Do others "fear" you because of your intelligence?

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And for some other men, it is a turn-on...

Couldn't agree more

intelligence is not inherently intimidating, it's how you use it/express it

and how it is perceived, regardless of presentation

Of course. Something must be perceived before it can be feared.

How you express your intelligence can mitigate or exacerbate people's fear of it.

PS. Welcome back Blindspot

Not that I'm aware of. Of course, we need to define exactly what is intelligence. Most of my peers tell me I'm very intelligent but, considering my limited emotional intelligence and unreliable capacity for lateral thinking, I think they are overestimating my abilities.

There are people who seem to fear me, but it's because of my aloofness. And my dark sense of humour.

That's why i have no friends , i know more then all them together and i always have some fact or quote somewhere in the back of my mind and i'm just 17 for 3 hours and 46 minutes to be exact, i always have something MORE to say about their personal interests and i correct EVERYONE all the time it's not that i wanna offend them i just don't want to have stupid people around me. my whole family doesn't like having arguings with me cause i always win.

People fear my intelligence and my overall genetic superiority...

People are usually immediated by my intelligence until the know me for a while, and then I guess they either see that I wouldn't ever intenitonally use it to hurt them, that I'm not some sort of alien and that I have my own flaws and human nature, or something. I dunno.

No, but they should. They don't because 99% of the population don't have a clue when I'm mentally running loops around their slower thought processes. I don't let on because I don't like to hurt people's self esteem or make them feel stupid.

This ignorance mostly doesn't bother me, as my intentions towards others are benevolent, however it is sometimes frustrating and isolating when I want to connect to someone on a deeper level.

Yes but as awareness increases past a threshold, fear decreases again, sharply.

When people witness the intricacy behind my arguments but fail to grasp my thesis, they hold my intentions suspect, and fear me. They must know some part of my argument to fear it, yet the fear itself comes from what they don't know.

If you graph the fear I inspire verses others' understanding of my arguments, you might see either a bell curve with a steep decent on the right.

Hitting the peak/threshold inspires intimidation through confusion. Passing the threshold coveys my underlying thesis. I strive for the latter. I usually fall short of both.

Edit: and no, my rant doesn't imply a question. It's more a thought exercise for me this time.

Not sure "fear" is the right notion, at least as far as I can tell. When I was a kid I read quite a bit and would tend to consider topics in my head that were more "adult". Once in 8th grade we took a test on world history on the first day of class so the teacher could establish where the students stood in their knowledge of the topics he was to teach that semester. It was pretty straightforward stuff: "Who was the American Gen who served as Supreme Allied Cmdr for Europe during WW2?" etc. I scored 92 and the next highest was something like 32. Unfortunately, the teacher told the class of the scores as he handed my test back to me like he was handling an envelope of thirsty leeches. The kids...even friends...were not really mean or fearful, but definitely a bit "weirded out".

College (both undergrad and MBA) was nice since I hung around some folks that were pretty smart...some a hell of a lot smarter than me on many topics and you could share your interest more openly.

At work, it's a bit more like grade school again. Nice folks and very knowledgable in their specialty, but not as geeky as many of my interest. Had a HR Directors meeting out of town a few months ago (I'm new at my company) and we had some "brain game/quizes" and which I didn't really hold back...thinking back on it, perhaps I should have since I had just met them. Had one exercise where a colleague showed a painting and asked us to give our opinion of what the painting meant (it was an exercise on how people interpret the same item/events differently). After some answers were given by others, I had ID-ed the paining (The Love Letter), the painter (Vermeer), and gave a 2 differing views on the traditional interpretations on the painting. We weren't supposed to know the actual story of the painting...I had sorta derailed the point of the exercise. That night at dinner people talked to me like I was a robot.

What goes on in my head and what happens on terra firma sometimes need a bit of internal regulation. Getting DXed for Aspergers has helped bring about a bit more comfort in what I can do mentally, but also what I'm weak at, which is necessary for making sense of the world. I don't think I strike fear in anybody, but the weirding out moments are what I have to better regulate, which I think I am.

Last edited by Griffen on 11 Oct 2011, 4:07 am, edited 2 times in total.

I like your descriptive simile.

I've posted elsewhere on WP that a lady friend of mine once told me that my intelligence intimidates people and that I use it as a weapon. I found that pronouncement to be empowering as I had never thought of it that way.

I, too, am a boat-rocker. I tend to come up with solutions that other people tend not to even consider. When I attempt to discuss these solutions to immediate problems, people say they're interesting but that's as far as it goes. They then attempt to solve the problem-at-hand by rehashing the same ideas they've tossed around before that NEVER worked while somehow expecting a different result. That is, they practice INSANITY.

When their way causes complete, utter, irrevocable destruction they look back in retrospect and say that they should've listened to ME in the first place! Of course, by then it's too late.

Another reaction I get is to be marginalized in the workplace as a troublemaker who is unhappy with his job and thinks the world owes him something. Over time, upper management changes and does things that cause those people to become uncomfortable by making changes allong the lines of what I had been saying all along. Then they fear that their jobs are at risk because changes are being made without their input - when they could've taken ownership of the process to begin with.

A third reaction is one of just not liking me because that person thinks I know everything or understand things they don't. Correcting somebody on something they're DEAD WRONG about is like THE WORST thing you can do. But isn't it irresponsible of ME to allow people believe and disseminate erroneous information?

People are IDIOTS

There are times when it does work out, though, such as when a person I tried to work with wouldn't because I displayed more knowledge and understanding about HIS work. But he took a chance on me and I explained that I wasn't there to upstage him or get him booted out of his position; I actually NEEDED HIM. When my work began to make HIM look good, he was able to pat himself on the back and gloat about how good we were doing. I also got much credit for a job well-done.

No they don't. Though I'm not that smart to begin with, peoples tend to be impress by my supposed "intelligence", but no fear I'm aware off. (I'm certainly not smart compared to a lot of peoples here...)

What that suppose to mean?