I Think I'd Be Happier If I Were Less Intelligent

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I don’t always feel this way. But there are times when I think my intelligence gets in the way of my just being happy.

I’m no genius. I think my IQ was tested and found to be 129 when I was 11 or so. I was a bookworm as a child. My defense mechanism as a teen (and still strongly in place today) was to be the clown. I have almost always, to a lesser or greater degree, felt apart from others, outside normal, different. Looking back, I can see that a large part of that was my own doing, doing things that made me different from others. If they were going to reject me for being less athletic and more intellectual, then by God, I’d eschew the things they were interested in! No sports for me. No drinking beer to excess (at all, really; I preferred rum back in the day). No one-night stands. These and other things were subjects I was not only not interested in, but that I would sneer at, telling myself I was above such stupid and pointless pastimes. (Fox and the Grapes, perhaps?)

I don’t make friends. No qualifier there. I have acquaintances and coworkers, some of whom I had in the past developed a bond with. As I move on, or they do, I don’t do much of anything to keep the relationship alive.

I seem to think about things too much. Not that I sit and brood for hours on the state of the world. It’s like I notice things that other people don’t seem to notice or think about (to be fair, I seem to be fairly ignorant of social norms). Putting the card on the table, I was diagnosed long ago with low-level dysthymia; that’s surely a factor in how I see things.

I’ve been married for several years now, to a woman whom I’ve known for almost 2 decades. The bottom line there is that I’ve never been happier in my life. It’s not delirious happiness, but I’m pretty contented most of the time.

My problem (and it is my problem): my wife isn’t as smart as I am. This difference most often manifests as her not noticing something that is obvious to me. That might be an unusual sight that we pass by as we’re walking or driving (“Wow! Did you see that? That house had Christmas lights done up in the shape of a helicopter, with blinking lights making the rotor blades look like they’re spinning!” “Huh? No, I missed it.” “What? It was right there!” (bites own tongue)) or something that is screamingly obvious to me but seems to escape her time and time again (her knee is constantly bruised from running into the corner of the bed, where it’s been, unmoving, for years - step around it, fer cryin’ out loud!).

We’ve talked about this before, but only a time or two. It apparently only bothers me. Internally, I don’t believe it, but I’ve agreed out loud that I may be ‘hyper-vigilant.’ When I really allow myself to be perturbed by her apparent thoughtlessness, I feel she’s deliberately being oblivious.

I’ve never actually done anything with my intelligence. Never got a college degree, never kept up with current events, never got ahead in the business world. Whatever my intelligence may have been able to do for me, I’ve spent the majority of my life not employing it in useful ways.

Getting back to my main point, I think I would be happier if I weren’t so smart. I would relate better to other people, including my wife. I wouldn’t have held myself apart from others my whole life. I wouldn’t overthink things.

Anyone else feel this way? Has anyone else been in a partnership with someone who was intellectually on a different level?

Lastly, I don’t think I’m an intellectual snob. Don’t snobs enjoy being where they are?

2

The few descriptions you provide of your wife’s “obliviousness” don’t sound to me like lack of intelligence. In fact, I know a number of top 2%-ers who are just about as unobservant as you describe.

Obviously, she has many sterling qualities. Concentrate on those. Or, if you start feeling too superior, try thinking about flaws that you might have. I’m sure that you, like the rest of us, have one or two. Deal with it. After all, if she were the perfect woman, she wouldn’t be with you – she’d be with the perfect man.

The secret to a happy marriage is to find someone whose faults you can tolerate – and then tolerate them. The secret to friendships is pretty much the same, too.

If it helps you feel any better (and it probably won’t), 129 on a test taken at age 11 probably doesn’t mean much. In the first place, you need to know what the test was on which you got that score, how it was normed, etc.

The quantity of one’s intelligence, regardless of how you define or measure it, is often of far less importance that what you do with it, much like other measurements that some people believe are important.

3

Oh my goodness! Aren’t YOU the sly one. (Yeah, ok, that was cool!)

To the OP: The fact that you are more observant than your wife doesn’t necessarily mean you are more intelligent. Different things are important to different people. A bruised knee may not matter that much to her.

I do believe your perceived unhappiness is the result of some personality flaws you may have, rather than high intelligence. At least, I’ve never heard it said that high intelligence and unhappiness are related traits.
Go to work trying to be more accepting of others. Here’s hoping happiness lays in that direction for you.

4

trip, you don’t need to be smart to do any of these things. There are plenty of stupid people who are hyper-vigilant and alienated from those around them.

As MLS pointed out, it’s not the intelligence, but what you do with the intelligence. Think of your mind as a tool. A really quality tool, like a good hammer, can do you a lot of good if you know how to use it correctly, but it’s useless if you don’t bother to get the hang of it. Or, as a high school teacher once told me, “Ya gotta learn how to learn.”

Figure out your major strengths. Learn how to solve complicated problems, both abstract and concrete. Who knows, you might get that degree and move up in the world after all. It’s not too late until they’re nailing your coffin shut, and even then, there’s always the next life, right?

5

Why is it always the under-educated underachievers who think they’re so intelligent? :dubious:

6

I think you would be happier if you stopped making the comparison of your intelligence to others such a focus in your life.
Whether you are in fact smarter or not, it seems likely that people sense that you think you are superior and are turned off by it.

Try looking at it this way: Intelligence comes in many forms. Try to develop some respect for the skills and knowledge that the people around you do have instead of dwelling on what you perceive to be their deficiencies.

If the only reason you think your wife is slow-witted is just that she isn’t observant, I agree with the others that isn’t much to go on. Many very smart people are oblivious to mundane aspects of their environment because they’re in their own little world. I have known a few “absent-minded professor” types who were quite smart but forgetful or unobservant in everyday life.

Some people are detail-oriented and some people focus on the big picture. Doesn’t make one smarter than the other. Maybe your wife just doesn’t think Christmas lights or the corner of the bed are all that important in the big picture.
Do you really think that your life with her would be that much better, more rewarding, if she had noticed those Christmas lights? Why?

7

I’m finding it a little hard to feel sympathy for you tbh. As mentioned before, the example you give doesn’t add up to much. The same thing could’ve happened to me, with my g/f saying woo, did you see that helicopter, etc. to which I respond either “nope, I’m driving” or “yeah vaguely” (cause it didn’t interest me perhaps).
You’ve known your wife for two decades. You love her. Leave it there and don’t dwell so much on perceived intelligence.
On a side note, I’m afraid I have a problem with people calling themselves intelligent.

8

I feel the same way many times, i’m always overanalyzing things, “mainstream” entertainment doesn’t appeal to me as i find it shallow and derivative, i just tend to think too much… and coincedentally, i tend to expect bad things to happen, so it doesn’t surprise me when they do (i’m not a pessimist, i’m a realist)

to quote Lisa Simpson;

“Dad, as intelligence goes up, happiness goes down, in fact, i made a graph… i make lots of graphs…”

and one last quote from the CITB episode;

<Moe is shoving a crayon back into Homer’s brain>
“deeper, you pusilanimous pilsner pusher”
<tap tap>
De-fense, woo, woo, de-fense, woo woo!
<tap>
Extended warranty, how can i lose!

9

It sounds like the OP’s problem is arrogance, not intelligence. There are plenty of people with IQs significantly higher than 130 who go through life with no such problems.

10

IMO, you’re lucky she’s not deliberately being violent. Which of the behaviors mentioned above is evidence of substandard intellectual abilities, again? Because **I’m ** picking the one where you tell your wife you think she’s stupid.

Your problem is most assuredly not an overabundance of native intelligence. It’s more of an overabundance of insecurity masquerading as bravado, and you’re too old for that crap.

You don’t need to be dumber to relate better to other people. You need to not be so invested in being superior to them.

11

I have just received a Ph.D. at the age of 25. I am one of the top three authorities in my little niche. More people want to hire me for contracting work than I have time to work for. And yeah, I do pretty well on standardized tests, too.

Here is a standard conversation between me and my housemate:

Them: “Wow! Did you see that? That house had Christmas lights done up in the shape of a helicopter, with blinking lights making the rotor blades look like they’re spinning!”

Me: “Huh? No, I missed it.”

Them: “What? It was right there!”

12

Look at him, brain the size of a planet and they have him driving his wife to and fro, God it’s so depressing.

13

not to mention the terrible pain in all the diodes down his left side…

14

Bravo!

I bump into the edge of the table fairly frequently, and my IQ is way higher than the OP’s.

I think the question is, which person “married down” in Tripthicket’s relationship?

15

What’s it like to be so much better than all the other people in your life? Have you always thought you were superior to them, or did your opinion of yourself increase steadily over time?

16

I don’t think the OP is being arrogant. More like overobsessive. He doesn’t want to alienate his wife by appearing to be smarter than her.

I can relate, sorta. I’ve been known to drop a fifty dollar word into conversation every once in a while and all the sudden get the other person angry because they think I’m trying to belittle them. I’m not trying to be snobbish. It’s just the word that pops into my head as I’m speaking.

I usually can’t think of any “small talk” topics since I usually think about more cosmic subjects. I did once bring up Kevin Federline, and got my coworker fussing about Britney Spears for a good half hour, so I think I did good there.

But tripthicket, you and your honey have been together 20 years. If she really didn’t like your brains, don’t you think she would have left by now?

17

IQ is just a number. Seriously. Also, it doesn’t measure “stupid”.

My IQ is much higher than my husband’s. My husband’s IQ is 133.

Oh, whatever shall I do?! :rolleyes:

I don’t notice ANYTHING! If you ask me what someone was wearing, someone I just saw five minutes ago, I will shrug. I might be able to tell you if they were wearing a shirt and pants, or a skirt, or something. If I’m lucky I might remember a colour or two. It’s just not significant to me.

I’m a housewife. I have many questions, some of them potentially “stupid”. I don’t have all the answers. I make mistakes. I fall down. I say “stupid” things. My personality is goofy. I like “silly” things. When I do go back to school, I want to become an architect. I chose not to join Mensa. I’m a Taoist. I have ADD, and I am dyslexic. I’m prone to malapropism. I make spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, often. I’m probably not the kind of person you would imagine as someone having a high IQ? I read, I absorb, I observe. I hyperfocus. Then the ADD kicks in the moment I lose interest, and I chatter incessantly about nothing.

My husband is wonderful. He notices things I don’t, has answers to many questions I have about things I do not know about, and loves to be silly and fun with me. If I say something he doesn’t understand, I explain it to him. He learns, and either likes it or doesn’t. It works both ways. We learn from each other. The numbers mean nothing. The love means everything.

Don’t let your ego get blown up because of some insignificant number. After all, perhaps your wife is a clever judge of horses.

18

Okay, so your unhappiness stems from a test you took when your 11, that showed you had a smidge above “normal” IQ of 129. Since then it seems you have done NOTHING to demonstrate that you do in fact have such an IQ. Which you admit in the above quote. So your smart exactly…how?

Maybe it just seems your wife doesnt notice the things you do because she noticed them 20mins before your slow ass did, and she doesnt feel like making you feel stupid!!

If you think happiness is based on a lack of IQ, I would venture that you are, secretly, the happiest man on the earth :slight_smile:

19

I think ots of people feel the same way, though perhaps for different reasons than you mention. As a matter of fact, I think we need a catchphrase to cover that thought. Maybe it would even become a cliche.

“I Think I’d Be Happier If I Were Less Intelligent” is just not catchy enough. How about “Smart people are sad”. Nah. Maybe “Intelligence and happiness are inversely proportional”. Huh uh. “Happiness is being dumb”. Don’t like that either.

Maybe there’s just no cliche there, after all.

20

I’ll fully admit that I’m an intellectual snob, which is why I don’t have many friends. It doesn’t bother me. I prefer to spend my time reading, anyway.

My husband is as intelligent as I am, and, frankly, he’s the only person I know IRL who is. But our strengths differ. He drives me nuts because he can’t remember where he put things, and I drive him nuts because I am oblivious to my surroundings. (Yes, I have absent-minded-professor syndrome.) He’s better at logic and math, and I’m better at the creative things, like inventing solutions to problems. He’s the only person with whom I’ve ever been able to have dinner time debates on topics like social policy, string theory, or literature.

He has better social skills than I do. I get very frustrated with the world, and don’t suffer fools gladly. His co-workers say that I am stand-offish, and I can’t argue with it. I try, God help me, I try, but when a conversation revolves around the playground-polictics of the workplace, or celebrity gossip, my eyes glaze over, and I retreat into the more interesting world in my head.

Yes, I accept that people are smarter in different ways, but to me, a lack of curiosity, or knowledge of the world around us indicates a dull mind.