I get teary eyed, but I rarely cry. “The penguin of my life” was my last big challenge, so mean. Great movie though.

And yes, at some point you really want Red to have his little piece of heaven.

I think I am more open for this since I’m older (40s), when I was young I would’ve never let myself be that open.

I think I’d like myself as another person, but am still properly critical of myself as me.

Absolutely is. Had a colleague who also looks like a sad puppy when just looking normal/serious.

This is beautiful. Thank you.

Quit school (college level, but where I am it’s just another part of school) when I could (I had the right age to make it my business), without ever discussing the matter. Just came home and said I quit school.

Edit: Oh damn you wanted a reason. School was hell for me, I hated everything about it. I had spent about 6 months exclusively doing the classes I was interested in and nobody even took notice. I figured they weren’t gonna kick me out at that point, so I quit.

It vastly depends on everything else.

You can be a dude with a normal life, who just makes conclusions faster and you’ve learned that everyone likes how smart you are and you enjoy this.

You can be a restless mess, because you’ve known all your life that there’s nothing to compete with and it’s difficult enough to find someone to even have a somewhat decent conversation on your level with. These people come with or without the arrogance you’re thinking of right now. Some are just genuinely kind and thoughtful, but always a step ahead without even really appreciating their ability much.

You can be an absolute underachiever, because being smart was never rewarded in your life. Maybe you even learned that “You’re not special” so much so, that you punished others for not being able to draw the same conclusions as you in the same time, because you always thought they were just being lazy on purpose.

You can be entirely unaware and may say funny things like “I don’t think we’re all that many really smart people in $techplacewithclearlysmartpeople. I talked to most of them and I don’t struggle at all”.

Source: High IQ myself, working with other people who increasingly talk to me openly about this and their overall situation. So much of who we become is about what our parents do to us and if there’s understanding and love and support on that end.

Obviously there’s the whole spectrum thing as well. I don’t think a higher IQ means “more autism”, as someone suggested. I think it increases your chances of struggling with a regular (neurotypical) kind of life, for example because you are supposed to be interested in 1 subject (to make a career), but - similar to people with ADHD - may care for all the subjects.
If you think about what is neurotypical though, you can classify people with a particularly high IQ or people with particularly high sensitivity as neurodiverse in just the same way you do that for people with Autism or ADHD. Now if you think about humanity as a whole, we may all to some degree be diverging from the norm in any or all of these ways, but still be more or less free of struggle, because it’s not by much, while for the more extreme cases, they stand out for better or worse.

Hey, sorry it took me so long to respond.

I mostly meant the whole rejection/people being mean about it thing.

I get where you’re at, I’m 40ish and had the same problems a few years ago. Please don’t try where they work, that’s not cool, but other than that … why not, as long as a no is cool.

I used bumble at the time but ultimately the person I’m with now was someone I already knew. I don’t believe in apps, but it’s a way to get a feel for someone else, filtering out anyone who doesn’t want to meet someone at all.

I think meeting through hobbies (I think library or bookstore are kinda okay, particularly if you have a recommendation for the book they’re looking at) is the way to get to know someone, but whatever you try, I wish you good luck!

Since attractive just refers to outer features, if you’re interested only physically, that’s fine. If you want a relationship, pick something that describes your person of choice better or encompasses more features.

“I think you’re amazing, would you like to grab a coffee/dinner with me sometime?” would probably work.

If you choose to be this direct, make it clear you don’t need an immediate response. The other party didn’t have any time to prepare for this, so they may actually need to think about you in this way first of all. This may be the hardest part, because you will not know if you’ll get a reply (depends on maturity and courage). You could ask them again once, but then I’d drop it and just assume it’s a no, otherwise you may come across as pushy.

The reason most people don’t do this is, that they’re scared to be turned down or ridiculed (teenagers are assholes). I think from 30 onwards it gets a lot clearer and easier.

Good luck!

Cute used to describe a person? May work out in some cases, but in most it really will not for various reasons. She may feel you’re infantilizing her, you don’t find her appealing as a woman or appealing for the wrong reasons, you belittle her …

As many wrote, used to describe her choices it’s perfectly fine though.

If you’re looking for a way to express how this person makes you feel - for example a continuous stream of “awwwww” may be expressed by calling someone cute - rather describe your feeling: “I could fawn over you all day.” Ideally you also explain why, so it’s clear where this is coming from: “The way you dress is a perfect compliment to your outgoing personality. I really enjoy just watching you exist.”

Depending on who you want to be to this person and how far along on that road you are, my examples may work or be entirely out of question.