Suppose you were playing a game of 1 on 1 basketball with a pro basketball player. One can only imagine it would be boring for the pro and quite frustrating for you.
No, I don't think so. I presume that pro basketball players don't hate basketball so much that playing on their own would be intolerable, and since playing with me would be rather like playing alone I'm sure it wouldn't be awful. For me, it would be highly amusing.
But I don't think that this is a good analogy. Having a conversation is not like playing a game of sports. It's not a competition. It's about exchanging ideas, and I personally do not subscribe to the view that people who are highly gifted are the only ones with interesting ideas. I've learned a lot from people who are moderately gifted or normally developing. I've even learned things from people who have severe intellectual deficits. While most people might be lousy at basketball, it does not follow that most people must be lousy at conversation.
I understand that it can be hard to move past a fatalistic prediction made by someone you trust, but I think it's time to do just that.
