Thread: Over-educated?
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Old 01-27-2009, 08:42 AM   #8
Sundae
polaroid of perfection
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 24,185
I can't be over-educated, having quit full time education at the age of 16. However I constantly find myself overly-intellectual for my lifestyle/ world.

I would change that if I could. On the one hand I wish I had the same group of people around me IRL that I do here. I'd sit and smile in the corner and listen and try to learn when I was out of my depth. I am hungry for knowledge and if it means I sometimes soak up trivia that's okay, as long as I trust the source and/ or can verify it.

But part of me thinks I'd really be happier with a lower IQ. I'm not claiming I am a genius, that I would stand out in any normal line-up, but I have so often felt isolated by being bored by conversation. I got on great with my co-workers when I was an evening working shelf stacker. But two or three times a night I would be called deep or weird or told I think too much. I laughed it off - another team member was vain, another obsessed with getting pregnant again, it was just my quirk. We got on well, but partly I think because we only ever spent 5 hours together.

In more highly skilled jobs it has happened too. I've been deferred to when I don't deserve it, and treated like I'm some sort of Ultimate Mind. Sadly, the one place I felt I fit in intellectually, I am no longer employed by. And even then, these people were better educated than me and certainly moved in higher social circles (being horrified to find I thought Weatherspoon's served a good meal for example).

I dunno. I think I'm under-educated for my brain, and just a misfit for my social class. I'll never walk with Kings nor lose the common touch. Perhaps in the end it comes down to self-consciousness.
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