"You're smart, you know about this stuff."

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I don’t know why this occurred to me just now, but I’ll share it anyway and see what stories other Dopers have along these lines. I’m sure we share a common experience when dealing with others in our lives, which is that sometimes our friends have exaggerated ideas of what we know: “ask her, she knows everything” or something like that.

Flash back to my senior year in high school.

We, the theatre department, were preparing to depart by bus for a 30-mile trip to a neighboring city to participate in the state theatre conference, where we would produce a play. Some of us would put on two-person scenes, or be ajudged for our monologues and songs.

One girl, L, a junior, was also running for State Thespian President and had departed early to put up campaign signs. She got a ride from our play’s lighting director and had left her own car, a Honda hatchback, in the parking lot. Unfortunately, she had also left in it her costume which she would need for a performance later that day.

A friend, David, ran up to me and said, “We need to get into L’s car. We can see her costume in it through the hatchback and she’s going to need it! You’re smart. You know all about breaking into cars. Can you get it for us?”

Excuse me? Me? Know how to break into cars? I’m a journalism student and would-be ham actor and pianist and trivia collector. I wouldn’t be able to break into a car if the window were rolled down. Why do people have this idea that I know anything about this?

Nevertheless I went over to the car and looked at it. It was a Honda, similar to the one my girlfriend drove. I thought about it for a moment, and tried my girlfriend’s key, which worked—quite to my surprise. The hatchback popped open.

I went back over to David after only 30 seconds and said, “There, it’s open.”

It happened to work that time, yes. But where did he get the idea I knew anything about it at all? How did I give people that impression?

Okay, your turn. Ever been in a situation where people assumed that you knew something, but as it happened, you managed to pull off a response that surprised even yourself?

2

I just moved into a very artsy neighborhood and I’ve become the token scientist. So, my neighbors have taken it upon themselves to direct any vaguely scientific pondering to me for answering. The one that springs to mind now is “how does Febreze work?”. Now, I’m a molecular microbiologist. Why would I know how Febreze works? But, (with a disclaimer that I was just guessing) I gave it my best answer. Still don’t know if it was right, but it sounded good and plausible.
Sometimes intelligence is no more than a good party trick. :smack:

3

Heh. I remember when Who Wants to be a Millionaire? debuted, everyone started pestering me to be on the show. I kept trying to explain to them that they run the wannabes through all kinds of tests before they put them on TV, that they want people who look good on TV, plus they weight the questions, so that they focus on areas which aren’t necessarily your strong point (I’m a guaranteed loser when it comes to sports questions). Nobody believes me, of course. (If I was going to go on a gameshow, it would have been Win Ben Stein’s Money, because Ben’s a smart guy, and beating him would have been totally cool.)

At work, we have a staff metallurgist, who’s got 20 + years experience in the metal trades, I’ve been a machinist for nine months, when the metallurgist says something, everyone looks at me and waits for me to confirm what he’s saying. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

4

OMG! I’ve been plagued by this my whole adult life. The first time someone said “How can that be? You know everything!” When I’d just said “I don’t know, let’s find out together.” I was flabergasted! How could anyone think I knew everything? My head is small, I don’t have room for everything. I know medicine, pretty well. I’m pretty logical so, I can often figure things out. But damn! everything?! No way, no how!

My favorite recurring question happens usually in the car when a large truck or train car goes by carrying some arcane piece of equipment, and the person with me says “What’s that?” How the heck would I know? I now just make something up on the spot. Ok, I’m not being a good Doper. But, sometimes its just easier to have fun with them :wink:

5

My grandfather once assumed that because I can work computers I MUST be able to fix his electronically fried ancient VCR (I think it was like the first one ever made) and if I can’t I am not a man.

6

Once, at a party, some friends got the idea to test me by having me define words they picked out (somewhat) randomly from a dictionary. That pretty much permanently cemented in them the idea that I was the ‘brainy’ one in the group. Even if I didn’t really know the word, I was usually able to get close enough to convince them I did.

The whole thing was kind of weird, because I’m not really all that smart.

7

There’s that phenomenon, and then there’s the flip side where they slap each other on the back when they finally stump you with something…that they looked up out of a handy reference book, and no one else in the room knew either.

8

Our families calls me at and my husband at odd hours to answer trivia questions, define archaic words, or spit a movie synopsis or cast list out. I read the encycleopedia (two different sets) as a child out of sheer boredom. So maybe they have a leg to stand on but sometimes it is unsettleing to be used as a walking reference book. :dubious:

9

I work with computers and have been tinkering with them since I was 12. During highschool, apparently, I was able to change my grades and hack into the pentagon. No joke.

10

Around here, I’m the apprentice or junior know-it-all. My mom, now, she really does know everything (and we live in the same town). But most of my friends do seem to expect me to know stuff. I’m not sure why that is, except that I read a lot–I’m reasonably bright, but so are they. Maybe it goes with being a librarian.

One friend of the family now sends me email whenever he’s looking for some hard-to-find book or essay, or has a question about something. Once I got a call from him while he was on a trip, hours away; he needed to know the plot of King Lear right away! Luckily, I could tell him about it before he got into a tunnel and the signal was lost.

It’s weird, because it’s not like I’m all that smart. Many people seem to think it’s because I went to one of the more academic universities (not Ivy League or anything), but the fact is I got in by the skin of my teeth and because I’d done some unusual things, not because of my braininess. I spent the whole time surrounded by people far more intelligent than I am, and being happy when I got B’s. shrug

11

Oh, yeah. I can relate. On my high-school campus there are dozens of very well-educated, smart, highly-trained people. More than a few of them are teachers like me. But whenever there is a wierd, off-the-wall question, who gets the phone call? Me. I have a reputation of knowing more useless things about more esoteric stuff than anyone around. Must come from having a librarian for a mother.

“I can’t help it…I read!”

The fun part is when I can do things that are totally unrelated to teaching. Echoing the OP…one day a group of students were trying to get into a car. The owner had locked the keys inside, and they had borrowed a jimmy from campus security, but didn’t know how to use it. Since my classroom was nearby, they decided to se if I could help. 30 seconds later, the car was open and the students were speechless. As I walked away I left them with the line…

“How do you think I paid for college?” :smiley:

12

Because I work in “biomedical science”, and because my work might someday be remotely applicable somehow to something clinical, I actually get asked medical advice. I’m not an MD, and I don’t know why somebody would think I would have the slightest idea what they’re talking about.

Nevertheless, I’m surprised to find I actually do know the answers to their questions a good percentage of the time, or can think up an answer that’s close to the mark. I go look it up in a book or on the web later, to double check, and, what-do-you-know, I nailed it. I participate in all kinds of discussion about clinical relevance of various disease models, and so on, so I must be absorbing things. It’s a far cry from clinical experience, but I do seem to be picking up the terminoligy and the factoids by osmosis or whatever.

I don’t feel especially bright because of this. It’s disappointing, to be honest. The demystification of “medicine” tends to reveal all the gaping holes in our knowledge, which makes me more uneasy than anything.

Anyway, I used to feel flattered, but now I’m getting increasingly annoyed. First, I don’t want to tell people stuff in case I’m wrong (which I certainly am sometimes). Also, hey, are you paying me for this? I mean, jeez, if I wanted to answer these questions all the time, I would have gone to medical school and charged you an arm-and-a-leg for this little parlour trick. Go make the time and get an appointment if you want the answer that badly, or look it up yourself so I don’t have to feel responsible if I’m talking out of my ass. This is serious business, and there’s a reason you need a license to practice. Sheesh.

13

My dad ran a computer business for most of my childhood and so I grew up around computers, and this is a well known fact with most of my friends. It doesn’t hurt I’m a CS Major as well.

So they ALL come to ME with their computer problems. They bring me their Dells, their Gateways and their custom PCs and usually I can find a solution for them. Yet when I do get stumped and resort to telling them to go to their manufacturer (assuming it isn’t custom) then they get all upset and think I’m just being lazy.

And it doesn’t help I’m also free tech support for all my family in town. Just thursday night I went to my sister’s house to try and de-virus-ify her computer which her hubby had infested after some bad porn choices.

No shit.

14

This happens to me all the time, and I’m sick of it. It’s a catch-22. If you don’t know it, they mock you; if you do, they act like you just said it to show off. It sucks.

15

Wow, touched a nerve.

I was hoping for more optimistic stories, though. I’d guessed that many Dopers experience that sense of expectation from our friends and co-workers, that “ask him, he knows anything” routine. Yes, I get it, and I hate it too.

Have you ever pulled an answer out of your own butt that surprised yourself, or that someone said “no way will she know this one,” or something like that? Any, um, light and funny things to say? :smiley:

16

I don’t know if this is the sort of thing you’re looking for, but my husband and I were playing Trivial Pursuit once and he was sure he was going to stump me on one question. Unfortunately for him, I knew the nickname of Ferdinand Morton was Jelly Roll. :smiley: Not that I’m an authority on jazz by any means - it just happens his name is mentioned in a song from the musical Funny Girl (or is it Funny Lady?) - anyway, when I heard the words “nickname” and “Morton” in the question, I knew the answer.

He was so sure I was going down in flames with that one…

Last place I worked, the guys in my cubicle referred to me as “Ask Michelle dot com” - because I was often calling over cube walls with answers to obscure questions people brought up. I can’t help it - when I was a kid, the bathroom reading material was an old set of encyclopedias, and I have a good memory for certain things. Unfortunately, I’m not very adept at BSing my way if I don’t know something, but like my mom, I’ll say “Let’s look it up” and off to Google I go.

17

As my Dad aways says, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”

I just thought that was apropos to the OP. :smiley:

18

Yes! I just tell them I’m a remote reader and looked it up while we spoke. It usually starts the crickets and frogs.

Seriously, I think when I answer something I just shouldn’t have ever heard before, its just a logic thing. Or… I’m a remote reader and am just denying it to myself :smiley:

19

I get this all the time from coworkers. “You read - what’s this all about” and they’ll mention some item from the news or something they saw on “CSI” and ask me to explain it to them. The last time this happened, I had to explain “furries” to the girl I work with, who fully expected me to know the answer, but then wanted to know where I’d learned about them. I just tell her “there’s this message board I belong to that discusses everything” (guess which one :smiley: ) and leave it go at that.

I was also one of those children who read the encyclopedia for fun, and even now, if things are slow at work, I’ll pull out our little dictionary and just browse. I have read all the maintenance manuals for all our equipment, and always have a book with me during lunch. Many, many people I have worked with tell me they just don’t have time to read, or don’t like to read, or in one classic comment, “reading makes me crazy”. And I don’t mean reading about physics or longitude or autism (all books they have caught me with in between the British murder mysteries). I mean just reading the front page of the newspaper!

The worst thing is when people who don’t even know me come up and ask me questions…is there a “smart glow” coming off my head or something? In the grocery store people ask me cooking questions. I have had a homeless young man wait in line at the candy store I worked at to ask me if he had pinkeye (yes, he did, and I told him where he could go for treatment, what the hours were and what bus to catch).

It’s flattering, of course, to be viewed as the one who knows everything, until you realize that people only value that when they need it. Otherwise they feel vaguely threatened and inferior, and react accordingly. I try to let them know that being smart has gotten me a job in retail and no money in the bank, but they are still a little uncomfortable.

20

Want fun? Wait until your 14 yr-old niece approaches you and says: “You’re the only grownup that’s never tried to tell me a buncha’ bullshit and besides you know everything.
My (religious fundie ) mom says if me and my boyfriend mess around before we get married we’ll both go to hell. Why did God make us want to do stuff if he’s gonna’ send us to hell for doin’ it?”

Then she looks at you with trust in her eyes, confident that you’ll come through for her once again. She wants her answer in 30 seconds or less, preferrably in words of less than two syllables and she “hates to read”.

There are some days when it’s not fun to be the Cool Uncle that all the kids wish their parents were like.