Tara writes:
Yes, I agree, although my IQ is not “very high”, my GRE score does correlate to an IQ of about 140, but my near-genius or possibly even bona fide low-level genius IQ has never done anything save cause me grief…I suspect that for people who have even higher IQ’s than myself the problem is further compounded. I am very introverted and have little or no interest in the trivial things that most people (specifically most women around my age) deem gives their life a sense of purpose…I’m not interested in having children, getting married, or even the pointless rat race that the so-called ‘career woman’ aspires to…In short, I agree that it’s not all rosy for the high-IQ crowd, but I disagree that high IQ women have it any easier. In fact, women may run into social integration problems even with modest IQ’s in the 135 to 150 range whereas men may not run into the same problems until they hit 160–175 due to
1) More societal tolerance of the display of ‘high-IQ traits’ in males.
2) Reaching a point of relative rarity at a lower IQ level due to differences in variation (e.g. twice as many men have an IQ above 140, and the disparity increases further as the intelligence level increases, thus high-IQ females experience isolation/maladaptation possibly as much as 20 to 30 IQ points lower than males).
Anyway, I’ve worked as a janitor/cleaning lady most of my life despite having a degree in mathematics with a minor in physics…My high IQ hasn’t done anything except get me into a bunch of shit both literally and figuratively…😦
A similar sort of thing is often reported in very high-IQ males. Very high IQ males often shun marriage or marry late to very late. Childlessness is common.
To give you an example, all of my siblings and I have genius IQ’s. Only one of us has married and had a child. The other two did not marry and had no children.
I am 58 years old, and I have no children that I am aware of anyway. I was actually philosophically opposed to marriage until age 47 when I started to consider it as an option. I don’t care that I never married, and I am not dying to marry. I think I may marry at some point in my life though, as a number of women have been trying like crazy to marry me for the last 18 years. I haven’t ever really lived with a woman. The longest I have ever lived with a woman was two weeks.
I can also be quite introverted, and sadly I have become much more introverted as I have gotten older.
I have worked at all sorts of occupations: magazine editor, proofreader, schoolteacher (K-12), freelance writer, paralegal, linguist, cultural anthropologist, book author and illustrator, head of a computer consulting business, psychological counselor/therapist, medical counselor, broker for artists, academic book writer, book illustrator, HTML designer, dispute arbitrator for artists, information sales, and blog author.
I also had a few criminal careers which I very much enjoyed, as it seemed like, as below, I was putting one over on society. The one I will discuss is drug dealer, an occupation that I had for nearly a decade and a half.
So you see, I have been all over the map when it comes to jobs. Furthermore, I am something of an impostor as I have dived right into fields that generally required a degree or certificate. I had no degree or certificate in most of these cases, and in some cases I didn’t even know anything about the job. Sometimes I would go get some books on “How to Be a So and So (name of job).” I would just read through the books and then dive right into the job. “If you can’t make it, fake it” ought to be my motto.
I rather enjoy roaming around doing all sorts of jobs in all sorts of different fields. It’s a kick, and it’s also sort a big joke, especially when I act as an imposter and pretty much fake my way into some job and then learn on the job. It’s like a gigantic con job, as I am sort of putting one over on society if not my employer.
As you can see though, I have not had one single job in one career as many to most folks do. Probably as a result, although I have worked at some prestigious jobs, I have not made much money in life, which is another thing that I could pretty much care less about like the woman above.
I have also worked at many basic, low-level type and even minimum wage jobs like the author has, quite a few of which are not only non-prestigious but are actually looked down on by society as “loser’s jobs.” I will pretty much do anything when it comes to minimum wage and low level jobs. I do not feel humiliated having to work as these jobs. Some of the jobs I worked at are so degraded that I have even have people yell at me and call me a loser for being “only a son and so (name of job).
Working at low-level jobs and not earning much money in life is quite common among very high IQ people, especially in males with IQ’s 160+. Most people are shocked by this and think if you have a very high IQ, it is a ticket to automatically making a lot of money. This is absolutely not true and in fact, in many cases, the opposite is true.
These very high IQ times who lead rather unsuccessful lives employment-wise are not losers at all. Instead, they are being rather normal for people with that high of an IQ level. Most people just can’t seem to get their heads around that, and they are completely baffled by the lack of success of many very high-IQ people.
All I have to say is that at some level of very high-IQ, I feel that having that high of an IQ is as much or more of a hindrance than a gift. I am thinking that it may just be possible to be too smart to succeed well in life. In other words, some people are just too smart.