The louder someone talks about it (and the longer), the less they are actually notable for that aspect. Think ‘nice guy’ or ‘vegan’ or ‘Crossfit’. Putting the first aside, when you are in a niche demo, you’re an outlier to begin with. Add to that the propensity to talk endlessly about any one thing is annoying no matter what, and no wonder that people wince when hearing/seeing the word ’empath’.
Look. I have said in the past that I don’t think being highly empathetic is a good thing. I don’t. And, I know it’s born of abuse and a shitty childhood (to a certain extent). But to say that it’s all bad and that there’s nothing good about it and that it’s not possible to know what other people are feeling is, in a word, bullshit. I read and hear so much fear in people’s voices when they say things like this. (Or write them.)
Side note: I have known things about people before they’ve told me those things themselves. I have learned not to tell people what I know about them before they tell me because, understandably, it freaks them out. When I was in my twenties, I knew when people were pregnant before they told me. And I knew the gender assumed at birth. I was only wrong about the latter with my nibling, and they turned out to be NB decades later–so I wasn’t exactly wrong in the long run.
I’ve also had times when I’ve known something was going to happen seconds before it did–usually in sports. It happened often enough that my mother said I should place bets on sports. She was joking, and I explained it didn’t work that way.
People in response to that comment I mentioned were bordering on nasty in trying to put the commenter in his place. They took great offense that he thought he was smarter than his coworkers, which, I mean, someone has to be? I was on the commenter’s side, but did not say anything because I no longer comment on that website for a variety of reasons.
This is why I don’t say things to the gen pub, things that I can only say to close friends. Now that I have accepted that I have to continually tailor my comments to the audience (which, yes, everyone has to do, but in my case, it is a a matter of simplifying things). That’s one reason I have good friends who are highly intelligent/empathetic as well. It makes things easier on me when I don’t have to explain what area fairly simple ideas (to me).
And, yes, there are people smarter than me. I’m not disputing that. But in any given situation, I will be one of the smartest people in the room. That’s just the way it is. I wish I could say that without sounding like a jerk, but I just cannot. People are so quick to tear down brains, which I get if someone is just like, “My IQ is 200!” with nothing to back it up. (IQ is bullshit, BTW.)
Here’s the thing, though. Me not saying I’m fucking intelligent does not change the fact that I’m fucking intelligent or that I’m usually one of the smartest people in the room. No, I don’t need to say it often if ever, but I don’t understand why it has to be a big deal if I do say it. It’s bragging in a way that saying I’m an accomplished athlete isn’t. Which I’m not, by the way.
I do think it’s in part because intelligence is something that you’re born with. I mean, so is athletic prowess, but you have to work on the latter in order to reach a point where you can, say, join the NBA.
I’m tired. More later.