Nerds are unpopular because people don't like to hang out with anyone who is much more intelligent than they are. This transcends any arguments about social ineptness or pursuing popularity. If you're 30+ IQ points above your peers, you would need an awful lot of social skills to make them feel comfortable being around you. Let's say you're a theoretical physicist and you meet someone who has an average intellect. The first thing they ask you is "What do you do?" If you say (truthfully) "I work on supersymmetric string theories in order to unify all the fundamental forces of the universe" (or whatever; I'm not a physicist). You want the other person to say "Wow, that's cool!" What actually goes through their head is "Oh my God! This person's main interest in life is something that I not only do not understand, but _could not_ understand no matter how hard I try!" Then they just want to get away from you as fast as they can, because being around you makes them feel diminished. This is why nerds are unpopular in high school. If you're a nerd in high school, and you're lucky, you'll get shunned. If you're unlucky, you'll get beaten up.
You don't need a lot of social skills to know that when people ask you what you do, they probably don't want to hear the abstract from your latest paper, but will be quite content with "oh I work at the university". The only reason any one will feel diminished around you is because you go out of your way to make them feel that way.
I know several very smart people with PhDs in very complicated things, working on very hard cutting edge research problems, and they don't have a problem hanging out with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.
The whole "no one likes me because I'm too smart" smacks of lies mothers make up to make their anti-social kids feel better about being bullied at school
I'm pretty sure answering the question "what do you do?" in that manner indicates social ineptness.
A physicist could instead say "I do physics research" and potentially entertain an "average" person with stories about departmental feuds or something else he might relate to.
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Nerds are unpopular because people don't like to hang out with anyone who is much more intelligent than they are. This transcends any arguments about social ineptness or pursuing popularity. If you're 30+ IQ points above your peers, you would need an awful lot of social skills to make them feel comfortable being around you. Let's say you're a theoretical physicist and you meet someone who has an average intellect. The first thing they ask you is "What do you do?" If you say (truthfully) "I work on supersymmetric string theories in order to unify all the fundamental forces of the universe" (or whatever; I'm not a physicist). You want the other person to say "Wow, that's cool!" What actually goes through their head is "Oh my God! This person's main interest in life is something that I not only do not understand, but _could not_ understand no matter how hard I try!" Then they just want to get away from you as fast as they can, because being around you makes them feel diminished. This is why nerds are unpopular in high school. If you're a nerd in high school, and you're lucky, you'll get shunned. If you're unlucky, you'll get beaten up.
You don't need a lot of social skills to know that when people ask you what you do, they probably don't want to hear the abstract from your latest paper, but will be quite content with "oh I work at the university". The only reason any one will feel diminished around you is because you go out of your way to make them feel that way.
I know several very smart people with PhDs in very complicated things, working on very hard cutting edge research problems, and they don't have a problem hanging out with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.
The whole "no one likes me because I'm too smart" smacks of lies mothers make up to make their anti-social kids feel better about being bullied at school
I'm pretty sure answering the question "what do you do?" in that manner indicates social ineptness.
A physicist could instead say "I do physics research" and potentially entertain an "average" person with stories about departmental feuds or something else he might relate to.