It can be really frustrating when people think there’s something deficient about you because you’re not as glib and superficially quick-witted as they are. You’re not alone. Highly intelligent people can lack social skills more than others, and there are good reasons for it.
Intelligent people tend to care what they say in conversation. They place more importance on their words than others, and this can mean they overthink their responses. A lot of casual conversation takes place spontaneously, on automatic pilot. Once you start thinking too much, it gets more difficult to speak without seeming awkward.
A major reason why intelligent people can have poor social skills is that they can’t summon up the enthusiasm to join in everyday conversations with people. Men may understand this feeling when listening to women discussing cosmetics, and women may understand it when listening to men analyze a football game.
Some highly intelligent people feel this way about most of the conversation topics of both the sexes.
Most of the interests of a highly intelligent person will be of limited interest to those of average intelligence. This can mean that subjects that would make the highly intelligent person engaging and enthusiastic in conversation are off bounds because the other person wouldn’t be able to relate.
Two neuroscientists might be very animated when discussing neuroscience, for example, but totally unable to respond in a conversation about celebrity gossip.
One of the disadvantages of higher intelligence can be a higher degree of awareness of oneself and one’s behavior in social interactions. Highly intelligent people may be super conscious of themselves while socializing.
Imagine if you always had critical eyes watching and judging you while you speak. You’d feel like you were on stage and you’d be unable to act naturally. For many highly intelligent people, that critic is in their own heads.
Another character flaw that can afflict the highly emotionally intelligent is that they can be extremely aware of other people’s responses in conversation. A person with a high emotional quotient can spot the micro-expressions and subtle body language cues in other people, which show when they’re impatient, bored, or not really listening.
This can be crippling because people don’t really listen to others and aren’t genuinely interested in them at least half of the time! Once you’re aware of this, it can be almost impossible to continue a conversation with someone.
Many correlations have been found in research between higher levels of intelligence and increased levels of generalized as well as social anxiety. Anxiety is a major cause of poor social skills.
The reasons why this might occur are open to speculation. But it could be argued that ignorance is bliss and someone who is really conscious of what the world is realizes that it is a dangerous and unpleasant place. This naturally gives rise to feelings of fear and anxiety.
The more intelligent a person is, the less comfortable they may be with revealing too much about themselves to people then don’t know well. This is the logical thing to do in many ways, as we all know that there are people around who might use personal information against a person.
It’s reasonable to want to know a person enough to trust them with details about your life that could place you in a position of vulnerability. This has a cost in terms of social skills, though.
Following on from the previous point, intelligent people may be extremely cautious about revealing their vulnerabilities. This kind of self-protective behavior may be learnt rather than innate in intelligent people, but intelligent people are more likely to learn from mistakes and change their behavior in response to failures.
The problem with this cautious attitude is that it robs them of essential social skills. People can’t warm to people who are unwilling to reveal their humanity to others. It prevents others sharing with them too.
The problems that highly intelligent people have with social skills are not restricted only to the times when they hardly open their mouths. The real damage can occur when they do get talking.
When an intelligent person gets involved in a conversation that happens to interest them, they can become so heated and enthusiastic that people think they are aggressively opinionated, or even that what they’re expressing is anger.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Intelligent people enjoy a heated debate and aren’t easily offended, nevertheless others mistake impassioned responses for aggressiveness and take offense easily.
A highly intelligent person often ends up in conflict with others because it’s difficult for them to let throwaway remarks about things to pass by unnoticed. Intelligent people are highly aware of the importance of ideas and how a bad idea can have terrible consequences for the human race.
For this reason, they’re not likely to let you get away with saying something you haven’t thought through properly like most people would. People tend to take personal offense to being corrected in this way, even if (or especially if) they know they were wrong.
Are you an intelligent person who lacks social skills? Do you identify with the points made?
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I've noticed that highly intelligent people often render social interaction redundant as they don't benefit from it directly. For example, they often have the confidence in their own abilities to problem solve alone without the need to ask others for advice. Also, gossiping about the problem doesn't solve the problem, therefore inefficient use of time and energy 😂
I think there are a lot of fallacies and assumptions being made in these comments. I myself am an introvert; however, the older I've gotten the more I have come to understand that there is a lot of subtle and important information conveyed through social interaction and it is a very important skill to be able to tune into that. What you may think is "gossip" can actually be really telling. Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to look down on others. Often times people are communicating something but we just don't know how to listen. Why do you think sociologists and anthropologists spend so much time just observing people if all that social interaction is just gossip? I really think the way everyone is dismissing social interaction, extroversion, and the ability to be really social is actually really shortsighted. They say that the more you know the more you know that you don't know. This is the divide between someone who is merely intelligent and someone who is wise. If we were all the same and all had the same approach to problem solving or thinking we would solve very few problems. A truly wise and intelligent person knows to value difference and diversity in thought and not malign it. Also, curiosity about others and the world around us can really be a way to learn new things and perspectives that change how you think and allow you to think more creatively. There is a reason reporting/sharing research is considered important in academia. Problem solving on your own is actually more inefficient. Many systemic injustice are also perpetuated when we take the efficiency first approach, rather than taking the time to ensure we are being understood and that we are understanding someone else. Listening is a really undervalued skill and introverts are in a better position than most, but you can't be a good listener if you are just looking down on those around you.
My IQ ranks in the top one percent of my peers nationwide and I identify with this article completely. It’s a lonely, misunderstood place, which makes me even more thankful for my family. This is a much needed reminder after yet another shun in the lounge.
So many people here proclaiming to be smart to justify their awkwardness, when you might just be an awkward person with low theory of mind who assumes people are idiots because you don’t know how to communicate properly. There are those who excel in both social and intellectual endeavors and there are those who are deficient in one or both.. your social deficiency is not a proof of your intelligence.
I don't think this is precisely explained, and there's not evidenced. They didn't even define the meaning of the word intelligent.
Every point you made describes me to a "T."