Intelligent, but not very smart

[Mr. Beef]

Hello fellow INTPs. I have been thinking about this recently, and just wanted to know if you had any similar experiences/things to say. I am a very clumsy person.....so clumsy, in fact, that i'm often mistaken for being "stupid". One particular incident occured this evening when me and some fellow floor members were ordering pizza. After we ate, we were trying to decide how much money to give back to each other. Now, I am very talented at math (99th percentile on virtually all standardized math tests and AIME participant) so i decided to take the burden of calculating the amount each person should get. Unfortunately, i get nervous when i have to think on the spot in front of a lot of people, so i fucked up and they playfully started screwing around with me. Two of us ended up getting gypped a few bucks, and i ended up getting gypped one more. I didn't really care because i owed one money anyway, and we were just joking around, but i couldn't really tell if they knew i was kind of absent-minded or if they thought i was stupid. Any similar experiences? Do you guys have any advice for being a little less clumsy and a little more tactful? Assertive even? Or do you have any similar experiences/thoughts to share?

[PenguinHunter]

I don't like being forced to say things, that are supposed to be "smart," on the spot. I hate the participation requirements that I get sometimes with english classes. That said, with practice I find it gets a lot easier to focus on the topic at hand and quickly apply your knowledge. The participation things have probably actually helped me develop that side of "smart." Beyond job interviews this probably isn't going to be a very important skill for an INTP though. So advice? Dunno, either practice (how? if you aren't at school/college, dunno) or don't worry about it.

[2ds]

Just sounds like you lack confidence in front of other people.

Advice.. yeah practice.

Talk to strangers, ask some chick you see in a bookstore out, smile at random people, do some public speaking. Extraverted stuff......

Then retreat back into your shell and regain your energy.

-2ds

[Mr. Beef]

Umm.....less like retreating back to my shell more like coming up for air. Thanks though, but it's going to take some practice learning to respond to people correctly. Plus i have mild high-functioning autism, so that doesn't help!! I think a lot of being "smart" or "quick" has to do with developing your extraversion though.

[2ds]

Gak, your job just got harder.

I exist along the same lines as Helios, I have a mutant NE which just sort of takes care of all that shit automatically. It can be a bit weird sometimes because you end up saying and doing things and you have no idea of what they are but it makes life easy =) Try traingin you Ne =)

-2ds

[Mr. Beef]

Oh no....I have a mutant Ne as well.....only i'm not sure if it's "mutant" or "mutated". I'm often caught saying weird things. Like one time this kid tried to slap me on the wrist and i quickly dodged it while remembering that peter parker dodged a fist in spiderman and that insects see things in a slower time frame. So i just blurted out "I AM AN INSECT!!" loudly and everyone was like "What!?". Yeah.....that's just a MINOR incident. It's much worse usually, and that really wasn't even close to the weirdness i normally engender

[Hypnos]

When I give presentations, I dread questions -- my Ne becomes matched against some asshole's Te, and I lose :) The key is complete preparation, then I can use my Ne to answer general/speculative questions.

In your post-meal money situation, luckily my friends are absent-minded academic types :) In mixed company, I just understand precisely how much I owe, then stand my ground if I'm getting jobbed.

[Mr. Beef]

ha! the sad thing is that my friends were INTP and ISTP. Unfortunately, there are many shades of personality...hell, even the INTP was laughing his ass off!!! Haha....they're still my friends though. :)

[2ds]

Oh no....I have a mutant Ne as well.....only i'm not sure if it's "mutant" or "mutated". I'm often caught saying weird things. Like one time this kid tried to slap me on the wrist and i quickly dodged it while remembering that peter parker dodged a fist in spiderman and that insects see things in a slower time frame. So i just blurted out "I AM AN INSECT!!" loudly and everyone was like "What!?". Yeah.....that's just a MINOR incident. It's much worse usually, and that really wasn't even close to the weirdness i normally engender

No bad mutant Ne, you are supposed to train it so it says the right thing, but you are mystified and everyone else is smiling.

-2ds

[Neppy]

No, I am not smart. Not if I'm just on autopilot around other people. You could ask me to do a huge sum on the spot, and by god I'd attempt it, but I couldn't give you an instant answer, or even a correct one...

In fact, people seem to know me as the ditzy/airheaded one of the group. I'll miss the point, go off on tangents and make completely irrelevant statements. More often than not, I don't even remember to listen to people and I'm suddenly enraptured by a wall or a table as my eyes glaze over.

And forget academia. I did no homework. I wasn't very concise. I refused to work in groups and I never did anything conventionally.

Ah well...

:llama:

Wow.. that's the most awesome emoticon I've ever seen.

[Mr. Beef]

It is pretty awesome.....where could i get one?



I(100%) N(96%) T(90%) P(99%)

Almost pure....

[MasterMerk]

In spite of my reasonable level of intelligence, I have more often appeared like a buffoon, oscillating between taciturn clumsiness and boisterous tomfoolery. People tend to get surprised when I actually do show them my more educated half. ;)
I have to constantly remind people that I'm not an idiot.

[nonsequitur]

I'm often lost in my own world, I remember when I was younger (in primary school) my teachers would call me "slow" and "stupid". I also said the silliest things, asked "stupid" questions.. When I first took an IQ test, the results were really surprising because everyone (including myself) expected me to be retarded or near it. I gradually learnt to express myself, and that helped. I still come off as very quiet, but no one thinks that I'm stupid anymore, especially after I start speaking. People now think that I'm smart, and it pisses me off as much as when they thought that I was stupid..

[Zero Angel]

Good thread. I found myself having the same problems. I have a more extraverted personality at the age of 12, I was the leader of a club (called it the 'Tactical Elite Council'), liked to make schematics for 'inventions', and spoke using big words that people my age couldn't really understand me and even made fun of me for using these words on purpose to confuse them.

The main problem now is that I have trouble atriculating myself. In the past year and a half I have become a lot softer and fuzzier (mentally), to the point where I am quite insecure about my own intelligence (and have quite a bit of negative self-talk going on in the background). I find that these types of insecurity tend to happen around others when I have the slightest bit of pressure from others on me (working alone is different). Though I score higher than a few INTP's on this board on certain IQ test and have almost flawless VS ability (whatever that's used for), I find that IQ is useless when interacting with others because i'm not as 'quick' and precise as I used to be. Even something simple as playing the guitar, I don't like others watching me play because it causes me to mess up.

There were a few times when I could run my intelligence full-blast around a bunch of people, but this is mostly saved for very important situations like speaking up against potentially disasterous administrative blunders that the small-minded boss is really pushing for, or having to get something done NOW. But to do that, I have to adopt a very 'J' type persona.

2ds, that's pretty good advice. Everytime I feel like breaking out of my shell and chatting up random people for short periods, I feel a little bit invigorated; yet the opportunities where I actually want to do this don't come very often.

[Mr. Beef]

Strange you mention that....as a young boy i used to be much more outgoing and social and even witty at times. But now i'm practically a social hermit....i don't really speak my mind as much as i used to. I think it's kind of hard living as an INTP in the social world because you realize that you are different and may fear criticism of your thoughts and ideas. I started to realize that people were critical of my thoughts and ideas around age 9 or 10. It's funny how people lose their individuality and start to adopt a J mentality in around grade school. That's when i started to clam up more...when i began to realize i was different. The development of this whole social contract where everyone's afraid to speak their mind because they all fear each other's criticism is horseshit.....but hey, that's life.