I am wrestling with the notion that I just might not be able to relate to normal people. Or even most above-average people. I have grown strange in the dark cold wilderness of my icy exile, and it might be that there’s an uncrossable gap between me and most people.

I was thinking about this as I ate my lunch at Bob’s today. ^[1] I was listening in on the conversation of the four working class dudes at the table next to me (my rule is, if I can hear it without turning my head, it’s fair game) and it was making me wonder just what was wrong with me that I had trouble connecting with people like that.

They all seemed like happy, healthy, decent fellows. Their conversation wasn’t something I couldn’t understand. One of the guys was telling stories about his days on what I deduced was a hockey team, and the various shenanigans he’d gotten up to, into, and instigated when he was a younger man.

Arguably, all it would take is a table read of that paragraph to illustrate one of the reasons I would have trouble connected with people like that : how I talk.

Normal people don’t use the word “shenanigans”.

But this isn’t about that. Sure, I am painfully middle class and I am sure to these men I would sound like Little Lord Fauntelroy, but I don’t hold myself to be above them in any sense. I liked their conversation. In an abstract sense, I wishes I could join in.

But I know that if I did, I would have the same old problem : people staring at me like I just grew a dick out of my forehead and it’s addressing them by name. The only way I could stay in a conversation like that is to shut the fuck up and say nothing, and while I am capable of doing that, my overall eagerness to connect with people and strong desire to speak and be heard would make it stressful.

Is it my IQ? Every time say that, I feel like I am humble-bragging. “Golly, is the problem that I am JUST TOO MASSIVELY INTELLIGENT? Darn. ”

But it’s been a problem since my first day of school. I know I keep going on an on about it but it’s kind of a huge issue in my life.

And I feel like every time I talk it out on these sad little pages of mine, I get a little bit closer to being able to accept the truth of it all.

I guess my recent radical disappointment with how my film group is turning out gave me some of the push I needed to move a little closer to my goal. I was so pissed off and so goddamned sick of trying to fit in that it gave me some much needed distance from the whole thing and gave me some perspective.

And I am all about the perspective.

So I feel like I am closer to accepting the idea that I might have to relate to people as a person who is smarter than they are. It still sticks in my craw to even say it, but it’s something I need to face nevertheless.

There has to be a way to both know your are smarter than people while also a) not beating yourself up about your inability to connect and b) not end up sounding (or feeling) condescending, patronizing, or smug.

But how does a high IQ person deal with less smart people except as children? that’s the big barrier for me. If I truly accept that I am substantially smarter than average folk, the world because one huge Special Ed class to me.

Do you have any idea how goddamned terrifying that is?

Plus I think my socially starved childhood has a lot to do with it. I connected with others so infrequently that the thought of distancing myself from others even further seems like unthinkable madness. It’s the exact sort of thing that leads emotionally desperate people to stay in abusive relationships because they are terrified of being alone again.

The thing is, though, is that I am already cut off from others. It’s not like getting further away would make much of a difference. And it might just be that by accepting my role as a Smart Guy, the resolution of that key inner conflict might go a long way towards making me a saner, more grounded, more relaxed person.

Which in turn might make me a lot easier to relate to. Accomplit.

But I am not quite there yet, I am closer than I have ever been, but I still can’t imagine, in any sense, looking down on people. Even if it’s just intellectually and I am still completely egalitarian in every other way.

The very idea of it fills me with a cold and clammy nausea.

But some day, I will be able to make peace with the whole thing. It won’t be easy. I know it will make me feel detached from everyone who can’t keep up with me , at least for a while.

It will, in fact, make me feel the urge to manipulate people. Maybe that’s what I am really afraid of : my own dark side. I know that deep within my oral-retentive soul is an urge to arrange my world strictly to feed my own needs and to hell with the damage to others.

And that high IQ means I could do it, too. And that’s when I would truly lose my soul. That kind of existence would be like spiritual annihilation to me. I’d still be alive but I wouldn’t be truly human any more.

I might still end up there if I get some success in life. I hope not. I am keenly aware of the perils of decadence, especially for someone like me who is both oral-retentive and has had very little in the way of cash in his life.

Still, I at least know there’s a time when self-indulgence stops working and you have to move on to something higher or you will fall apart.

That’s more than a lot of people know going into the world, I suppose.

Maybe I will get to keep my soul after all.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.