Being smart can suck.

When I was in elementary to middle school, I was the definition of a teacher’s pet, largely because I was smart enough to work the system effectively. I understood what teachers wanted, and knew how to give it to them. Add on the fact that I was a quick learner who required very little instruction or supervision, and they all loved me.

But later in middle school and into high school, I began to realize that a lot of the “cool” kids I wanted to be friends with didn’t take school so seriously, or worry about what teachers wanted. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I “fell in with the wrong crowd,” but I did have some less than stellar influences. So I decided to play along.

I would pretend not to know answers to questions I understood perfectly, play dumb, and crack jokes when called on in class. I stopped studying completely (not that I studied much before) but my grades didn’t suffer. So then, my classmates saw the image of a slacking stoner in class, who miraculously still made good grades on all the tests. How did you do so well, they would ask me when we received grades. And the saddest part of all?

I was ashamed of those good grades.

Being smart only made me wish I had the same struggles as everyone else. When a classmate said, I’m so fucked for this quiz, I wished my me too wasn’t a lie. I didn’t want to stand out. Given the choice, I might have chosen to knock off a few IQ points if it meant life would be as simple as it seemed for others.

Luckily, once I got to college, I realized the value of my brains and no longer feel this way.