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by madaxe_again
2249 days ago
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It’s because the usual, and entirely understandable reaction to talking about this is “oh you think you’re better than me” hostility. The easiest thing is to just be an island. There’s a reason that people like me are called “eccentric”, because too much time in your own company inevitably results in social drift. |
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They would act like they were good teachers because I knew so much and act like other kids were just lazy and should "be more like me and just study more" which wasn't at all fair or accurate.
In eighth grade, I was friends with a Hispanic boy. The class was given the chance to do a thing for extra credit and it involved decoding something. Not only did he speak English as a second language, he had no idea what the thing actually was.
I got in trouble for telling him it's a letter substitution puzzle. I didn't know because I was smart. I knew because my father did the Crypto quote in the newspaper every single morning and would drag everyone else into it when he couldn't do it easily.
It was an early lesson in how unfair the world is. He had no hope at all of getting the extra credit because he had too many things stacked against him.
Anyway, I had few friends at school and it was a toxic social environment. I gave up a National Merit Scholarship in part to escape the toxic BS and figure out who I was other than some toxic asshole as taught to me by the school system as a survival mechanism.
If you have no friends and everyone hates you, yes, you learn to Lord it over everyone that "at least I'm smarter than you" as the only defense mechanism you have.
I finally found a thing that explains that it's our strengths that limit us. I've had enough serious problems in life that I've gotten to escape the prison the school system actively built for me, but it wasn't at all easy.