

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

You're Smart, You Know That?

It's happened to me, more than once, to have someone turn to me, look rather honest and say, "you're really smart, you know that?" Not in some many words. More awkwardly, or quickly or something. But more or less that. It happened to me today.

Does it happen to everybody? Not because I'm interseted in knowing whether I'm smarter than other people (I am, but I'm also stupider than a GRRREAT many others), but because I'm interested in the kind of people who make these confessions, accusations of intelligence. Is it about complicity? "We're smart, but not everbody is. We've got something in common."

I think it's about complicity. I think it's the secret handshake of my intelligence bracket (it's a spectrum, I know, but the purpose of conversation...): not smart enough to exist exclusively in subtlety (booze doesn't help), but smart enough to know when they've got company. Bonjour.