Does anyone ever feel unintelligent?

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I am in reality a smart person. Not genius smart, but smart. I get good grades, but my social skills are lacking.

However, I do feel unintelligent sometimes. Like when somebody tells a joke, and I'm the only one not laughing. It's not that I don't get the joke, I just don't have a good sense of humor.

Or when somebody is having a conversation and I am the only one not talking, because I don't know to say.

I never give up on trying to understand stuff. I might not be perfect, but I give it a good go.

I have always felt that I was certainly above average in intelligence but very inept socially ..Due to my ineptness socially I never felt that I was able to take advantage of the intelligence that I had .

yep, the only thing i'm a genius at is stuff in my story, and that is all in my head. or harkness daily pattern in rivet city on fallout 3, i just need to clarify the exact order though.

but in everything else there is always someone better. i know about many different art styles but even though i can draw, work with video, sculpt, paint, do some photography, and probably many others besides singing and dancing.

but i am only an amature at art compared to others. mostly because i refuse to take classes and stubbornly learn by trial and error. but if i did i bet i could learn nearly any art type, because i am artistic by nature.

but i do feel stupid alot.

During my school years, I always thought of myself as being above average in intelligence; I got good grades without any effort, I understood (to the degree necessary) just about every topic that was put in front of me and was able to explain it to my peers (I often acted as unofficial teachers aid in my physics class and a few other classes as well). My memory was great, I was able to look at a list of 25 unknown words for 5 minutes before a spelling/comprehension test and get an A. I did well on the ACT, Etc. I didn’t get all A’s however, because I essentially refused to do homework unless I could find the motivation to do it in school (I seriously couldn’t see the point to homework; I mean if somebody is interested in a particular topic they should study up on it of their own volition instead of having it forced on them with the treat of delayed societal advancement). I essentially see homework as a way to desensitize people to doing things they don’t like and thusly creating the working class. I actually nearly failed my physics class both quarters because the coursework was heavily homework orientated, much to the astonishment of my teacher and peers. However, I was passed with a failing grade as a result of repeated demonstration of understanding.

Anyhow, the structured nature of school and the reliable/frequent feedback facilitated the growth of my intellectual confidence. This then illustrates that I judge my intelligence and appraise my self-worth on the quality of my actions or creations at a given time; If I’m not producing much for one reason or another, I feel worse about myself and begin to question whether or not I have the capacity to bring something worthwhile into the world.

As for right now, I have been depressed for a very long time; my productivity is extremely low and so is the confidence I have in my abilities. My depression has greatly reduced the interest I have in my surroundings (quite detached presently) and so I’m prone to mistakes, which just adds fuel to the fire.

Now that I am out of school and in “the real world”, I find far greater difficulty in determining my abilities relative to my peers. The feedback has become scarce and the opinions usually biased. Certainly you can look at things like task performance or knowledge base (curiosity is usually a good indicator of intelligence) but people’s interests vary greatly and it can sometimes be difficult to bring to light the type of stuff that would lead me to believe somebody is bright; as for judging based on task performance, I can’t condemn people for doing something silly as I have dedicated myself to a fair share of unorthodox problem solving processes (and the less I see a person make mistakes, the less mistakes they make). I also find that people’s personalities can act as a veil that hinders my ability to accurately size them up. So, what happens when I seek out to asses my intelligence relative to the people around me I come out with a very vague, incomplete and hardly reliable “okay, maybe I’m a little smarter than this person or vice versa”.

On the whole, I find my intelligence grossly inadequate to process and act upon the vast sum of valid thoughts, ideas and perceptions that a given moment would bring to bear.

I honestly can't tell how smart I am. Somewhere inside, I know I'm smart, but I just feel so inadequate all the time. I've had my IQ tested a number of times and it's always anywhere between 137 and 124! I know 120something is above average, but god I hope my IQ isn't that low...

I suppose it doesn't help that my boyfriend is an absolute genius, so I feel a little like Pinky to his Brain. Ha.

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I have an IQ around 118-122 but I do feel pretty stupid most of the time. I can't recall facts and figures, forget names, can't remember brands and probably sound as dumb as rocks to NTs. I know I'm kind of smart it just doesn't show.

Resurrected thread. Anyway, yeah I am an intelligent person who feels quite stupid most of the time in real time, real life situations. I have a terrible memory, limited vocabulary, and am unskilled at sounding knowledgeable, convincing, or persuasive.

(I've left social intelligence out of this. I feel stupid regardless.)

I think of myself as a ret*d genius. I always was the "smart" kid growing up, but my social skills were never up to par and I devolved into becoming the "idiot" as I grew older. I feel useless and stupid most of the time.

I do at times due to my poor memory.

Last night I was really struggling with it and to get my words out clearly.

And this guys says: "you're way smarter than those that usually go to university."

What a lovely yet confusing complement.

Well, anyone that thinks they are unintelligent just needs a dose of reality tv for a good twenty minutes - you'll feel like a genius

I will say that though, as I've gotten older I have realised that I am far more intelligent than I ever gave myself credit for. I didn't do particularly well at school (actually I did horribly) but since decided that it's due to dyslexia and attention deficit but given half a chance and in the right environment I think I could have done really well.