are people as stupid as they sound?
I try to be nice for the most part. I also try to sound smart. But sometimes the niceness wins. And sometimes I’m just not that smart.
The other day, I was having coffee with a friend who was talking about the world. It wasn’t a conversation I was proud of. In fact, it was maybe a little embarrassing.
Her: “The world is just a messed up place!”
Me: “Hell yes, it is!”
Her: “I mean, it will keep you down. You have to fight for everything you have.”
Me: “You do!”
Her: “You know what they say? They say no good deed goes without being noticed. I believe that.”
Me: “Me too.”
Her: “And that’s the saving grace.”
Me: “It really is!”
It was a conversation composed entirely of clichés. But I like her. And I wasn’t about to disagree or ask for specifics or clarifications. It was easier and more fun to just go along with it. So there I was, in a coffee shop, eagerly agreeing with statements about life being a little like a bowl of cherries, or was it a box of chocolates, as the guys with their ironic laptop bags at the next table over glanced up curiously to see who could possibly be having such an unimaginative conversation in such a cool part of Brooklyn.
(source)
On NJ Transit the other day, a very large woman with two suitcases, a computer, and several bags wedged herself into the seat beside me. Our thighs were pressed together. She needed help taking off her boots, so that her feet could breathe. She was a little on the differently-abled side of things. Her laptop was covered with stickers of fairies. They were really kind of nice. I remembered them from when I was ten, and I used to love the catalogue with the puzzles in it. Some of them had pictures by this one artist, who was always painting complex scenes full of fairies and goddesses and imps and dragons. I could stare at those for ages, imagining myself more often as a fairy than a dragon.
(I love the internet! I found the artist! Her name is Josephine Wall. All of her paintings appear to have bubbles in them. source)
The woman was asking me about the Revolutionary War. She’d discovered that I getting off at Princeton, and she wanted to know if that’s where the college called Princeton was. I told her yes, she asked how old it was, I said it dated back to the American Revolution. The original building had gotten hit by cannon balls. I remembered that from a campus tour I went on once. One of the paintings still had a hole in it.
“When was that?” she wanted to know. “Was that in Gettysburg?”
“It was all over,” I said. And suddenly I couldn’t remember exactly where it had been. I knew there had been a battle of Trenton. And on the way to piano lessons in Kingston, NJ, we always drove by this old barracks house. But then, Virginia was probably involved. And, somehow, South Carolina. And what about Boston? Obviously Boston! The Tea Party (so much better back then)! Bunker Hill? Damn it, I couldn’t remember anything.
“But what about Lincoln, who freed the slaves?”
“That was the Civil War.” I knew that much!
“Where was that?”
OK. I can totally do this.
I could not totally do it. When, an hour later, I stood up to exit the train, everyone turned to see who had been having the ignorant conversation they’d been listening to forever. I’m sure at least ten of them were thinking, “Wait– she knew that Gettysburg is in Pennsylvania, right? She knew that was the Civil War, right? I mean, come ON! The Gettysburg Address, anyone? God, people are dumb these days. No wonder we can’t compete with the Chinese.”
I have never said that last bit, because it sounds vaguely racist, but I’d be lying if I said I never made fun of someone I overheard on the train, puzzling through an obvious piece of cultural knowledge. “Wait…So people never walked on Mars? I thought that they already did that!”
I work relatively hard at looking smart. I try not to talk about things I don’t understand at all, especially if I’m definitely supposed to understand them. I’m surprised by how little I remember of the things everyone is supposed to know. I’m surprised by how easy it is for me to sound stupid.
(source)
I might be as embarrassing as those kids in the scary statistics about America who can’t find other countries on the globe. I don’t know. No one has sat down next to me on the subway with a globe yet and asked me to point out Slovenia. Or, y’know, England. But I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen one of these days.
And then we’ll see.
Until then, at least, I’m going to try to be a little bit more understanding towards the people I overhear in coffee shops, going, “Oh my god! I totally get that. It’s, like, the weirdest thing when people are so…weird.”
Maybe they’re just trying to get through the conversation. Maybe they’re trying to be nice.
(Is it just me, or did Josephine just go all out here? Is that a unicorn in the herd of exotic animals? And a Civil War soldier? Wait…What did they wear in the Civil War? source)
* * *
Unroast: Today I love the way I look in green.
Kate on September 13th 2011 in Uncategorized
grace responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 11:43 am #
Unfortunately, unlike you, I am NOT surprised by how easy it is for me to sound stupid. Not in the least bit.
d-day responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 12:08 pm #
I understand things conceptually that I could not possibly put into words, so I find it really easy to sound dumb when someone wants me to remember real details. I like to think something in me remembers the details of all that history, I feel I know the Point of it all, and who cares if you can rattle off battle dates and places? (but don’t ask how/why I remember all this random movie trivia)
You are kind to have sat and had that conversation for an hour, I’m not sure I would have been able to do it (I have a hard time engaging with strangers, even completely sane and high functioning ones).
also I thought the expression was “no good deed goes unpunished.” or is that just the cynical version?
jeanie responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 12:13 pm #
d-day, I’m like that, too. I also sometimes have trouble articulating my ideas succinctly in arguments. The other day I got into a discussion/argument with a friend who kept repeating my statements under his breath as though he was sounding out another language and trying to make sense of it. It flustered me so much that I kept losing my train of thought. By the end of the discussion I was convinced we’d never see eye-to-eye on the matter, but I was also left feeling really stupid. Luckily another friend who was there told me my ideas were great and I didn’t sound at all like an idiot.
Caitlin responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 12:19 pm #
I love this post. I’m with you – I pride myself on having serious thoughts and expressing them coherently to others. But sometimes I’ll say things that blow my own mind in retrospect, but at the time seemed like the path of least resistance conversationally. Your brain needs a break!
jeanie responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 12:24 pm #
Also, Kate, I really like the conclusion of your post. I think “intelligence acceptance” is as important as body acceptance. People who can’t remember dates and names usually have something deeper to contribute to the discussion. And some book smart people have lower emotional intelligence. I think labeling someone as stupid based on an overheard conversation is as limiting and harmful as labeling someone ugly for not being a size 4. It’s better to be open to each person’s unique form of intelligence and beauty.
alex responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 1:05 pm #
I feel the same way. The other day I was in my Economics class and my teacher asked me what GDP was. It’s a very simple concept but I couldn’t remember what it stood for. Next thing I knew, the very immature kids in my class started laughing and I was so emabrrased. Some girl gave me a mean condecending look, interrupted me and said the answer. I felt even worse. Everyone has their days. I’ve definetly had mine.
PJ responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 1:30 pm #
I give you credit for sticking with it. I think with the latter conversation I would have just started saying I don’t know to end it. But I’m a bitch like that and you’re clearly nicer than me 🙂
Dee responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 1:56 pm #
Whenever the kids (now grown like you) say something that sounds stupid, I always say with pride “We home-schooled.” But when I say something stupid, I can proudly say “I went to a private school.” The point is sometimes we don’t remember the stuff “everybody” is supposed to know. Apparently, “everybody” doesn’t know it either.
Kimmy Sue Ruby Lou responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 1:57 pm #
Jeanie hit the nail on the head…I am (by personality profile testing of all kinds) a generalist and a catalyst, a big picture person…and I am often annoyed by people standing around having pompous conversations and spouting off “exact names, dates, details.” Who gives a shit? And who are you trying to impress? I know that because of Abraham Lincoln, we no longer own slaves…I don’t have to remember exactly when, where and what he was wearing when this happened. It happened, it was a very good thing…and some other stuff happened after that 🙂 You get my point.
alissa responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 2:43 pm #
I’m intelligent, but yet I sound stupid ALL THE TIME. This post had me laughing because I can imagine myself in the same scenario. However, with me, I truly don’t know a lot about history. What I learned in high school and college I have mostly forgotten.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely ignorant, but I definitely don’t feel comfortable talking about The Revolutionary War, The Civil War, Vietnam, etc. even though I know the basic information (wow, I sound stupid right now!) To further complicate things, when I am speaking where people can overhear my conversation (like you were on the bus) I get weird and anxious. So even subjects I consider myself an expert in I feel uncomfortable discussing. Maybe I’m just not articulate?
melissa responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 2:43 pm #
hahaha I do feel really stupid most of the time, I guess because my friends all seem to know so much! Though I really don’t feel comfortable with having conversations in public :/
History was my absolute worst subject and I think the only geography we’ve ever done was a map of canadian provinces in the fourth grade. It’s no wonder I don’t know where anything is.
San D responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 2:50 pm #
We all aren’t Jeopardy contestants in life, so dates, details, times and places may not be readily available. But concepts, the big picture, relativity, and where to get the information and how to use it should be catalysts to our curiosity. Your train mate, as you so aptly put it, was “differently abled”, and in her mind was probably just trying to strike up conversation in an awkward space. As for day to day tete a tete with friends and family, I am often heard to say “I don’t know the answer to that one, but I am going to look it up right now”. In rigorous debate, I am the first to admit when I don’t know, but certainly won’t back down until all the facts are known. I taught gifted classes for years, and the one thing I know for sure is that all of our brains are different, and we all prize and catagorize information according to our needs.
Emmi responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 3:33 pm #
The inimitable Joe Jackson (the British one, not the father of Michael & sundry others) has a fantastic lyric that sums up everything I have to say: “The older I get, the more stupid I feel.”
Lauren responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 7:16 pm #
My husband is the kind of person who can remember names, dates, quotes from movies, things he’s read – verbatim – and pretty much everything else under the sun. I am, to put it lightly, not. So most of the time, when I’m around him, I kind of feel like a moron.
He, however, unfailingly reminds me that just knowing trivia doesn’t make you smart, and that the ability to reason things out and to understand things, even if you can’t necessarily spout off facts about them later, does. And I can do that, mostly, sometimes, so I try not to feel too bad when he corrects me on yet another actor’s name or movie title.
Kerry responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 8:22 pm #
I love everything about this post. I laughed, I cried (well, not really), I saw myself in it, it made me think.
Well done, you.
Kate responded on 13 Sep 2011 at 9:24 pm #
@Kerry
Thank you!!
Stephina responded on 14 Sep 2011 at 12:08 am #
Just as I started to read this Leno was on the tube doing street interviews asking them questions about American history and politics. Timing was perfect.
I fear the days when my (unborn) children will come home and ask for help with their homework. I know little of politics, history. I’ve forgotten most of what I learned in high school. I use to want to be an accountant with math as my strong suit, now I can barely create an equation in excel, and most of the time I’m okay with this. I have other passions. Ask me about women’s health, or what holistic practice to help get rid of PMS and you will get a wealth of information from me. Ask me who the president was in 1878 and I’ll stare at you blankly.
I have one friend, who I love, but he is an extreme history buff and is always up to date on current events. I’ve had it out with him a couple of times when he laughs and shakes his head when I have no response for one of his “important” (okay, it probably is important, just not of interest to me) questions. It’s in those moments I wish I cared enough about politics or the evolution of this country to have a conversation with the majority of todays population.
I’ve been there.
And again, thank you.
bethany actually responded on 14 Sep 2011 at 3:21 am #
I love Lauren’s comment. Her husband is exactly correct! I am one of those people with a brain for trivia—names, dates, places, flowers, animals, meals, birthstones, whatever—and I might be able to kick your butt at Trivial Pursuit but that doesn’t necessarily mean I would be able to run a country or perform open-heart surgery or teach a college philosophy class or, say, write an amazing blog post. It just means I have a good memory for details.
I think the older we get, the more we realize that it’s not really a big deal to *appear* stupid once in a while. Especially if it’s done in service to being kind to one’s slightly-awkward neighbor on the train, or listening to an old friend.
Kate responded on 14 Sep 2011 at 1:15 pm #
@Lauren
Yup, Bear is like that too! I wrote a post about it over on my other blog: http://skipping-school.com/?p=323
Kate responded on 14 Sep 2011 at 1:16 pm #
@d-day
That is definitely the expression. I was just trying to give the impression of how the conversation sounded. You know how people get expressions wrong all the time? 🙂
Adrienne responded on 15 Sep 2011 at 7:54 pm #
I have a similar crisis every time my husband and I visit his family. They are all intensely interested in history, war history in particular, so they talk about it All. The. Time. And, because I only remember vague dates about war stuff, I can go hours without saying a word during their Civil War/Revolutionary Way/WWII/ancient war I’ve never heard of discussions.
I always feel odd when this happens, but I just can’t compete with people who can name specific battles, where and when specifically they happened, who was leading our side and who was leading the other side, what weapons were popular at the time, etc. It’s exhausting!
But, staying quiet is better, I think, than exposing how little I know about war history. Now, let them talk about obscure TV shows from the ’80s and ’90s. I’d be all over that!
Deidra responded on 19 Sep 2011 at 10:53 pm #
HAFREAKINLARIOUS! Oh yes I did just type that. And yes, I believe I did coin the term. And yes, you may use it………and yes, I definitely use that in, I’m just trying to be nice conversations.
jss responded on 20 Sep 2011 at 10:45 am #
I don’t really know what to say, other than that I LOVE this blog and you constantly bring up issues that I have dealt with myself. I used to spend about 4 hours each day on train going to and from work, and I was constantly judging other people by their conversations. I remember one overheard conversation in which a group of maybe five people was debating whether a particular US city was a state or a state capital. (It was neither.) But I can also imagine having a long conversation with the person you mentioned (as I am only silently judgmental and ostensibly very nice), and would have left the train wondering who overheard and whether the person thought I was an idiot…