feeling lesser than

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hallo.

tonight i went to a hacker/maker space. i went there because i wanted to try the circuit hacking group out, and maybe assess the JavaScript group there too, since i'm getting into some programming now.

i was seated at a table with two other guys, where we wrought out our individual projects (my project was a little blinky LED light thing). The one guy started to talk to me and the other guy. i tried to maintain distance, but eventually, i caved when he mentioned he was a programmer.

i don't think he thought i was friendly. in truth, i'm not friendly at all. i despise small talk, but when he mentioned that he was a programmer, it was all over. i had to talk to him... he was really intelligent; i could tell. the more and more i talked to him, the more i got the sense that he thought i was pretty stupid. i don't think i said anything terrible... maybe he viewed me as a "wannabe" because i told him that i'm trying to learn several computer languages at one time.

whatever he thought, and i can't know for sure... i felt that i came off as profoundly stupid... and at best; as a pretender with quite average intelligence. it didn't help that i found him deeply attractive, either.

i have a real inferiority issue. i have always had people tell me "you seem so smart", but then they don't understand how i can have such difficulties with basic things like elementary math, spelling, or even my stories of the futility of learning to tie my shoelaces until the age of 10. though, as an adult, i can tie my shoelaces very well, i just do it 'backwards', apparently... i don't produce the same things people my own age can produce quite readily, though i do produce things that are... rather idiosyncratic. my methods are obtuse for most people, and i know why this is. i'm different and i am intelligent... i just don't feel that way. especially when i talk to others in my peer group.

i feel dumb. really dumb. and i can't stop thinking about how dumb i feel that i am in comparison to others. i see so many other stunning examples of human intelligence and brilliance in the world, and i remain choked and mediocre.

sorry for the self-pity party. i just wanted to get that off of my digital chest.

Hello donothing1979,

You did right. Intelligent and/or gifted people are not always kind - it's the least we can say.

May they do it on purpose or not, it's not always pleasant to be or talk with them.

Maybe that one never met one "of your kind" before?
And had no idea of your difficulties in everyday life?

So by maintening distance in the first place, you were quite right, weren't you?

And what is that circuit hacking group that you're talking about?
If I may ask.

You may not have come off as stupid, but learning several programming languages at once is honestly not a very good idea. Once you have a strong understanding of the fundamentals that knowledge will be highly beneficial as you explore new languages, but I don't think you're going to learn them very quickly if you're spreading yourself out too thin and worrying about everything that varies between languages. If anything it was just inexperience - which is totally fine to have - and maybe he didn't feel like you were on the same page.

I feel somewhat self-conscious next to some programmer friends myself. I'm a little lacking in the mathematics department and have a tendency to complain that sources aren't meticulous and detailed enough, but like me I think you'll find that many will be open-minded towards newcomers and willing to lend a hand if you're willing to ask.

You're only a wannabe if you don't work at it; there are no rules for how you learn.

I agree that everybody learns things differently -- there are no rules for how to learn things...What forms the foundation of one person's understanding may not form the foundation of another person's understanding.

When it comes to programming languages, I know very little (and it's all so frustrating to me that I may never go back to it to learn more) -- but I would know nothing if I hadn't dabbled in more than one programming language. Programming languages are very abstract and I am not an abstract-lexical-thinker but a concrete/sensory--visual- and pattern-thinker....seeing the similarities between languages helped me figure out what the words and symbols in each language actually do -- helped me get a nonverbal sense of what some of the fundamental pieces of a computer program are.

I never seem to learn things the way other people do. I can't follow the cognitive steps people take -- and other people rarely understand when I try to show them my cognitive steps. I can't learn in a linear fashion.

I can think of a few times where others might have thought I was stupid (e.g. people seeming surprised when they learned I knew something, or did well on a paper or exam...people giving me funny looks and repeating themselves more slowly/loudly after I said something or asked a question), and I'm fairly sure that for me it's a communication issue...people don't understand what I'm saying and/or thinking. A large part of this is my language problems, but I wonder if sometimes part of the problem is that my way of thinking is different -- if people find it more difficult to interpret what I'm saying because I don't think the same way, or about the same things, as they do... Example: When I was 14 I got to take a rudimentary 3-month electronics/computer class at school...I remember there were these little gadgets with buttons and red LED lights that I think were set up to show us something about binary code...at any rate you puhed the buttons in whatever order and the LEDs would light up, and I wanted to understand the mechanics of how you got from the code to the LEDs lighting up...so I asked my teacher, "How does it work?" and he looked at me funny for a moment and then told me that you use the buttons to enter the code, which makes the LEDs light up. I said, "No, that's not what I mean, I mean how does that work?" and my teacher looked at me even longer, then he slowly and carefully told me what seemed to be the exact same thing using more words...we did this a few more times with me trying to find a way to refer to an invisible process I knew nothing about and my teacher repeating himself more and more carefully and adamantly before I finally gave up and said, "Thank you," because I didn't understand what was happening between us and just wanted the interaction to stop....I was thinking about the "low-level" electrical mechanics of the process (I wanted to be able to see the actual circuitry and how it worked) and my teacher was not. Looking back at that incident more than a decade later, I can see that my teacher's way of thinking about how the little gadgets worked was nothing like my own... in retrospect, I'm pretty sure he thought I just wasn't very smart. My inability to explain/rephrase my question meant I couldn't bridge the gap between our different thought processes...but if we had been thinking the same way, perhaps it wouldn't have mattered that I couldn't alter my original question as much as I needed to.

I still don't know how to tie my shoes; and yet my English teacher calls me a writing savant.

To each their own strengths and weaknesses ;p

At my job I feel like I am more then my co workers. I am able to see problems with the kids and help them over come almost any school problem and can spot an upset a kid two miles away.

But as soon as I am not at the school I not even above a worm.