How stupid are you?

[Neville Chamberlain]

I'm so stupid it physically hurts :-(

[JaDanketies]

When I was a kid and a young adult I would get called / inferred to be stupid regularly, but to be honest nobody does that nowadays. Perhaps because I'm all grown up, or maybe because I can excise people I don't like from my life relatively easily.

I'm still a little naïve though, perhaps a little bit too trusting in strangers (and friends), but I think I'm becoming a bit more attuned to this now. I'm not sure if that means I'm getting wiser or just more jaded.

Did well at school, straight As at college, but got a 2:2 at uni, which was stupid. All feels like ancient history now though.

I might not know much outside of my specialist subjects but I know I don't know much, and I don't necessarily need to commit to any opinions or beliefs.

[mr. logic]

I'm SOOO stupid I have a double starred first from Cambridge, an MPhil with Distinction from Oxford and I received my PhD (also from Oxford) at the age of 23 and sometimes I'm like 'where did I put my keys????' lol

Haha, exactly.

[AllisonSays]

I did well academically without really focusing very much, and like Zet I sometimes thinK that speaks to a kind of glib, facile fluidity of language rather than any kind of profound capacity for understanding things. Working in kitchens for the best part of a decade certainly cured me of thinking I was 'clever', whatever that means, because I was fucking shit at it, much to the glee of colleagues in the first couple of jobs I had who enjoyed seeing someone with loads of GCSEs not know how to boil an egg or whatever.

Teaching at a university, you really see (I think) the profound damage that the cleverness/stupidity dichotomy does, though; people who've been told they don't understand things so many times that they've decided they can't, and conversely people who think that because they can speak confidently in full grammatical sentences and got good grades, they already understand everything, often without even reading it. Equality of intelligence, or the idea that everyone can understand everything under the right conditions, is the only way to think about it as a teacher in my opinion.

[Thomas]

I'm stupid for a number of reasons I won't name, just in case other people possess the same traits but don't think of themselves as stupid.

It could be you!

[Jockice]

I failed my PhD and I regularly stick pins in my eyes. That's how stupid I am..

[Small Man Big Horse]

I largely did okay at school when it came to the humanities but struggled with both physics and chemistry, a very shit and dull teacher was partially to blame as very few of my year enjoyed the subject, but not many failed them like I did. I used to have pretty much no common sense as a kid but thanks to three years working in a fish and chip shop before university I learnt a hell of a lot, and though I sort of once flooded the shop (well, there was about a centimetre of water everywhere) I somehow managed not to destroy it. My memory used to be appalling as well but that was largely due to smoking weed, and it's been a relief that it's slowly getting better over the past couple of years since I stopped.

[thenoise]

Intelligent as fuck mate. But, sadly, not in any way that is remotely useful. And I have great difficulty in convincing other people that I have an even competent level of intelligence. Stupid but with the ability to convince other people of my smarts would be a much more useful combination, career wise.
Perhaps related, I am ludicrously obedient by nature and tend to take the advice of anyone I ask, whether I agree with it or not. So I have to be a bit careful who I confide in.

[idunnosomename]

I'm SOOO stupid I have a double starred first from Cambridge, an MPhil with Distinction from Oxford and I received my PhD (also from Oxford) at the age of 23 and sometimes I'm like 'where did I put my keys????' lol

👆 This. 🤣😂🤣🤣

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Dyslexic, clumsy and difficulties expressing myself in the language of the country I live in. A chronic illness that bodied my short term memory and word retrieval. Until a year ago perpetually drunk too.

For all practical purposes I'm thick as shit unless you care about two specific books in which case I'm interesting for about ten minutes until you realise what an ideologue I am.

[Pink Gregory]

I don't think I'm in posession of any kind of above-average logical or creative intelligence, but I feel like I do at least possess crushing self-awareness. 

[Rizla]

Not stupid enough to post in a thread about how stupid I am, that's for sure!

[BlodwynPig]

I'm SOOO stupid I have a double starred first from Cambridge, an MPhil with Distinction from Oxford and I received my PhD (also from Oxford) at the age of 23 and sometimes I'm like 'where did I put my keys????' lol

We going dune buggying later, hoss?

[Fishfinger]

First at university and they gave me a job too. 85% moronic.

[Alberon]

I've worked at a university for decades (in an admin/support role) and the number of academics who are good in their specialised field but otherwise I wouldn't trust with a pencil is frightening.

I've often said universities are places for people who can't cope with the real world and I'm well aware I fit in that category too.

I got only four O levels at school largely due to lack of motivation rather than outright stupidity and I was too nervous to move away to college or university which I regret now, but I wouldn't have been able to cope with at the time.

I'm probably not nearly as smart as I think I am, but I'm certainly getting more confident as I get older. If I make it to eighty I think I'll probably have got things mostly figured out and ready to start really living.

[kalowski]

Yes ,you are. Can't work a microwave, indeed. Piss off and do some hard sums ( < this line delivered with the same amount of withering disdain as Kevin Eldon The Cat invested in his line delivered to Mark Heap the mouse " piss off, and eat some cheese." In that sketch from the first series of " Big Train"  [1998]).

Thanks for the confirmation...and reminding me of one of the best sketches ever (PS Eldon was the mouse)

[Buelligan]

I hardly visited education at all.  My mother didn't know I could go to school until I was seven.  I left spiritually at about the same age.  I work for minimum wage.  I let people and animals fuck me over 24/7.  I'm guessing I'm pretty stupid but am happy to be corrected.

[bakabaka]

I'm just happy to be correct. It doesn't happen often.

[David Pielingtonburygrot]

I let people and animals fuck me over 24/7.

That must've been exhausting.

[Astronaut Omens]

Humblebrag thread.

On the contrary, I'm really grateful to everyone for contributing to this thread. I can't really get to get into my own struggles on this issue, but thanks to everyone for shedding a bit of light on your own experiences.

[Kankurette]

Being able to basically administer your own existence (hygiene, financial affairs, boring stuff), being conscientious towards others, and being able to sense bullshit and risk at ten paces is pretty much all that matters. That doesn't require intelligence, just grounding.

If I was having a try at parenting a child I would focus on those bits and fuck trying to teach them piano, elocution lessons or piling on loads of expectations and pressure. If they want to go in a certain direction then all good and well, but not if they can't tie their laces, understand APR and treat people different to themselves with respect.

Intelligence/talent is a fucker if you can't use it to sort your life out or be a basically decent person to others. Some of the best people I've met did nothing at school but have a moral centre and don't need to be picked up from a ditch every two weeks after the latest meltdown.

P. S - Absolutely not using myself as a stellar example, this took 26 years to figure out and I still get it wrong as all my regrets, even though I have a better life now than then, chew me up

Yep. Also, intelligence is relative. You don't have to have a degree to be intelligent.

I'm not humblebragging. CaB makes me aware on a regular basis that I'm not that bright.

[TrenterPercenter]

Let's just remember that one of the main players in "intelligence" was this chap...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/03/eugenics-francis-galton-science-ideas

Intelligence quotients are culturally bound around social norms which basically means they are just testing what cultures generally perceive as intelligence. 

[Sherringford Hovis]

I'm so lazy that I've never done enough things to prove to either myself or others whether I'm stupid or not.

[The Mollusk]

I'm so stupid it physically hurts :-(

I can confirm this is true. I met Nev once and just being within 6 feet of him for more than 30 minutes put my back out for a week, just the sheer aura of his stupidity!

[mr. logic]

I hardly visited education at all.  My mother didn't know I could go to school until I was seven.  I left spiritually at about the same age.  I work for minimum wage.  I let people and animals fuck me over 24/7.  I'm guessing I'm pretty stupid but am happy to be corrected.

Nope, sounds about right. You and me both.

[flotemysost]

Academically OK at some stuff (got a First at uni, had decent arts/humanities GCSEs) but failed Maths, Technology, and things like that. Getting a degree definitely isn't a measure of intelligence though. On my course they literally told you what your essay had to contain in order to get the top marks, so I just did it.

In terms of real life: astonishingly clumsy (I accidentally break household objects at a rate of around one per week and am constantly twatting my head/arms/shin etc. on stuff, by simply just breathing/existing, it seems), can't do the most basic mental maths for absolute shit, generally find it difficult to hold solid/practical concepts in my head or give that stuff much attention at all. Alright at languages, but always struggle with the grammar rules.

I used to be quite creative with writing and drawing, but I'm insanely jealous of anyone who has the ability to compose music or write songs - to me that's just a mind-blowing whole other level of skill which I can't imagine ever understanding.

For what it's worth I think there's more intelligence, creativity and wit here than in vast realms of the Internet/society at large, and not that it's necessarily a measure of intelligence but you all come across as ridiculously eloquent, cultured and worldly. Makes me sick.

[non capisco]

I definitely think my basic comprehension skills have got worse during plague times. I think my brain needs a base state of personal security to thrive and when that goes for a burton with a raging pandemic and a dwindling parent in the background it just flops about, wringing its metaphorical hands and hopping from metaphorical foot to foot like a nervous cartoon character. There's a load of extra bollocks at work we've had to figure out as we go regarding Brexit and there was one week in particular I was almost paralysed with mental torpor at it all, just wanted to walk away and not come back, couldn't help feeling "A while ago I would have figured this out straight away, spinning on my dick."

[dissolute ocelot]

I've a really good memory for facts of the sort you learnt at school, but I can't remember faces, names, routes, addresses, shopping lists, or foreign language vocabulary. But as long as it doesn't involve leaving my house or interacting with other people I'm good.

[Dex Sawash]

People seem to think I am clever but good lord are they thick.

[pigamus]

Just stared, baffled, for nearly a full minute, at a Tesco club sandwich. I thought it was put together wrong. Eventually I realised there were three slices of bread in each sandwich.