# You are a smart person. What are you dumb about? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 9, 2016, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924 "2016-06-09T15:46:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/61 "2016-06-10T12:27:06Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Remembering peoples’ names/identities. I stopped trying, and just accept the fact that if I don’t hang out with someone all the time I’m going to forget who they are. I’m always surprised when people remember me, even more when they remember my name. Because faces yes, I may remember (sometimes too much, such as remembering someone I see often on the bus), but unless we’ve worked closely or some such for a while I may not remember any details; even then, there are people with whom I worked for months but, since we never used anything but first names, all I remember is the first name. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/62 "2016-06-10T12:56:35Z")
I suck at a lot of stuff already mentioned. One thing I don’t think I’ve seen yet is, I really suck at estimating the size or scale of things. It’s not unusual for me to be off by a factor of 10 or more when estimating things like square footage, distance, or a large number of something. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/63 "2016-06-10T19:33:11Z")
I’m a pretty handy guy. I handle most of the maintenance and upgrades for my cars and home, except: Air conditioning systems - residential, commercial, automotive, doesn’t matter. I don’t get it, can’t diagnose it, can’t fix it (OK, I can add refrigerant to a newer model car, cause that’s simple). I’ve read about AC systems, looked at them, tried to understand but it still falls into the realm of magic as far as I’m concerned. Very good and benevolent magic, but magic nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![Toledo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/34f0e0/32.png) [@Toledo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toledo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/64 "2016-06-11T02:23:54Z")
Retired Engineer here, good at math and science/technical in general. However, I suck at languages. Had to go to summer school in high school to get Latin, and needed tutoring to manage French. I am competent at English, but simply cannot get the hang of other languages. My sister, who speaks several languages, says “Oh, it’s easy”. (But that’s what I tell her about math). ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/65 "2016-06-12T12:14:18Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > One thing I don’t think I’ve seen yet is, I really suck at estimating the size or scale of things. It’s not unusual for me to be off by a factor of 10 or more when estimating things like square footage, distance, or a large number of something. YES. I should have included that in my “numbers/math” dumbness. “How far away is that truck?” **shrugs** “Roughly how big is that plot of land?” **shrugs** “Turn left in 10 yards.” **gets lost** ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/66 "2016-06-12T13:42:46Z")
Machines (other than ATMs, which I can cope with) which dispense or tally stuff – whether money-in-slot, or otherwise. Seemingly, I hate them, and they hate me and bewilder me, and refuse to perform for me. Automatic soap / water / blow-dry gadgets in washrooms: they refuse to work for me. Self-checkouts scare the hell out of me – I won’t use them. Public-transport ticket machines: forget it. This extends to showers. I hate the bloody things with white-hot fury. Every shower in the world seems to operate on different principles from every other one; and anyway, you need an advanced degree in engineering to figure out what the dials / scales / taps / things to twist, mean. I just hope that tub baths will continue to be available for as long as I live. > [@minor7flat5](#): > > Perhaps the largest gap in my knowledge that most ordinary people understand is politics. I have absolutely no clue what is going on in the world, what is going on in various showdowns throughout the country, and so on. Full disclosure: I never have felt that I could see through the marketing and smear campaigns to cast an educated vote, so I don’t vote. There. You can all smugly smile as you consider that. > > Anything related to sports. When I hear folks discussing football or baseball or basketball or whatever, I am ignorant of any of the nuances in the sport and have no clue who is who. > > Music frustrates me. Sure, as my username attests, I have studied jazz for many many years, but most talented musicians are far beyond my skill level by the time they are in high school. > These days I play bass, and I love it–no need for blistering riffs or crazy solos. But though I can read music, I still need to annotate every single page I will perform, so I don’t forget in the heat of the moment. > Real jazz cats have memorized hundreds if not thousands of songs, a feat that is unattainable by me. For the first two paragraphs, I could be you – every word and syllable. You beat me on music: I’m next-door to tone-deaf, and 90%+ of music of all kinds, is a closed book to me. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/67 "2016-06-12T16:54:37Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Remembering names. I’m terrible at retaining the names of people I’ve been around for a long time. Church is one good example. But I’m working on it, trying to drill into my head a couple names a week from the photo directory. There are folks in the library I have been around for years, I know their faces but not their names. We have a photo directory at work that attaches people’s pictures to their emails. Some people I communicate with daily through email but rarely if ever see them in person. The one time I do actually see that person face to face I don’t recognize them because I can’t put the 2-D picture and the 3-D live person together. I’m also extremely directionally impaired. I’ve gotten lost in a parking garage before. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/68 "2016-06-12T18:31:50Z")
I’ve posted before that my family lacks whatever gene gives people a sense of direction. My IQ is in the near genius range, yet I simply cannot follow directions. I get lost in my own home town. I’m a direct descendant of Anne Lucy Howard, of one of the founding families of Boston. I always thought family members went out looking for a nice picnic spot outside of Boston they had heard about, got lost and ended up in Ohio, giving us the “Howard” politicos. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/69 "2016-06-12T18:37:33Z")
Languages. I’m just terrible at languages. This is a real handicap since I have been living in Montreal for 48 years and I still cannot understand spoken French (I am sort of okay with the written language, although not great). Not for want of trying–taken courses, tried to talk to people, etc. I just lack that gene. Or my language learning ability shut down too early in life. Maybe it was repurposed for doing math. I’m not surprised that inability to do math seems to be the number 1 answer. It’s what I predicted as soon as I read the title. It looks music may be second. My musical abilities, while not high, are not nonexistent. I can explain keys (it is just the mathematical problems created by trying to fit an unequal 7 tone scale into an even 12 tone one, so you get 7 white and 5 black keys into each run of 12 and a choice of 7 of them is a key) and I can read sheet music, but can’t really play anything well. ---
**Author:** ![Heckity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Heckity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heckity)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/70 "2016-06-13T01:08:57Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > Machines (other than ATMs, which I can cope with) which dispense or tally stuff – whether money-in-slot, or otherwise. Seemingly, I hate them, and they hate me and bewilder me, and refuse to perform for me. Automatic soap / water / blow-dry gadgets in washrooms: they refuse to work for me. Self-checkouts scare the hell out of me – I won’t use them. Public-transport ticket machines: forget it. > > This extends to showers. I hate the bloody things with white-hot fury. Every shower in the world seems to operate on different principles from every other one; and anyway, you need an advanced degree in engineering to figure out what the dials / scales / taps / things to twist, mean. I just hope that tub baths will continue to be available for as long as I live. And here I thought I was alone. I hate hotels. The nicer the hotel, the more complicated my ablutions become. I hate public restrooms too. Even the sensor taps sit mocking me until I pull my hands away in frustration then they go full force. So I quickly reinsert my hands and they stop. I flail about looking for the sweet spot aware of the sidelong glances of other women. Taps you turn. One with a C, one with an H. They were perfect and I miss them. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/71 "2016-06-13T10:44:50Z")
> [@Heckity](#): > > And here I thought I was alone. I hate hotels. The nicer the hotel, the more complicated my ablutions become. I hate public restrooms too. Even the sensor taps sit mocking me until I pull my hands away in frustration then they go full force. So I quickly reinsert my hands and they stop. I flail about looking for the sweet spot aware of the sidelong glances of other women. > > Taps you turn. One with a C, one with an H. They were perfect and I miss them. A modern-day scourge: innovations which supposedly make life simpler and easier, in fact make it more complicated and difficult, ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/72 "2016-06-13T11:30:31Z")
Directionally challenged, unable to recall things that happened last year—or month, or week—yup. (Seriously, my autobiographical memory is damn near nonexistent. If I ever were to write an autobiography—not that anyone would want to read that—there’s whole years I’d have to make up out of the whole cloth.) But a big one for me I haven’t yet seen mentioned is photography. I’m utterly unable to take a photo anybody would want to look at. I’ve even read a bit into the theory—rule of thirds, that sort of stuff—but nope. I see a beautiful scene, want to capture it for later—then I’ll look at the photo and wonder why the hell I even took it. I’m like the opposite of Barney on How I Met Your Mother, of whom no bad picture can be taken—every picture I take, people look their worst in it. It’s like a camera held by me captures photons from the lamest of all possible worlds. Let me take pictures of your wedding, and you’ll want a divorce after looking at them. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/73 "2016-06-13T13:52:23Z")
Politics. I just don’t care. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/74 "2016-06-13T14:29:15Z")
On occasion when I’ve done my Web Design work I have to look at code of some kind. HTML and CSS I have no trouble with, but anything else, be it PHP, JavaScript (or jQuery), Ajax or Perl or even MySQL, let alone Python or C++ etc, it is all complete gibberish to me. Maybe that’s not too weird, they are complicated, but I feel I ought to be able to pick up this stuff, but instead it feels like how dyslexics must feel when they try to read a book. I also can’t build things. I’m okay when I’m spoonfed it like Lego or IKEA, but anything where I have to cut and assemble it all myself, with saws and hammers and screwdrivers, forget it. I even struggle with folding paper and glue! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/75 "2016-06-13T15:07:04Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > I also can’t build things. I’m okay when I’m spoonfed it like Lego or IKEA, but anything where I have to cut and assemble it all myself, with saws and hammers and screwdrivers, forget it. I even struggle with folding paper and glue! Heh. One of my brothers can do the saws and hammers and screwdrivers thing, but his IKEA furniture always has some parts you really shouldn’t look at (mine is fine, thank you). He recently helped me assemble a sofa and stopped barely short of taking written notes. Hopefully his IKEA furniture will stop having those “creative corners” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/76 "2016-06-13T19:04:58Z")
I’ve got IQ dribbling out my ears but I definitely qualify for disability going by [EQ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence). ---
**Author:** ![heartsplayer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d9b06d/32.png) [@heartsplayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heartsplayer)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/77 "2016-06-13T19:13:40Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Computers. Don’t understand them, don’t really like them. > > Thank you in advance to whomever points out that I needed to use one to post this. You are so very clever. You could use a tablet or mobile phone though, so it doesn’t have to be a computer used to post here! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![heartsplayer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d9b06d/32.png) [@heartsplayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heartsplayer)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/78 "2016-06-13T19:14:43Z")
> [@Pabitel](#): > > I’ve got IQ dribbling out my ears but I definitely qualify for disability going by [EQ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence). Emotional Intelligence? The only thing I thought EQ meant was Equalizer… :smack: ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/79 "2016-06-13T20:55:16Z")
> [@RobDog](#): > > Past dates. Example: > > So, RobDog, when did you work for Acme Inc? > > Um. 1973 to 1986? 1999 to 2002? Last Tuesday? Eightyleven years ago? Help? > > If I ever get hauled in by the cops and asked where I was on the 25th of last month, I’m basically screwed. This is me. From experience, “Aw, hell, I don’t know” doesn’t work at passport control, but saying “A few years ago, I fly a lot and would have to look it up” is better received. I now skim my old passport stamps beforehand so I don’t look like a complete idiot. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924/80 "2016-06-13T20:57:29Z")
I really don’t think extra damage matters much as a healer, so I refuse to use downtime to nuke the enemy when instead I save my MP just in case I need it for healing [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-are-a-smart-person-what-are-you-dumb-about/756924.md?page=5)