do people think you're "stupid"?

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People think I'm a "slow thinker" whatever that means, but at the same time people think I'm "smart" if I explain something scientifically whatever that means.

I may not be intellectually stupid (I am average), but I am socially stupid. That's worse than being intellectually stupid because people laugh at you more and think they can walk and s**t all over you. At least that's what people do to me. People see me in the street, see the writing on my forehead saying ''kick me'', and they do. Well, not literally, but they do their best to make sure I am stupid. Instead of just growing up and getting on with their own lives like people should, they think they can just do anything they want to me and I won't retaliate. That's what people think of me and it makes me sick how society has got these days.

Today I was crossing a road, and a queue of cars had accumulated, so I went to cross after the last car what had joined the queue, (and it was the right time to cross), and the car reversed right back as I was walking behind it, and lucky for me my foot was just an inch away from the wheel, so if I had been just an inch forwards my foot would have been ran over by the wheel, and if I had been just a few centimetres forward I would have got hit. (I'm not good with measurements but I'm guessing I'm roughly right). The twat in the car must have seen me in a mirror or if he had looked behind him, and he must have looked behind him before reversing because to see if there was any cars behind him (which lucky for him - and me - there wasn't). I knew he had done it on purpose anyway, because when I walked round the front of the car, after he had reversed, he had a smirk on his face. I glared at him. See, if that had been someone else (a confident-looking woman who didn't have ''kick me'' written on her forehead), he probably wouldn't have done it. Goes to show how f*****g stupid I look (even though I had sunglasses on and was walking up straight with my trendy clothes, shoes and a handbag).

My husband could have written this post. This is something he struggles with. He needs peoples respect but people think he is stupid. He isnt, he is very intellegent, but for some reason he comes off this way. People talk to him like a child. He gets very frusterated.

Yes, I've always questioned my intelligence. I couldn't tell my right from left until I was 7, I went to two years of preschool, and I get lost all the time. I can't understand things when people verbally explain them to me. I can only understand more complex subjects if they are in text form. On the contrary, it looks as if NTs can't self-teach from a book, but they are great at learning from teachers. I always had to wait until I was in a quiet room to understand things, but the other kids just seemed to understand everything right in the classroom.

My mom is a piano teacher, and she would always tell me how I was slower than all her other students, and that they knew how to behave better than I did: "no wonder why you don't have any friends!" Because of all that abuse, I basically turned mute when I was young. I felt that if I talked, I might say something that would be wrong and I knew there would be consequences.

I guess it all turned out for the better, because my self-teaching skills ended up being a huge asset in college. I just graduated from DePaul with a music degree and I'm one year away from completing premed prerequisites. My GPA is high enough that acceptance into medical school is very likely.

My experience is a huge mixture between stupid and smart. Mostly stupid. When I am talking about one of my special interests (psychology) I sound like a genius and even sound like a true psychologist. But outside of my special interest, I am a complete idiot. I have been called stupid in the school system. Once I moved out of that school system then I became lucky and took a test that showed that I scored incredibly high on certain subjects (such as reading) and the original school system didn't believe the scores because of my stupidity. They thought I had help and cheated. What the truth is it lies between them both. I had the same test twice for the reading the words out loud once in the beginning of the year and once at the end of the year. The same words, the same everything. In the first one I think I scored somewhere slightly above average but the second test I soared high above as in last year of college when I was just in 7th grade. I simply memorized the words, not a true genius but not really cheating either. Just memorizing and learning them for the next time. When people first meet me they also think I am dumb because they talk down to me like a little kid. The same tone of voice as you would a mentally challenged person or a kid about 3 years old. There are some that says I am brilliant including my psychologist because "the way I talk about my knowledge in certain areas." Like I mentioned before psychology is my area of expertise. I especially know the psychotic disorders because I have been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder so I heavily educated myself in that subject and became interested. I can't figure out simple puzzles or simple common sense. My IQ has been tested numerous times at just 82.

I'm either really smart, or really stupid.

Depends on who's doing the judging.

Being intellectually stupid seems to be OK in the NT world (well, I don't know about older NTs, but it seems to be with NTs under 30). All young NTs want is social interaction from you - they're not bothered about how clever you are. Well, you've got to have some knowledge to be able to talk about things, but I mean they're not bothered if you're really, really clever or really, really dumb with maths or reading and writing. I know a Dyslexic person, and he was always so popular in school, and he still is now. In fact when you're in school, most really clever people are called ''nerds'' or ''boffs'', and the people who weren't clever nor social, they were called ''ret*ds'' or ''freaks''. The ones who were really intellectually low or just average or a little bit clever were accepted - as long as they were social.
When my 16 year old cousin got drunk for the first time, all of my teenage cousins made a fuss over him. But when my other cousin graduated in university, the teenage cousins were really bothered. But the older adults were, and so was I.

It's a stupid world really.

People talk to me like I am stupid all the time. It irks me. Its partly because I get nervous around people I think and also tend to be clumsy. In conversations with other people I will tend to look across the room, at the floor or at their mouth rather than their eyes. I will tend to fiddle with a thumb ring I wear, sometimes to the point of it giving me a blister. I will get a blank look on my face at times I think (although I'm used to people misjudging my mood by my facial expression...ie the number of times I have been told to 'cheer up' when I've been in a perfectly good mood is annoying lol) and I will add to that by either saying the same thing over and over again or repeatedly asking the same question even though I understood the answer the first time lol.

I will also keep pulling the conversation back to whatever my brain wants to talk about even though others keep trying to move the conversation on, especially if I forget myself and relax too much.

The impression they get is of someone who is dense. Yet my colleges referred to me as extremely intelligent and I was an A average academically...but that was on the basis of the quality of my written work etc, and not my social skills lol.

What I hate though, is when someone tells you something simplistic and then adds "and I know that's complicated" on the end lol.

Ummmm

I don't think I have a social mind of a newborn, otherwise I wouldn't be able to socialise at all. I think I have a social mind of a 7-8 year old.

People don't usually call me stupid, but the treat me like I am ("oh nevermind, you wouldn't understand" when I ask them what they mean, talking to me veeeeery slowly in simple language when I haven't been paying attention or don't get a joke)....

....although on the flipside some people treat me as though I'm smarter than I am (I can't count the number of times I've been told at school, work, and home that "you could do better if you only tried/applied yourself" "you know better than that" or "you know exactly what I mean."

The basic thing that's lacking, whether people underestimate or overestimate the abilities of another person (and then judge that person accordingly) is respect and curiosity....assumptions seem to take the place of respect and curiosity. it sucks. I just try to remember that it's not a reflection of my own intelligence or worth when people do this--it's more a reflection of their own perspectives and people skills....if they'd rather interact with someone that doesn't exist (i.e. whoever they think I am) then there's not much I can do about it and so I try not to take it personally (easier said than done though, because it's intended to be personal!).

I am actually good with facial expressions, tone of voice, and ect. I'm even good with jokes and idioms, even if I haven't heard them before or not know what I mean. Often I can tell it's a joke and what they mean from listening to tone of voice and looking at their face.
My only social difficulty is lacking confidence. I can sit there and listen and automatically know exactly what the conversation is and who's saying what and how they all feel. Sometimes when I'm in bed, I imagine myself, as an NT, talking in a crowd of other NTs, and I'm good at it. If I didn't have any knowledge of any of those social queues, I wouldn't be able to imagine how it really is. It's like trying to imagine 1000 years from today - it's difficult to imagine it in your head because nobody knows what the future is going to be like over 1000 years from now, so we have no knowledge. When i try to think of that, my mind shuts down. But with social cues, I do know them, but it's bringing them out into the open is what I find difficult, since I am socially phobic and lack confidence very rigidly. If I gained more confidence, I think I will get better.

Anyway, surely my social mind has matured a bit, since I was worse when I was a little child, and my social sense changed more better as I got older. When I was at school I hardly had any friends, and now I have more friends than I ever did.