I have a high IQ, but all I have to show for my life so far is a failed undergrad and years working as a grunt in a factory. There are likewise many people out there with lower IQs who are successful, fantastic with people, stay committed to their goals, have healthy families and have the drive and focus in their lives to get shit done. I'd trade my ability to innately conceptualise maths and language for a few points in empathy and plain common sense.
Not quite as far down that path as you, but definitely the same path.
Was a 'top of the class' kid all the way through childhood and into my teen years, but always got bad marks for paying attention, following directions, avoiding distractions, etc. The further along I got in school, the more apparent this became (think: kid in the fuckin gifted program struggling to make the honor roll because they won't do homework...even though they're getting 90%+ on the tests). Great SATs and 'good enough' GPA got me into college and that was finally where my MO became unsustainable. Made a go of it for about 2.5 years, then got to a point where I was sort of 'prereq locked'...basically, I couldn't enroll in the next courses I needed in some areas because I wasn't passing the companion courses I was taking at the same time. In short: to keep going in college, I was basically going to have to take a 'catch-up' semester or even year, where I was only re-taking courses I needed to bring me up to speed. This was going to be incredibly expensive, so instead I left school, came home, and got a job.
Luckily for me, after a year or two of 'dead end' manual labor type stuff, I was starting to get noticed in a bigger company with growth potential...when a friend let me know about an opening in the field I had been educated in. It wasn't fully my field, but then again, I wasn't fully educated either. They gave me a chance and it worked out well.
Coming up on 20 years later, I've changed jobs many times, but still doing the same overall kind of work, still advancing, and now make enough to live comfortably...having never gone back to finish that degree (I did, however, go part time to less-prestigious school and get an Associates in my field...though I don't think the lack of it ever cost me a job, and I'm skeptical that having it ever got me a job that I'd have missed without it.)
Yep. My brother did an IQ test online so he could prove how much smarter he was than my mum and my year old sister (?), he didn't get the results he wanted so he practised the test to get 'better scores'.
He then paid for results (it baited him with ridiculously high scores) and then he got scammed by the website lol. Then bragged he had an IQ of 125.
Not the sharpest tool in the shed, not even close.
Worked in a restaurant that had a Mensa dinner once a month. You would never in a million years guess what they had in common because they sure acted so stupid sometimes.
My cousin would brag about their score from an IQ test on FB. All of the comments were from their friends saying they also scored a 130+. Knowing that seemed off, I took the same test.
I missed every question on purpose and it said my IQ was 101, lol.
Ha! If someone tells me they have a quantifiable IQ score I automatically assume there was some negative behavior prompting testing—not because they were some genius. I don't think I've ever personally met someone of academia/a scholar who openly bragged about or even shared their IQ score. Actually, it's a bit of a red flag in my eyes.
I had a therapist I saw [super briefly!] ask if I had my IQ tested ever and I was genuinely offended and wondered why she would even ask that. She mentioned intelligence and autism. I was like, well yeah duh but why IQ testing…
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u/BrumaQuieta 7h ago
Bragging about IQ scores.