Ask HN: "Dumbing yourself down" around your peers?
I've been doing it my whole life (I'm 30) because I felt that it would be easier to fit in with most people. So when I hear people confidently repeat urban myths like "we only use 10% of our brains", or "you'll drown if you don't eat an hour before swimming" etc, I don't bother trying to explain why I think they're wrong. Some people take it too personally (because of their ego, perhaps), and if they think you do it too often they tend to avoid your company for various reasons. Then there are times I avoid discussion of a topic completely because it tends to happen at a very superficial level or from a very narrow perspective (maybe because of things like lack of understanding or confirmation bias). I find that when I try to expand on certain areas of discussion I just get blank stares. So I usually just stick to topics like gossip, sport, women, cars, or I let other people do most of the talking. Obviously all individuals (and my relationships with them) are different to a degree, but these are some of the things I tend to see and do.
Anyway, I'm 30 now and I think "dumbing myself down" (at least on an intellectual level) has really taken it's toll on me. I never really had a big problem with managing relationships with people but it's getting to the point where I find conversations with my friends unbearable. eg. Last night I was on my phone reading HN and reddit while a group of us were in a lounge at some club (we had just come from a strip-club). I've vented occasionally about how I felt about this to my mom and she always says I should get new friends. The problem is that part of trying to fit in is emulating the behaviour of your peers. When I was younger, I was hung out with the street-thug type (avoided crime and drugs though). Then I left that for the clubbing and partying scene (took me a while to adjust). After leaving college I found there are very few people with my interests and lifestyle. They usually tend to fall into one group or the other. To put it simply, the one group is smart but boring, the other group is exciting but being around them is a mind-numbing experience. I've tried having two sets of friends but it didn't work out that well. I could also try changing my social circles again but where to next? And I don't really feel like changing my lifestyle again. Perhaps balance is the key, but finding people with the right balance is not that easy.
In the meantime I've resorted back to my (unhealthy) hacker nature. Dark bedroom, bright monitor, and 20 tabs open in a browser.
Anyone else going/been through something similar? How do you cope/are you coping?
117 comments
[ 6.3 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadWhat would Summer Glau do?
Dumbing yourself down is like hacking off a foot to fit in with a leper colony. It's a change that'll be hard to reverse later on, whether you want to or not.
There are plenty of people who are smart and fun, and plenty who are dumb and lame.
Sure you'll have to work harder to find those people, but it should be worth it, to keep your identity
The best advice I ever got about picking friends was that you should hang out with the people you want to be like. In your case, you seem to not want to go directly from a strip club to a social establishment and get crunked. Well, there is a fairly simple solution to that...
(UrbanDictionary tells me my usage of "crunked" is wrong. This is what I get for not spending enough time around people who are simultaneously drunk and stoned, I guess?)
I don't mind the partying, but even in a club, a lounge is usually more intimate and people tend to strike up conversations more easily. If a few people out of the group do it it's easy just to say "fuck this bullshit let's party!!!" and you can be relatively sure that the others will agree and the conversation dies. There are times though that people just want to relax and have "serious" discussion (especially if your life revolves around partying). And it's usually these times that I just want to turn off.
[edit] Oh and in case you were wondering, I don't usually go to strip clubs. One of my friends who owns a club was invited to check the place out and a few of us tagged along.
If you feel like all hope is lost, get out of your bubble. Try a new activity. Go travel for an extended period of time. You have to be fun, exciting, and interesting yourself before you start attracting the same types of people.
I tend to think of it as people having different interests. Many people have a familiarity with celebrity gossip that rivals my familiarity with programming. They're just choosing to use their brainpower in a different way.
I'm sure many people on HN disagree, but that's how I see the world. Intelligence neutral.
I choose to hang out with people who are interested in things that I am. I have a natural filter -- I continue to talk about things that I think are interesting in all company, and when conversation moves in a direction that I don't like, I disengage. That's not to say that I don't try to take an interest in things outside of my realm of experience, but people who know me learn pretty quickly that if they talk about football, I'm going to get glassy eyed. Or worse, start talking about the use of graph theory in tournament scheduling.
I know exactly what you mean. That's why I put in quotes. It just makes it easier to talk about.
Usually, "dumbing myself down" in my case means suppressing knowledge that I have. I can't fault other people for not knowing things that I do because as you say different people have different interests, and beside that I spend much more time on the internet that what they do, so I'm more up to date with current affairs than they are.
But whether you take "dumbing down" to mean suppression of knowlege, skills or intelligence, the end result is what I was referring to.
> I continue to talk about things that I think are interesting in all company, and when conversation moves in a direction that I don't like, I disengage
This is part of what I mean. Maybe other people have a higher tolerance level (or maybe I do it too much) but this kind of behaviour has really taken it's toll on me.
My default instinct is to feel bad for socially inept people, because I have had a good deal of social problems myself. However, I often find that socially-inept people are simply ugly on the inside, even after I give them the benefit of the doubt. Walking around making constant negative judgments about the intelligence of your peers is hardly a good way to get along.
Maybe I didn't explain myself well enough, but I get along with other people very well. People like being around me for various reasons. Don't get me wrong - I am fully aware that there is much more to life than intellectual stimulation and in no way do I base my relationships with people on this idea alone. I'm just talking about one outcome of managing my relationship with others, and I would like to find out how many other people have gone through this (or are going through this) and how they deal with it. I find that self-improvement is one of the first steps in managing relations with others. Because at the end of the day, it is my problem, not theirs.
It's difficult to convey your precise meaning when it comes to interpersonal relationships. You can try very hard to explain what you mean but there will invariably be some ambiguity (it took me a few days to figure out how I should verbalize this to HN - in the end I decided to avoid analysis-paralysis). In many cases, the best one can do is hope that what you say strikes a chord with people in similar situations (hence the opening and closing sentences). That more people are commenting on individual pieces of my post rather than sharing there own experiences could be an indication that there aren't many people that can relate to this.
Whatever the case, I am grateful for the responses.
My ex couldn't follow my academic work, but she was a writer with a rich inner life. That was interesting to me, and we got along. If I wrote her off because she couldn't follow complexity theory, I would have missed out on a good relationship.
Personally, I had many problems socializing. I used to hate parties, clubs, large gatherings, etc. I would get bored. However, I value other people and I value having good social skills. So I bought books and worked at it. The challenge of being good at social situations turns out to be interesting enough to hold my attention.
I posit that this is mostly due to the very incomplete first-hand/direct understanding most of us have of intelligence. Most of us only know one or several slim slices of intelligence. This may make it very hard for us to recognize intelligence in another.
I am reminded of an encounter with the clerk at the comic book store the day before yesterday. He was trying to make me out like I was some sort of illiterate because I didn't know who everyone in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was. (I know the major characters only.) As it so happens, much of my interest is in music and not literature, but I am sometimes moved by literature. He seemed positively smug that only he was curious enough to Google all the minor characters.
One thing that I might say -- it seems that a degree of "emotional intelligence" might have tremendous leverage -- it may well help you find others who are intelligent in novel and interesting ways.
Another situation from the past week -- there's a woman in one of the jam sessions I go to, who's just a terrible drummer! She has no sense of rhythm, except to approximate the beat with random and inappropriate errors. (Which totally wipes out the wonderful push-pull on the rhythm that the really good musicians are trying to share with each other.) It's like she's an incontinent with no sense of smell, inured to everyone's teeth-gritting tolerance of her. Well, there's a definite "flow" to socializing, and many different styles. It's advisable to either learn the particular "flow" of your group, or find another one more to your liking.
When I moved town and did my PhD I found the local Mensans complete prats, but the university gave me the stimulation I needed.
You need to find people with whom you can be yourself, but equally, you need to learn how to get on with people in general. I learned a lot from Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People." It's almost a manual for how to problem-solve your way through the challenge of social interaction. Recognise that others have needs and desires, and sometimes that means you shouldn't try to educate them. There are times when it's of no value.
Recognise too that sometimes others are just as smart as you, but in different fields of expertise. Learn to learn from them.
Stay true to yourself, learn to interact with people generally, respect people as individuals, ...
Seek out those with whom you can be yourself.
They do exist.
It's like playing games. Over time, if you always win, people stop wanting to playing with you. Find games they can win and lose frequently until you win all the time then find a new game to play with them together.
Be the student. Let someone teach you.
From a sex/relationship advice article but very true.
http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articleoprahmatch.asp...
If you don't live near one you could help start one in your area.
But I won't dumb down.
I don't really see what the problem is with "switching modes" depending on who you're talking to. Everybody does it. It's natural. You don't want to be the guy that yaps about the research project he's doing during the department social hour, and which is coincidentally the only thing he talks about before and after social hour as well.
Even though I can follow a conversation about graph theory and computational biology, I still avoid the guys at social hour that won't talk about anything else.
Why do you say that? I ask because I'm genuinely curious about how to talk about these things without sounding like that, and without having to qualify everything I say.
The fact is that I am aware that it's my shortcoming. That's why I'm not asking for advice on how to change other people. I'd rather find a way to improve the situation for myself. I don't consider myself supremely intelligent, and I don't consider my peers stupid either. For all I know, they might have the same complaints about me when it comes to topics like sports or women. I don't base relationships with people on the basis of my perception of their intelligence either. As I mentioned to someone else, this is just one aspect of the entire spectrum of interpersonal relationships. In the future, I might have a problem with learning to accept people's opinions. But right now, as far as relationships go, this is what has been on my mind.
I read his question as more like: "How do I reconcile knowing spouting X and Y are egregious idiocy with socializing with people who do that?"
I hear this question as more like "Doctor, it hurts when I do that, what do I do?" Answer: Don't do that!
You're right, but after reading this to myself I realized that my problem could be more like "how do I deal with the frustrations that go along with managing relationships with people like this?"
I'm glad you posted that. Sometimes the difficulty in finding an answer stems from not fully understanding the problem one's self.
So you need to feed that social part of yourself without doing, time-consuming and mostly pointless things, like getting drunk with the guys and watching naked women dance. If you dig naked women dancing, get HBO. Or just surf the net.
As a consultant, I go through phases of alone down-and-working hacking, when I'm not on a big contract, and working full-time with other people trying to help them when I am on a big contract.
I've found that both of these lifestyles have something positive and negative about them. I need social interaction, yet I crave just doing my own thing and being left alone also. I've found that since I don't value my social needs, I sometimes end up taking just whatever comes along, instead of actively planning. This spontaneity is cool when you're 20. But it gets less and less cool the older you get, for some reason. (Usually after you end up with a decade of spending your free time and you've in the same spot, with the same people, doing the same things you were ten years ago.)
In the past, this has sometimes led to be hanging out with people who are, or at least think they are, exciting. If I were you, I'd find something bigger than yourself to believe in and get involved with it. Church, Boy Scouts, civic groups, environmental groups, politics -- something that you find both intellectually stimulating and where you have a lot of social interaction. Make yourself do this, because you will not think that it will work until you actually do it.
And give up the I'm-so-smart routine. Trust me, you're an idiot like the rest of us, just in a different way. So you have lots factual recall ability? Aside from a promising future as a game show contestant, who cares? People with a great recall ability can be some of the most annoying people on the planet to deal with. Trust me, I'm one of them! Meet people where they are, and relate to them in an honest manner that you both can handle. Sounds like you've got a big of overly-done self importance thing going on. Once again, finding something more important than you and humbly trying to contribute to it could make you more of a person that really is smart and interesting and exciting people, like myself, would want to hang out with. (grin)
Life is about you putting stuff into it, not sitting on your ass waiting to see what comes out of it and then criticizing what you get by default. Sorry to rag on you so much -- you probably don't deserve it, but geesh, you're 30. Get a better attitude and lifestyle already.
Daniel, sometimes (not always) when I read your writing, I wonder if we were separated at birth. Sure looking forward to meeting you someday.
Seriously though, I thought long and hard about hitting the submit button. Too many times somebody comes to the group with an honest question and then we rag all over them. It's easy to be critical! As hackers we are really good at finding faults.
But I tried to put myself in his shoes. After all, he came for some feedback. I thought the best thing to do was try to give it to him as honestly and as kindly as I could.
The feeling is mutual! Look forward to meeting you as well some day.
> What can I say? I'm a karma whore. I just restate the obvious and bask in the upvoting love.
It's weird that insulting the OP and myself is a method of karma whoring. Anyway, downvoted for being so pessimistic and then calling your ideas "obvious" which is arrogant (and moments after you implied the OP is arrogant by saying he overestimates himself). Also "trust me" is a non-argument that makes you sound slimy.
In my opinion, I added nothing much of value aside from simply re-assembling the ideas everybody else already had. Arrogance was never my intention. I'm simply saying I don't see much new that I added. It's a reply to a complement -- thanks, but it wasn't that big of a deal. This type of sentence construction happens all the time in normal conversation.
If you're insulted, I apologize. I'm also confused. Where are you in any of the parents of this comment for me to insult you? You've got one comment on the page, and as far as I can tell, it's not even related to any of mine.
And saying I sound slimy is out-of-bounds. I'll end this here. I replied simply because I have no idea what in heck you're talking about and thought maybe I had done a poor job of explaining myself.
Regarding arrogance, saying your ideas are obvious (obviously true) is arrogant. Whether you intend for the statement to be arrogant is irrelevant to whether it is arrogant.
Saying things are "out of bounds" and therefore refusing to consider them is out of bounds in rational conversation.
My guess is: none of this is you communicating poorly or me misunderstanding. Rather, it's that your statements have meanings beyond the ones you had in mind while writing them.
Go troll somewhere else. An entire post that's an insult that people have to google shouldn't be posted here.
I really appreciate the effort, but I think you've misinterpreted some key things. Much of what you said doesn't really apply to me or the problem I'm having. I don't blame you, after all you only had my input to go on. Your feedback was valuable to me in trying to improve my communication skills though.
People are simply different. The people that feel that they are smarter than others are often way down the line. The really smart people are the ones that want to learn everything from everyone.
As it turns out, when you're always trying to be the teacher, you miss out on many of life's lessons.
Unless you're always the smartest person in the room.
I don't think this is quite accurate, but it's vague, and I can't really tell which one of these you are ascribing your examples to. In any case, intelligence and intellectual ability are multi-faceted. The ability to recall random facts may be a facet of intellectual ability, but it is tangential to intelligence. The ability to comprehend, and to be creative and synthesize new ideas, are both an aspect of intellectual ability and an aspect of intelligence. They do have something to do with one another, but in your defense, I don't think they are the same thing.
The really smart people are the ones that want to learn everything from everyone.
Agreed. But this hits on a conundrum I and a lot of geeky friends I have run into; this desire to learn everything from everybody can irritate people. It can lead to asking questions that probe for a deeper understanding, but instead elicit a scathing response demanding that I or whoever stop judging the person and what they believe. The usual reaction I have is confusion, and a wondering how asking questions can be turned into passing judgment. I can see how, if one is not careful, having this happen enough can breed a sort of smug prejudice that people who react this haven't thought about much of anything. It might be accurate for some, but assuming it for those that are not will force you to miss on many of life's lessons, as spkthed pointed out.
People are different, but some people are generally smarter. Doesn't mean that someone generally smart, but bad at X, can pretend to be better at X.
My SO has a masters in math and a minor in CS, but we dont talk about my work much at all. She's a painter; we talk about painting. I enjoy it because I'm learning a lot. I suggest finding a nontechnical interest and become good at it: music, art, literature. You dont have to be an artist or musician, just knowledgeable.
Enlist a woman in the reclamation project. Their social skills really are better than ours, especially the extroverts. Dont look for a GF to do this. Enlist a sister or friend. The two of you can throw a barbecue or the like for the expanded set of friends.
Most people have a socially adept friend. Use said friend for introductions.
"Engineering Dance" -- Guilty as charged! Brilliant name for it.
My solution also involved perception, but on my part. I was able to spot the potential in a quiet, wallflowery girl at a party. Now I am blessed with a a very sweet, patient, intelligent, perceptive, and demurely sexy girlfriend.
Another piece of advice -- all you nerdy guys out there who check off all the races except "African American" on dating site preferences -- do yourself a favor and stop it. There's lots of really cute nerdy gals out there who just happen to have a bit more melanin.
I think most men go through the thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad with women.
Thesis: "All you have to do is be a nice guy." "Be yourself." "The way to get a girlfriend is to be friends with girls." (All those things mothers tell 10-year-old boys.)
Once a man realizes that these sorts of guys are a fistful of fail when it comes to women, there's a swing over to...
Antithesis: "Women like assholes." "Ignore and mistreat her so she'll be more attracted to you."
This is a great way to scoop quantity but not quality, so any decent guy realizes that this is a shitty way to live as well, leading to:
Synthesis: Treat women well, but don't be a doormat, and quickly dump the ones who play games or are attracted to asshole behaviors.
Another piece of advice -- all you nerdy guys out there who check off all the races except "African American" on dating site preferences --
I thought that was douchebags, not nerds. Generally, nerds are a non-racist crowd.
In any case, I think having those sorts of criteria is incredibly self-defeating, for two reasons. The first is that a lot of people on dating sites turn down anyone with racial criteria at all (I'm white, and I stop reading if I see anything other than "Any"). The second is that great matches with top-quality people are pretty rare and rejecting one on something as trivial skin color borders on self-destruction.
There's lots of really cute nerdy gals out there who just happen to have a bit more melanin.
FTW.
I don't think it takes monumental effort to "become acceptable to a good woman."
It takes a lot of luck to find one, especially in the US.
I had a really good relationship with a great person for 2 years. I don't know how I did it.
over a period of several weeks i can steer the mode of conversation around, but for casual encounters i have more or less accepted the subordinate position.
[Closed Captioned for the Socially Impaired.]
[Engineering Dance in Progress]
[Esoteric Knowledge Shown]
[Minimal Position Staked Out]
[Monologing]
Its lots of fun in interviews. Some wannabe alpha dork trying to catch me in programming language/electronics trivia is the best. In a group interview with their peers watching them, some of them getting what game I'm playing, is incredibly entertaining. Try it if you get a chance.
I don't think this came out very well in my post, but I think I am very socially adept. I'm the "socially adept friend" that you're talking about.
My old neighborhood was very close knit with lots of neighborhood functions. Our responsibility was the Halloween party. Me ex knew the wives of everyone, VC's, congressmen, academics, and just plain neighbors. The party was so popular that strangers from 15-20 miles away asked to be invited. We divorced and both moved away. I told one of my daughters that I missed the closeness of the old neighborhood. She told me that my ex was the social glue. It's just an ordinary neighborhood now.
My suggestion is to throw occasional, family friendly celebrations (not the standard cocktail party) with a couple of other co-hosts. Family friendly, because the SO's greatly expand the contacts. If there isn't a readily available occasion, celebrate Guy Fawkes day or something suitably oddball. If you make it potluck, it isnt even expensive. It's easy to get a reputation for gatherings of interesting people (except for maybe DC and Manhattan :-).
It's a natural law. It's supply and demand. Chickens for example will fight over food if it is not dispersed on the ground so they can all get to it. They will fight and establish a hierarchy so they can all get to the food in an orderly manner. Lions do it. The males eat first because they are strongest, and on and on.
The difference with Engineers is that they see the world is full of opportunity for them so there is no lack of demand for their talents.
I've seen the "violent" approach with some of the less intelligent bosses I've had. They'll try to fire you or damage your reputation within the organization. The more intelligent bosses give positive incentives to remain and treat their people well.
The propensity to rule by force is inversely proportional to IQ. This is true at all levels of biology from amphibians to nation states.
I don't really see how the first 3 paragraphs has anything to do with the problem that I'm having, and I think that for some reason you've just assumed that I don't have hobbies (!?).
As for the "give up the I'm-so-smart routine", I've already explained what I meant several times elsewhere so I don't think I need to get into it again, but needless to say, I think you've completely misinterpreted what I was trying to convey. To be honest, I think that paragraph of yours sounds more arrogant than anything in my first post. But then again, sometimes things just get lost in translation.
The last paragraph sounds incredibly condescending. "Get better attitude and lifestyle"? It really sounds like you're trying to say that you live a "better" life and have a better attitude than what I have, even though the only thing you know about me is my age, what I did last night and a personal issue that I'm trying to understand for myself.
As I said, much of this can be attributed to misinterpretation on both sides. Obviously we could go back and forth clarifying various aspects of our posts but I don't really see the value in that. I prefer just to take some of the lessons I posted elsewhere under this submission and work from there.
It seems to me you have unrealistic expectations. As you grow older you gain many different social circles, ex college, ex work, ex town etc. What binds you is different and what stimulates each group is different. If you seriously can't find something stimulating about a group of people then just stop seeing them... but remember it is also a reflection on you.
Most people offer much more then you seem to be able to extract and when addressed properly are stimulated by challenging conversation.
In my dream world, I'd have friends I could go lift weights with, have a BBQ, get dressed up, go clubbing, and talk continuation/passing style and credit default swaps while we do it.
I don't think you should communicate these issues to other people. Which group wouldn't be offended? It certainly won't help anything.
To an extent I can agree, but I think the internet is great for discussions like these. I'm not particularly afraid of offending strangers, especially if I've put in a lot of effort to avoid it, but the feedback is great in helping me understand how people might react in the real world.
Why would you do a thing like that? I just go to extraordinary lengths to do the exact opposite... correct people all the time. Over the ages, it has resulted in a lot of nicknames, sarcasm but yes... a group of friends who accept me for what I truly am and with whom I truly enjoy the time I spend. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
I really don't understand why would you do a thing like that? Why hide what you are? Who cares what others think? I say jump right in... let them know what you think, pitch your ideas, debate... what's the worse that could happen? You would be back to the dark bedroom, bright monitor, 20 tabs, right?
I think the only problem is with your attitude. Like ilitirit, I hate the expression, "dumbing down". I am probably similar in nature to you, and I have never had this problem, much less even thought about it.
At the bookstore over coffee, my SO reads about design & fashion while I read about Galois and number theory. So what? (I just have to remember to nod in agreement to questions like, "Aren't those window treatments beautiful?") When people talk about sports, I don't tune out; in fact, I enjoy a little football and basketball between coding sessions.
OTOH, NASCAR = for(i=0;i<800;i++){turnLeft()};
I don't watch much TV, don't enjoy gossip, and don't recognize many celebrities, but I can still smile and nod in most conversations. At the very least, I can usually politely direct them to something a little more interesting.
Don't forget, you're human before you're a hacker, so being among other people, no matter who they are, is important to your well being. Don't think of "dumbing down", think of "diversifying among potential users of my code". So get out of that bedroom and join the rest of us. You'll be fine.
I did not try to fit in any group. If I don't feel comfortable. I leave. I am a pretty loner and I take it.
I hold very low opinions toward a person who can't be authenticate about himself/herself. When I feel a person are just a fake person and I just move away. IMHO, faking wastes precious resources in the world. I don't want myself to be someone wasting other people's time and emotion. And I don't want people like that to waste my time and emotion.
Conversation is a real skill. Communicating your ideas in terms that someone else can really understand and find interesting isn't always easy. And on the flip side, truly understanding what someone is saying and finding value in it for yourself isn't easy either.
The key is to not be condescending. People don't mind smart people, but they hate being made to feel stupid. If you have to correct someone, do it in a kind, diplomatic matter.
People don't always have to be super smart to be interesting, even less intelligent folks have the ability to teach you something if you really show an interest.
I myself would rather spend most my time with 'boring', real live people than with a web browser in a darkened room.
Someone: "You know, you only use 10% of your brain!"
You: "Actually, that has been debunked forever now. If you had just searched on Google you'd have known this. It's totally false, you use your entire brain yada yada yada."
vs.
You: "Yeah, someone I know told me that before and I thought it sounded really weird, so I googled around and found out that it turns out it's not actually entirely true! Pretty crazy, eh? It turns out, you use your entire brain yada yada"
The former is "you are dumb, if you used the internet or was as smart as me you'd know better" The latter is "hey friend, let me tell you a story about how I found out about how that's not true. You could have found this out too, but I'll save you the time and tell you what I uncovered."
More succinctly "You're dumb, I'm smart" vs "Check this out, friend."
You would have had much different replies if you rephrased your question to "Hey, HN is full of great people with interests and values similar to mine. I feel like I found my long-lost solumate, only several hundred of them at once. How do I find / build similar community in real life, so that I can share both bar hopping and code-hacking?".
:-)
You are absolutely correct, at least from my perspective (although I don't think lowly of other people in the way you might mean). If possible, I'll edit my original post with my thoughts on this matter.
> You would have had much different replies if you rephrased your question
I know. The problem is that HN represents a small part of my interests, so it's unlikely that we share the same interests or values (especially considering I'm from a 3rd world country - I don't expect that many of you guys can relate to violence and poverty in the way that I can). The reason I chose HN is because I was hoping for responses with more signal than noise. I guess another lesson here is to choose your audience your wisely. And of course be mindful of how you address them.
Yep, that's what I was getting at. I have a pet interest in "what makes a good presentation" and made an observation that good presentation is the one that makes audience feel good about themsleves. This especially jumps at me when watching TED videos. Funny how that works.
I think you did a good job describing what you do not want. The next step for you is to put at least as much effort into writing down what is it that you DO want. Start with a taxonomy of your interests and see if you can find patterns and groups within. For example here's my list: 1) macro economics & history 1a) corporate governance 2) relational and near-relational databases 3) ultra scale-out systems 3a) synchronization problems 4) mobile devices 5) maps and navigation 6) fine dining 7) psychology of irrational behavior 8) computer hardware 9) style (clothing, interior, articulation) 10) study of sleep 11) study of excersize 12) science of making a good presentation 13) demogrpahics & behavior of groups 14) runnign my own business 15) web technologies (webkit, jscript etc) 16) functional languages 17) epistemology
With interests like these there is no way I will find anyone who is into the same stuff as me. But grouping things together I can address some of my interests at my day job (MS SQL Server), some at my startup project and some at various online communities. There are some topics where I am all by myself. It gets really tough at the overlap areas, e.g. I am deeply convinced that source control problem, sync problem, database problems and ultra scale-out systems are of the same field and need to be studied in concert but I have a hard time getting heard with it. So does it work for me overall? Mostly. The people I hang out with are sharing at least some of my interests so it's never as bad for me as it is for you. However few times a year I have some outlnadish idea, interpretation or a vision that I have no one to discuss with. Generally people shrug it off or get a friendly laugh at my expense. :-) It does feel kinda lonely when that happens. I don't have an answer here, either.
if interested, email me (see profile).
That's not to say I am particularly smart or anything, I'm just a specialist in terms of my interests more than a generalist. People also fit different amounts of thinking into each day, and I probably do more than most. That thinking may well be of low quality, but the quantity ensures that I would probably get blank stares from almost anyone.
So, I work on being a generalist where possible to help fit in, and I develop the skill of tailoring my conversation content and style (and speech) to different scenarios. That's fine for casual social situations, and great for work, but I still yearn for someone who has read all the articles I just read and wants to talk about them. I know from the web they are out there, but our paths never cross.
The funny thing is, I blame RSS. I think that RSS really did enable the computer to be a "bicycle for the mind" and that you can tell quite quickly now in a social circle who uses RSS and who doesn't. I guess that your friends don't. A well-stocked news reader expands your world and your interests and your knowledge of current events so quickly, that it almost creates two classes of people.
I have had people comment favorably on my breadth of knowledge on current events and I almost laugh - I just skimmed a relevant article in my reader that morning, so I happened to know what they are talking about. I guess they are also used to "dumbing it down" for others.
I finally convinced my wife to use RSS and now we have so many more good conversations. Her eyes glaze over quickly when I mention Tokyo Cabinet or Wolfram|Alpha, but that just means I have to work harder to make it interesting and relative.
Yeah, I can relate. I've always wondered if I would still have this problem if my thirst for knowledge wasn't so big. I've tried introducing some of my friends to things like StumbleUpon and reddit etc (they are somewhat intimidated when confronted with IT terms like RSS though). Only one of them has taken an interest, and he loves it and regularly crawls the web to learn more about the world. Strangely enough, it is when I did this that the problem in my original post started growing. I think my frustrations were being suppressed subconsciously and when I realized this shared some of my interests, it dawned on me how I missed real-world intellectual stimulation. Like an ex crack-addict who just took another hit after years of being clean.
I am of course a realist. I don't expect to "convert" all my friends, so in the meantime I'll just try to find ways in which to cope.
However (few months ago) I did found a friend that really understand me (although being tech-savvy) and we are projecting for the summer.
Keep searching, if in your area internet is widely used, you may find, I already find another one (she's a girl and work as a designer) using twitter, but not in the same city.
Be patient getting good friends need time
My friends are different though, but they don't spend as much time on the internet as I do. There aren't any other software programmers in my group either.
http://www.amazon.com/Pretending-Be-Normal-Aspergers-Syndrom...
It almost sounds like you have two very black and white social circles: dry, boring 'smart' friends, and shallow, ignorant 'fun' friends. Maybe you are too picky and elitist, I can't say, but I've also hung around genuinely empty-headed party types, and it is a little soul destroying. I feel your pain.
Any way you could find something more in the middle?
I know tons of people who know how to have a good time, but also have a geeky side, if you want to call it that. They're mostly grad students in social sciences / humanities-type subjects. I almost take it for granted most of the people I meet are going to be fairly bright.
Actually, I have one social circle. Maintaining two (there were 3, in fact) was too much of a strain on my personal life. I have no doubt that if I had chosen another group, I would have had similar problems adjusting my lifestyle (I've been through this before, so I know).
It seems obvious to say "you should find smart AND fun people", but the big question is "how?". In my experience it takes a while to realize that someone meets the criteria. After all, it's not usually one thing that attracts you to/repels you from people over time - it's patterns of behaviour, or emergent behaviour from certain characteristics. And by the time you've recognized these things about them (and the negatives outweigh the positives), you're probably already friends and then you have to work on distancing yourself depending on their their social proximity. This gets complex the feelings aren't mutual (eg. they consider you a closer friend than you do them, or vice versa). I know it sounds complex, but this is based on my own experiences. I'm sure many people out there have had to deal with distancing themselves from people.
But in some situations, you will probably hate it and will have an urge to be yourself - not act or adapt at all, and not see other people's acting. But this type of relationships is very hard to find. Usually what we got is a compromises, especially when in the middle age.