Why does everybody think that I'm condescending? :(

Post Reply New Topic

(Sorry ahead of time for any grammatical or spelling mistakes, I tried my best)

I've been running into this problem my whole life, but its becoming especially prevalent now that I've started making an effort to 'be my self' and 'put my self out there', but lots of people I meet think I'm condescending? or in the same vein, pretentious.

The people who I love and am close to don't think this, at least most of the time. But I still get it a lot, especially on the internet.

I really love sharing information, and I love when people share it with me, and I suppose this is more of a rant than anything else because I've hit rock bottom with ways to phrase things, additives to say ('I don't know if you know this', 'I'm not sure but...'", and ways to apologize that won't make people think that I think they're idiots. Because I don't! Think theyre idiots I mean, and it makes me so sad that they think that I think that.

I really love people and I think everyone is so smart and interesting and I've never met a person whos not eager to learn in some way or another, and I try to connect with them buy sharing more information, and then in turn they can share information with me and thats how social interaction works but theres some rule with the type of information to share for some reason. And I don't, get it? Why is telling you I have a dog 'okay' but telling you I want to learn latin not?

And I'm not coming with these out of nowhere! they will directly relate to the conversation! and yet certain things about my self are just not cool to say in normal conversation, because they make people think that I think I'm better than them? I have to be so needlessly self deprecating about my interests so that people won't hate me for no reason. And it's not that I don't have insecurities, everyone does, but it's like for people to not be scared of me or think I'm just complete *ss with a god complex I have to upsell them and make them way more surface than most peoples are.

I just want to talk about interesting things with people, you know? why does every conversation have to be this crazy measuring contest of whos better, whos worst, whos the smartest, whos the most successful? can't we just talk??


hmm.. this went a little AWOL, sorry if it's scrambled or doesn't make sense. If anyone needs clarification just ask, I suppose! <3

Have you ever made a point of looking for groups of people who share your more unusual interests?

Is your verbal IQ low? Maybe that is why? I say this because people say the same about me and my verbal IQ was always low and never superior so I figure this could be why because my language skills are not far advanced so people might be assuming I am talking down to them when in fact this is how I talk.

I had never even heard of verbal IQ before this but that's pretty cool! I took a basic test and just from what I've read I think I have a pretty average Verbal IQ.



oh yeah of course! It's hard of course but I join groups and such online.



After talking about it with my friend my running theory is that its just got something to do with the way I speak and present information, and that makes people feel inferior, and depending on the person they might decide that I'm intentionally trying to make them feel that way, instead of simply telling me that they are uncomfortable. Basically: everything is, and will be fine. thank you for taking the time to reply!

Have you ever had an IQ test administered by a psychologist? If you have, you should know there are several parts of the IQ test and verbal skills is one of those parts of the test that is in question.

I think it could be either of the things you mentioned.

Some people are insecure about their intelligence or hobbies, so if someone says they want to learn something unusual and complex like Latin, they assume it's to make yourself look good.

But, conversational rules can be pretty finicky about how much detail people go into. Too much online can easily come across as a "wall of text".