Dumbing yourself down to fit in

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A lot of times I call it hiding my intelligence to fit in. If I showed it I am ousted and called a nerd or a freak and un cool but if I hide it most of the time and show it in small doses I am considered cool and intelligent by peers so I guess its kind of a "balancing your coolness and intelligence factor" in order to fit in with most NT peers, I tend to get somewhat popular using this method. Occasional slang in replacing technical extended terminology tends to let them be less intimidated as well. Hiding ones intelligence has its advantages in some ways esspecially if you run into an arrogent somewhat intelligent NT but not quite as intelligent as you they underestimate your capabilities and get knocked out of their high horse after finding out you know most the answers they do not know.

I started doing it at school, I clearly remember the day I first said "yeah " instead of "yes" (in french , since i'm french .) .
It had to be done but it took a lot of training . Now I've discovered that I do something very weird : I adapt my speech to the person I'm speaking to. I'll start using people's lingo, using words I would never use with anyone else , like "legend " (the slang version ), "cutie pie" (ew) etc....... Sometimes this ability gets out of control and when I'm trying to explain something that is obviously too complicated for my conversation partner to grasp , I'll loose the ability to speak altogether , mixing my words or trying to say things in such a simple way that I end up blurting out: " it's negative " instead of : "it's charged negatively" , or some other nonsensical two words sentence .....It's irritating !

I also try to mirror the speech patterns of people I'm with.

I've also learned that helpful advice isn't always wanted. For example, if I see someone in the office struggling with the printer, popping over to tell them how to fix it can be seen as being rude or a know-it-all.

Yes, I did that in high school. It felt like adopting a new language, and at least in my language that means that it takes more words to say what you want to say. I mean, with the right choice of words you can say a lot in one phrase, but then you're considered pedantic. I was really messed up and felt I needed to survive in an NT world and therefore give up myself and act like them, becuas e this world sucks and won't allow me to be myself without giving huge consequences. Now I don't do that anymore. I won't let my right to exist be denied, and especially not by me, which seems a for, of sef betrayal. If others can be themselves than so can I. I felt awful when I was pretending.

NTs speak much beter than me. They are smarter than me as well. I do not understand sentences that are long. Or have lots of big words. I like things said simple.

I have to do this with my friends and my mom especially, and it drives me nuts. I use words I don't consider to be that difficult, but they still say things like, "Don't use such big words!" I hate it especially when my mom does that because she's one of those who likes to pretend she's dumber than she is (for reasons I have yet to fathom... probably something to do with fitting in) and she'll pretend she has no idea what I'm talking about, when I know full well she does. Drives me crazy. I worked hard to improve my vocabulary so I could be more articulate and use words more appropriate to a situation than "stuff", "sad," "stupid," basic words that convey very little.

I'm incapable of simplifying words so I just keep quiet. Although my niece is gifted and my sister (her mother) has an IQ of 150 so we're all kind of equals. A lot of the people we are around are educated city folk so we're all around the same level.

I think it's the subject matter that we all can't agree on. I guess I've had it drummed into my head by my other sister 'you're a nerd - no one cares about what you say' all my life.

I don't mind being called a nerd but I don't want to be caught out talking about something the other person is only pretending to be interested in.

When it comes to other people I struggle. I absolutely hate slang, especially words they pick up online. I know many people here probably do as well, but I'm sorry, the English language is just too beautiful and varied to be butchered in this way. I refer to all internet slang as 'Newspeak' because that's what it is. I could go on my usual Orwellian rant but I won't.

Considering the infinitely vast amount of information available in the universe and how little of it is known by the combined minds of all the humans who ever lived, the difference between what a "dumb" person knows and what a "smart" person knows is extremely small. I find the notion of fighting over who owns more of a grain of sand in a whole desert thereof, to be inconceivably petty.

dunno about smart or dumb.. but got instructions to not say sum stuff..
did that but its not working. now I now it doesnt matter
just be yerself

True.

Being "smart" isn't about memorizing trivia, or being familiar with a subject.

Being "smart" is about being able to relay that information to other people.

Lecturing a 5 year old about how to do skin grafts resulting from being burned by a 400 degree stovetop would be silly, wouldn't it? Not to mention pointless. A kid can't understand that, and needs to know "Stoves are very, very hot. Very hot temperatures burn you. Touching the stove will hurt very badly and injure you, so do not ever touch the stove top. It is not safe to."

Use words that are common, that your subject can understand. Otherwise, you're the one who's "dumbed down" (by your own ego, if nothing else) than them. Someone out there is always smarter than you, and assuming your vocabulary is so majestic only makes you arrogant and misguided. Impressive or outdated vocabulary doesn't help either you or the subject. It's a waste of time. It doesn't mean your wisdom is outstanding, it means you don't know "normal" language in which society comunicates. And, that's a bad thing, not a good one.

If you're an accomplished scientist who has won countless awards and developed groundbreaking vaccines, all of that knowledge means nothing if you try to be a professor and can't convey your knowledge.

Too often we think we're smarter than we really are, too. There's always someone better at something than we are, and there's always something worse. Having knowledge without a sense of being humble and realizing you can, at times, be wrong... is terrible. You're not the best out there, nor the worst... you simply lack social skills. Not trying to be harsh, but thinking you're so smart no one can understand you doesn't make you smart. It means you lack knowledge in common social skills.

Stating your sources is fine, but no one likes to be quoted. You can throw in quotes and say exactly who said them if you have great social skills. Otherwise, poor social skills with words thrown in like a lecture is no fun. It takes a breadth (oo, big word!) of knowledge and the ability to use tonal oration (ooo, a second big word... you gotta' know how to emphasize words, adjust tone and speech rate, and all that crap) to know how to include facts, quotes, etc. into a normal social conversation without turning the conversation into a boring lecture.

We're not dumbing down to fit in (unless you're pretending to be a dumb valley girl)....

We're simply using social norms, common language, and appropriate speech to convey our ideas.

Big words and a plethora of knowledge don't mean jack, and are incredibly boring, if you lack social skills and mannerisms to convey your knowledge in an entertaining way.

Social norms have zero to do with dumbing yourself down... it's simply about using appropriate common social speech, and not lecturing (and boring) the crap out of someone with needlessly big words and improper social skills. That's not dumbing down, it's being socially intelligent enough to adjust tone, language, and mannerisms to fit any given situation and convey your knowledge is a socially acceptable, entertaining manner.

"Dumbing (yourself) up" is thinking your knowledge and vocabulary skills are so majestic that everyone else can't understand because they're dumber than you. Unfortunately, the reverse is true. You're the one who is dumb is social skills to convey ideas.

We are smart in book knowledge and social interests.
We're dumb in social skills. No matter how many big words and facts we know, we're still dumb in social skills.

It's easy to excuse our "dumb" social skills by thinking we're so much smarter than everyone, with our big words and trivia. "They just don't understand because we're smarter."

But, we're actually the dumb ones... using our memorized big words and trivia as a crutch for our egos because we don't know how to properly communicate.

I... just get called pretentious or pedantic.

An Aspie said my language was too pedantic a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure what to think about that.

It took a long time for me to realise that people just don't really want to know about stuff. I used to think that if I had knowledge, then people would be interested, so I would share all I knew thinking it was a good thing.
Over the years I seem to have developed a "they probably don't care" subroutine which ticks away at the back of my mind. I do my best to give the summarised version of what I want to say. I do regard it as dumbing down, and I feel stifled when doing it, but I also realise it serves a purpose for me - greasing the wheels. I don't do it to "get on" with people, I just want to negotiate any situation where I'm forced to be with other people with as little "oh, look at the weirdo" glances as possible.

synchromesh... lotsa work for me.. not all stuff will sync.. sparkels!
ppl can work a bit np.. learn wtf there doing

I feel I need to better my vocabulary in order to fit in. I sound so dumb that nobody bothers to listen to me. A few weeks ago in the bus station, the bus came and sat at the entrance of the bus station, and wouldn't move, even though it was supposed to let all the passengers on and left the bus station five minutes ago. The passengers were wondering what was going on, and I was standing next to a couple of old ladies and I tutted and said, ''the bus came there OK''. It sort of made sense but sounded so basic, but one of the other ladies put it better when she heard me and said, ''yeah, it pulled in all right.'' I wanted to word it like that, but I couldn't at the time. Probably because my vocabulary isn't very good, so I use the very basic words and just string them together to make a very simple sentence.

And this is not associated with social phobia or any speech delays because I can't even find better words when I'm talking to people as close as my family. The other day I was talking to my cousin about my sinus issues, and I said, ''I was born with small sinus things'', and my cousin said, ''you mean sinus tubes that lead to your ears and throat?'' and I was like, ''yeah, that's it.''

God, I sound so dumb!

I don't dumb my language down and don't care if it alienates people. I enjoy using proper grammar etc to show them up in fact. I think language is a great signifier of what a person is like so that a person who can't be bothered to use proper grammar, spelling etc almost certainly has the same attitude to a lot of other areas of their life ie they aren't precise, they don't care about detail; they don't want to do things 'properly' in other words - they're more invested in fitting in and being thought cool. I don't relate to this type of person at all so the sooner we both realise we're incompatible the better as far as I'm concerned.
No way am I going to act dumb to impress a dumb person - what do I stand to gain by it??
Certainly not intellectual stimulation.