Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Gifted Adult, How do you deal with perception?

I am a 31 year old professional. Moderately gifted. The majority of my battles throughout my life have only been with me. I am well travelled and have learned so much about different cultures and perspectives that I tend to value the differences instead of worrying that they are not like me.

I am confronting a new struggle. One based on perception. And one I have never dealt with until now. And I am having a lot of difficulty discussing it with others. And that is the perception that my intelligence is being perceived, quite often, as being pretentious. When I look at myself and try to evaluate and diagnose. I see myself as eager to learn, a very quick learner, willing to do multiple tasks, organized; I prioritize well and troubleshoot very well. In meeting or situations where I know I�m already well ahead of the curve, I am quiet and take notes. I work hard not to appear that I already know everything. I am cognizant of the fact that the majority of the people around do not already have the information, or (in the majority of cases) cannot retain the information that was taught previously.

Does it show that much on my face? When I do talk is my tone so pompous that I don�t notice it?

I can tell you that I feel pretentious when I try to address it. I feel like I am confronting someone and telling them right to their face, �I am smarter than you, now let�s find a way to deal with it.� Despite how much I tiptoe around it.

I am an introvert. I do make attempts to work out the perception that people have. But as soon as I get the signal that it isn�t going anywhere, fast, I go back to keeping my mouth shut and hoping that my performance alone will get me by. It often does, but I�m not a jerk, I don�t think you�re stupid for not knowing what I know, or being able to learn as fast, or having a good memory. I like people for who they are.

I am posting because I suspect many of you here deal with this issue on some level. And I would love to get some advice. Especially when dealing with managers and directors in the office. I kneejerk dumbing myself down to blend in, and the times I have actually tried to have more realistic conversations with those above me I have only had poor results. Often based on the perception, and rarely is what I am actually saying or describing taken into account. Cheers

Do you have any trusted friends, partners, realtives that you could ask for pointers from?

I do think that it's a common problem, but nothing jumps out from the page that might hint me towards a suggestion or solution.

Often friends and family members are similar gifted-wise. Have any of them had to tackle this problem? Do they have any successes to share?

How were things in school - did the kids back then think you were pretentious? Can you talk more about the first time this situation occured?

Lately I've been reading up on http://www.energizeyourheart.com/Welcome.html
and trying to experimentally see if there is anything to it. What I like about the model presented in Chapter 2 is that it acknowledges that folks can be extreamly strong in ways that can be hard to handle if the other part of their development aren't also well developed. Then it shows some relatively painless ways to develop the less developed parts. They expect that you'll see change start after about a month, which is fast in my book.

If you take a look at that system of thought, I'd be interested to hear if you feel it was helpful.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I will take a look at your link thank you. I wanted to answer your questions to open the discussion up some more.

As far as I've been able to tell I am the only gifted one in my immediate family. For the most part they "get" me. But it took them a long time. When I was a child my family interpreted my gifts as troublesome and uncontrollable. Now they think I just like to be by myself and that I have a very dry sense of humor. It's progress at least. I work at making more of an effort to spend time with them, and talking.

I have good friends. They each have different qualities I admire. And I have talked about it with them in various conversations. And while they can see how the perception manifests, they tend to advise that it is just because other people don't know me well enough.

In school I masked a lot of it with being social, and talking about common things. And while I may have been at some point perceived as pretentious when talking, it was never brought to my attention. I might not have cared how others perceived me, or I might not have come off that way.

What did change from high school until now. I felt that I did a lot of masking and disguising myself during that time, and as I grew and matured I wanted to be more myself. So as I have settled into me being me, and becoming more confident, and self assured, that is when the feedback started coming.

When I go back into my shell and "fake it" again, people think I'm wonderful and the greatest thing ever. Since I am really only judged on my performance and contributions and not my attitude or personality.

I guess the question I am asking myself; Is just being gifted enough to make others perceieve you as a knowitall when you talk. Or am I just doing a very poor job at representing myself.

Thanks again for the response. It helps a lot just to talk. I will check out that link now

I think that there are lots of different kinds of people in the world, and I get along best with other people who are really interested in finding stuff out. Curiosity is a quality that attracts me to other people, and I think it turns other people off me.

But don't despair, there are people out there to whom "you know, I was reading about that the other day" is a conversation stimulator, not killer. You just need to find them.

I think it's great that you are being 'less fake' and I think it's also great that you have the skills to fake it when it is worth your while - that is a great skill set to fall back on. I do believe that it isn't an 'either/or' choice, but more a stepladder to where you are headed, an authentic, warm persona.

I happend to be watching this TED talk this morning during my excersize routine: http://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_seung.html
I was impressed with the cool 3D graphics, but even more so with the persona being projected by the guy talking. I found it very appealing. Does he seem fake to you? Pretentious? To be hiding his intelligence?

Who ever heard of useing TED presentations as Rorschach tests? This could be a first.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I don't really have any advice, just anecdote.

I suspect that in high school, most of the people I knew thought I was an arrogant know-it-all (because OMG was I ever), and that many of the people I interact with solely online think I'm an arrogant know-it-all (because I have a much sharper tongue online than in person) - but most of my clients don't, and the people I know really well online mostly don't.

If I try and figure out what the differences between those groups are, I come up with these things that are true of the group that doesn't think I'm a jerk:
- I respect them as people, regardless of whether I agree with their decisions.
- I'm not emotionally involved with their decisions.
- I feel that they're trying to do the right thing as they see it, regardless of whether I see that as the right thing, and regardless of their degree of success.

I don't think that actually being smarter is the problem, because I know plenty of much-smarter-than-me people who are the most down-to-earth approachable people you ever met, and plenty of averagely-smart people who are obnoxiously arrogant. For me, the issue to be worked out would not be "I'm smarter than you," but rather "I think I'm right, and you (either outright or by implication) are wrong." And that's not really something to work out with the other person (regardless of the degree to which they're wrong, or you end up like this guy: http://xkcd.com/386/), but something you work out with yourself.

It took me until I was 33 or 34 and 9 months of CBT (consisting mostly of the therapist telling me to stop talking about what someone else was doing wrong, and figure out what I was doing wrong) to be able to identify any of that, because for a smart person, I'm pretty stupid.

((tears of laughter)) Thanks for the story and the link AMom. Have a great weekend.
Grinity

Thank you for the anecdote. I definitely identify with the concept of believing I am always right. And respect being a very major factor in how I deal with other people. If I don't have respect for someone, or they've lost it, I have a very hard time accepting their perspective on any given topic. I really don't know how to make improvements in that area. Not saying that I am unwilling to try, but it is why I am reaching out.

I can also see how that from my point of view, not respecting someone, is to them, being pretentious. I get defensive because they have misperceived where my attitude is stemming from, and I insinctively resort to "they are not smart" because they are not perceptive enough to differentiate.

Do I go out of my way to explain it to them? I don't know how to make myself respect someone, when I feel so strongly that they have to earn it, or at least not lose it. I am a respectful person, and I give it up front, but I do sense that it can be lost quite quickly. Often with an offhand remark that seems to be lacking foresight.

Thanks again. It seems I need to work on identifying the things I can change about me some more. And it's hard, I'm rather fond of myself

He does not seem fake or pretentious to me at all. I am often told that once people get to know me they seem my more personable side, I can be charming and speak well in front of others. In this case Sebastian is already put in a position of power. The audience is already there to listen to him speak. And I suspect many already know who he is, or have heard of him by reputation before arriving. So the mindset going in is different as well.

I have only really experienced my difficulty in the professional world. And since that is where my career is, and likely to stay. It is where I would like to make improvements. I do well in social settings, even when I am the new guy. I do well in public. I can be chatty, flirty etc..

But I am having trouble finding my place in the office.

Benjamin,
One of the things we write about here - alot - is perfectionism. The way I look at it is that we have strong, clear vision about how things 'should' be and have a hard time accepting that no one (not even ourselves) lives up to that vision.

I tell my friends to try to learn to have amphibian eyes - to see the vision above the water and the reality below at the same time.

I promise that if I'm careful enough to never make offhand remarks that lack forsight, than I'll be hiding the vast majority of what makes me fun and amazing, yes? Also, if you've noticed that 'dumbing down for work' makes life go better, than how do you know that you aren't dealing with a person who is currently dumbing down for work? There is also the potential for missing amazingness in areas that you never knew existed. I bump into those all the time.

This all sounds nice, but I find that I can't really make it happen unless I have a core group of people that really 'get' me so I'm not always so dissapointed that averagely intelligenced people are 'newsflash' average in intelligence! Maybe respect needs to be earned, but love, appreciation and gratitude doesn't. You get to focus on whatever you choose, and I've never-ever met a person that I can't find something to be grateful for in, because that's my decision, and because it is really there.

Best Wishes,
Grinity