# A Poll: How Many People See Themselves In This Linked Article?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 8, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463 "2005-03-08T00:33:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@ninetypercent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ninetypercent)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/41 "2005-03-10T00:13:56Z")
> [@pinkfreud](#):
>
> I doubt that you’ll get many people who will admit on a messageboard that they are greatly gifted. In my observation, such an admission is likely to result in accusations of elitism or arrogance.
>
> It’s odd that it’s okay for a person to admit having inherited genes that make her extremely tall, but if she were to admit that she inherited genes that make her extremely intelligent or extremely talented, many people would react with resentment.
>
> There was a discussion in the Mensa _Bulletin_ a while back on the issue of whether or not to mention Mensa membership on one’s résumé. There were quite a few horror stories about the reaction of potential employers to the revelation that an applicant is a “genius.”
Intelligent or talented? What’s the different.
Excelling at schoolwork is a talent. To say that that excelling at schoolwork equals intelligence **is** arrogant and elitist. Tall people are obviously tall, relative to the average height. There’s little room for variation in that observation. I can play quake better than 99.9% of the global population. Am I profoundly gifted? Are other people automatically deficient because they are uninterested in playing quake, or can’t play as well as me?
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### Author:  [@RancidYakButterTeaParty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RancidYakButterTeaParty)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/42 "2005-03-10T00:17:24Z")
I’ve always been slightly above average, but nowhere close to the people mentioned in the article. Education was not that important in my family. I am 29, and was the first person anywhere in my family, extended to the gills if you like, that ever graduated from college. I think this caused me to realize too late that I had more potential than most of my siblings. I was never pushed to succeed in school, or given any extra opportunities, such as a gifted program.
The one thing that has helped me, I think, is the fact that I continually want to learn something new. I know I am not the smartest person in the world, so I am more than willing to learn from the rest of you.
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### Author:  [@Tenar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenar)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/43 "2005-03-10T01:19:13Z")
Re the OP, I’m not even close. Bright enough for Mensa (barely), too emotionally screwed to make anything of myself; note that the emotional problems had nothing to do with intelligence, except in the sense that people with bipolar disorder are frequently fairly bright.
Pardon the small hijack, but this was the paragraph that struck me the most in the linked article (regarding the 30-year-old aspiring musician):
> [@](#):
>
> His mother sees things differently. “I consider him a failed prodigy, and with no joy do I say that. I am devastated,” she says. “I am disappointed. My heart is broken.” His failure to do more with his gifts, she says, is “the world’s loss.” In her view, he is deluding himself with a life of trivial pursuits: "He is jovial. He is amiable. He is full of self-deception.
Words do not exist to express my disgust with this woman. (Well, they do, but this is not the Pit.) She calls herself a mother, but from the looks of things, she would rather have seen her son miserable and productive (and impressing people) rather than ordinary and happy. I suspect rejecting her ambitions was a survival tactic on his part.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/44 "2005-03-10T01:28:02Z")
I always wished for giftedness and other ways of “specialness”, but I fear I’m just a regular, average, run-of-the-mill schmoe. I have been described as talented, but I can’t accept I am because I know I can’t hold a light to _truly_ talented people. I’ve been described as smart, but again–this is a relative descriptor. I may be smarter than average, but _smart_? I don’t know.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/45 "2005-03-10T02:25:40Z")
I think the problem is that when you are that smart, most normal work seems stupid and tedious. Not every math genius becomes John Nash. A lot end up working mundane (if high paying) jobs toing actuary stuff for an insurance company or building financial models for an investment bank. A lot of them just become bitter resentful hired brains that are put in a room and fed numbers to crunch. Or they approach any career much in the same way I might approch a summer job at McDonalds - a tedious chore working with mental inferiors that offers no challange or satisfaction.
Not only do people resent them, I think many of them simply just aren’t interested in other people because they seem dull and uninteresting by comparison.
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### Author:  [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/46 "2005-03-10T02:36:51Z")
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> So, yeah, I struggle a lot with myself with regards to expectations and where I am now. I was the ‘smartest’ guy in my class for a long time, and now I’m a college drop-out. That’s hard enough to reconcile in my own head, but I also know that I’m disapointing my family to various degrees as well.
Interesting post. Obviously bright, but have you been assessed for adult attention deficit disorder, or bipolar/anxiety disorder NOS? No offense intended.
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/47 "2005-03-10T03:52:15Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> I think the problem is that when you are that smart, most normal work seems stupid and tedious.
In my experience, I’m harder to bore than pretty much anyone I know. My problem is more likely to be overfascination than boredom or tedium.
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### Author:  [@Tamryne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamryne)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/48 "2005-03-10T05:09:31Z")
I can kind of see myself in that article. I have never been exceptionally talented, but at my school in kindergarden they test everyone to see who should go into the gifted/talented classes, and I was one of four who got in, and the only girl.
Beyond that, I can pick up on things quickly, and I have been reading rather difficult books since I was able to get my hands onto them (I learned to read in less than a month).
But, I really am not phenomenally talented, and I really have not been teased or accepted into many talented summer camps. Mostly because I am not a good test taker, and rather poor, but I am graduating early, and could have graduated two years early if parents had let me :mad: .
And the college scholarships are rolling in!
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### Author:  [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/49 "2005-03-10T10:55:35Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> I think the problem is that when you are that smart, most normal work seems stupid and tedious. Not every math genius becomes John Nash. A lot end up working mundane (if high paying) jobs toing actuary stuff for an insurance company or building financial models for an investment bank. A lot of them just become bitter resentful hired brains that are put in a room and fed numbers to crunch. Or they approach any career much in the same way I might approch a summer job at McDonalds - a tedious chore working with mental inferiors that offers no challange or satisfaction.
>
> Not only do people resent them, I think many of them simply just aren’t interested in other people because they seem dull and uninteresting by comparison.
That sounds like a load of rubbish to me. I’m an actuary and my job involves far more than sitting in a room being “fed numbers to crunch”. It’s more than being highly numerate - you also have to be able to solve problems, assess risks and be able to explain complex concepts clearly to companies and clients (both orally and in writing).
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### Author:  [@BobNewby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobNewby)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/50 "2005-03-10T11:16:59Z")
I think of myself as pretty average, although I started reading quite early.
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### Author:  [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/51 "2005-03-10T12:00:51Z")
I’m quite intelligent and have always tested with a high IQ. I remain unimpressed by this because I have no innate talents that I could develop with my intelligence. I’m not a musical genius. I’m not an incredible artist. I’m terrible at math. I’m not naturally creative or inventive. So what’s the point of having above average intelligence if it doesn’t _do_ anything?
A friend of mine and I were talking about this one day; she’s got a similar IQ to mine. We were talking about MENSA and how we both could qualify, but neither of us had ever joined. As she put it, “We’d be the dumbest smart people in the room.” That’s an over-simplification, but that’s how we both felt. What would either of us bring to the party?
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### Author:  [@ninetypercent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ninetypercent)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2005, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/52 "2005-03-10T20:43:27Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#):
>
> I’m quite intelligent and have always tested with a high IQ. I remain unimpressed by this because I have no innate talents that I could develop with my intelligence. I’m not a musical genius. I’m not an incredible artist. I’m terrible at math. I’m not naturally creative or inventive. So what’s the point of having above average intelligence if it doesn’t _do_ anything?
>
> A friend of mine and I were talking about this one day; she’s got a similar IQ to mine. We were talking about MENSA and how we both could qualify, but neither of us had ever joined. As she put it, “We’d be the dumbest smart people in the room.” That’s an over-simplification, but that’s how we both felt. What would either of us bring to the party?
Puzzles?
IQ tests can only tell us how stupid a person is. As soon as their score is no longer in the stupid range, the tests lose their utility. In other words, they’re bullshit.
Strange how everyone on the Internet is a genius.
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### Author:  [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2005, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/53 "2005-03-11T05:35:56Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#):
>
> Interesting post. Obviously bright, but have you been assessed for adult attention deficit disorder, or bipolar/anxiety disorder NOS? No offense intended.
No. I’ve thought about it. I went to a counselor about something moderately related to all this for a while at school (free service, grad student shrinks). It’s, I don’t know, even doing that in a constructive way was really hard. It ended up being a positive experience, but getting the gumption to go was really tough.
The idea of being diagnosed with adult add or another disorder is scary. The idea of taking medicine for it is scary. I know it’s been great for many people, and I’m not making a judgment call about it, but… I don’t know. What if I don’t have it? Then I’m a fuck-up all on my own. What if I do? Do I really want to take medication? Will I lose some things about me that I like? None of the roads are easy, and at this point it’s just mentally easier to be me and deal with what comes. Not that I’m always happy with it, but that’s life I guess.
It’s funny you mention anxiety though. A huge part of my struggles with school and other things involve being horribly petrified (literally) at the prospect of confrontation/failure. I had some times in school when I unplugged my phone, stayed in the room, even avoided e-mail because I’d missed few classes and/or assignments and just couldn’t… I don’t even know what I couldn’t do, but the thought of interacting with the person I’d let down I couldn’t deal with. I still have times like that now in non-school settings.
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### Author:  [@BobNewby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobNewby)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2005, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/54 "2005-03-11T09:38:34Z")
> [@ninetypercent](#):
>
> Puzzles?
>
> IQ tests can only tell us how stupid a person is. As soon as their score is no longer in the stupid range, the tests lose their utility. In other words, they’re bullshit.
>
> Strange how everyone on the Internet is a genius.
That’s the most intelligent thing anyone’s said in this thread.
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2005, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/55 "2005-03-11T13:57:34Z")
> [@ninetypercent](#):
>
> IQ tests can only tell us how stupid a person is. As soon as their score is no longer in the stupid range, the tests lose their utility. In other words, they’re bullshit.
I agree with you. I have tested very high on IQ tests, but I am not remarkable in any way. I remember trivia and am extremely easy to amuse. These aren’t signs of brilliance. I don’t have overwhelming angst or fear of failure or anything. I’m just a person who tests high on IQ tests. (In the past, of course. I haven’t had a real IQ test in… oh dear… 15 years.) I genuinely think an IQ test tests a person’s ability to take an IQ test. And hwn I saw the scores I had throughout school, the really notable thing was that my IQ kept creeping up. I was learning how to take the tests.
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### Author:  [@Synthesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Synthesis)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/56 "2005-03-11T14:13:46Z")
My daughter is gifted (but nothing like these kids) and I can confirm that exceptionally intelligent kids are very difficult to raise. When you child’s intelligence exceeds your own, but they have normal and child-like emotional development, it creates a while slew of difficulties.
I sincerely hope that she can relate to and deal with people as an adult. Being smart isn’t as important as being well grounded with strong intrapersonal relationship skills.
There is a novelty to a child like this. Yes, I initially enjoyed showing off her raw abilities (she could, for example, add 4 numbers with 5 digits in her head almost instantantly…at age 6) but that wears off quick and I realized it was a horrible thing to do.
Anyway…it can be a curse as well as a blessing. Even more so with REAL gifted kids like these.
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### Author:  [@taxi78cab](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/taxi78cab)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2005, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/57 "2005-03-11T15:50:08Z")
I didn’t relate to the article as much as I did to what other posters here said.
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> \I also had much more satisfying and rewarding interactions with adults than peers for a long time. I just ‘got’ adults more than other kids. We could talk about real things, and they didn’t feel the need to put me down or make fun of me. \
That sounds so familiar. I didn’t really feel comfortable with people my age until I was in high school and didn’t feel that anyone “got” me until college. Unfortunately, just when I discovered other smart people, I also discovered much, much smart_er_ people and had a hard time realizing that I wasn’t the smartest. After being told practically from birth on up through high school that I was SO smart, it was a slap in the face to realize that I wasn’t really \*that \*smart compared to all the other students.
I also relate to what \*\*lokij \*\*said about feeling like I’m wasting my potential. I like my job, but I’m not changing the world. And there are times when I hear the voices of all those people from high school days telling me what great things I could do and I feel bad that I’m not out there doing those great things. Despite the fact that doing those great things would make me miserable.
I’m just glad to hear others expressing similar feelings.
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### Author:  [@Synthesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Synthesis)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2005, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-poll-how-many-people-see-themselves-in-this-linked-article/293463/58 "2005-03-11T20:19:24Z")
"IQ tests can only tell us how stupid a person is. As soon as their score is no longer in the stupid range, the tests lose their utility. In other words, they’re bullshit.
Strange how everyone on the Internet is a genius."
I just reread that. Great point.
People that are exceptional and extraordinary don’t need a test to quantify what they have. There is a shock value to it and it is really clear to anyone around that the person is beyond “normal”. It isn’t a situation where someone says “They are really smart” but more like they are almost “freakish” in nature.
I think there are many very bright and genius level people in the world but I think this article is about people that fall outside of that realm.
From what I’ve seen, it isn’t really so much an aura of intelligence but more of a raw ability to learn, understand and retain at a jawdropping rate with ease because the emotional and relational skills are not on par with the learning rate.
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