tephra189: When you say more intelligent than 84% of the population, is that in a global sense or just when compared to the population of the USA?
I have an IQ of 115 and I am in love with this blog post. I have reread this multiple times over the past couple of days. As a 20 year old male, I identify with everything written here. As a quick example, I find it extremely difficult if not impossible to make friends my age because what they say is too obvious, there tends to be no new ideas that stimulate my brain, and I get bored of interacting with them. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for writing this.
Better than 84% of the US. They are smarter than 90% of the world population because the average US IQ is 100, and the average human IQ is 89.
I am glad you love the post. I may even want to talk to you by email or even in this comment section if you like.
You have a 115 IQ and you are totally alienated in this way. Now imagine your IQ was 32 points higher than that. My IQ is two actual standard deviations above the poster’s. However, I still think you would be an interesting person for me to talk to you because you could probably understand most of what I was talking about, although a lot of what I said might be new information to you.
Also people in your range have occasional strokes of sheer genius or brilliance where they say the perfect thing. How many times have you ever heard someone make one small statement, often a sentence or maybe two, that so perfectly sums up some area of life that you want to copyright it? 115 IQ can do that, and not just once either. Fairly regularly. They have sort of “got it figured out.” Now granted most 110 or even 90 IQ people often think they’ve got it all figured out too.
I won’t deny that, but I think the 115 IQ and I have got it figured out better than these people have. Not that it makes us any better to function in life. There’s no real advantage to understanding the basic workings of human beings better than the ordinary person. And it is often a disadvantage because you start talking about the basic workings of human beings a lot, and most people just get mad and shut you down for “generalizing.”
Which is what we are doing. Trust me, if you want to understand the basic workings of human beings, you need to do a huge amount of generalizing. The more the better, to a point. At some point, you are overgeneralizing and not allowing for exceptions and now you may be rewarded with the title of “narrow-minded.” But I’d rather talk to a narrow-minded person who thinks they’ve got it down than someone who dismisses any truth about humans as a “generalization.”
The higher your IQ, the more you generalize. People with very high IQ’s are generalizing continuously. We are always looking for patterns. And we get bored very easily.
Some 115 IQ women are excellent students of human nature, almost like little psychologists.
And comparing myself to your alienation, let’s say that I often feel like a Goddamned alien from another planet! I literally feel like a visitor from a foreign planet or like I am visiting an alien world a lot of the time.
I meet people all the time who seem almost borderline retarded to me, but I have a feeling that their IQ’s might be ~100. They are often high school graduates with just a bit of college. I don’t know what their IQ’s are because it’s so hard to figure out people’s IQ, and you never want to ask them unless you think they are pretty damn smart. It is embarrassing for me to even have the thought that they seem almost retarded so I try to banish the thought from my mind because it almost seems like a thought crime. But it keeps coming back. I hate spelling and gross punctuation grammar mistakes. They drive me up the wall.
At times the world itself even seems borderline retarded to me. You might think it is a pleasant feeling because I get to feel better than everyone else. Actually it makes me miserable. Sometimes I would kill for a 100 IQ just go I could be one of the boys or one of the guys. I sometimes like to hang out with very ordinary people – people who have been to jail or prison, drug users, former or current gang members, heavy drinkers. These people are usually not very smart, but at least I get to feel like salt of the Earth. Some of them are unbelievably friendly. They are so warm. You’re having your first conversation with them and they act like they’re your best friend for years.
And ordinary people are often a Hell of a lot smarter than you think.
If someone seems smart as Hell, I might ask them if they have ever taken an IQ test. MIGHT. But if not, I would not even ask them. If someone’s IQ seems around normal, I would never ask them their score. It would be embarrassing to them. Sometimes I ask girlfriends though because if I am dating a woman regularly, I like to know her IQ score. It really helps to know that. And if her IQ is under 115, I can tell you right off the bat that there are probably going to be problems. Like pretty serious ones.
