I Swear I Can Write

It's Better to be Dumb

I have a problem, and I reckon most people in this boat feel the same. You know when you just know a bunch of things and you're sitting around with some people who don't, but some of them do and they really love making sure everyone knows they know?

It gets on your nerves a little bit?

And before you know it, you'll start morphing into those obnoxious know-it-alls yourself?

Yeah, well I discovered recently, it's much better to pretend to be dumb.

See, the other day in class, while I was pretending to be dumb, I knew there were people there who're even dumber. So dumb, they don't even know what they don't know.

Usually, I'd help them out in whispers, but this class was pretty small and we were in the front row, I couldn't possibly move my mouth without disturbing the class. So, instead I asked aloud, questions I already knew the answers to and made mistakes on purpose so THEY could hear the answers, right?

Cool thing was, after class, people were really impressed that someone who seemingly didn't know anything (me) could catch up on so much , so fast.

And, well, I mean, that felt pretty good! Cos alternatively, when you're just smart, you have to compete with the other smart ones, and honestly, I'm neither THAT smart not that dedicated.

Yikes, the more I write about it, the lamer it feels.

But j'know what? For someone who takes a considerable amount of pride in just knowing things (cos they're really bad at everything else), pretending to not know things requires some swallowing of that pride! And to get complimented after that really does feel quite nice.

And now I feel really lowly and material for feeling good about some complements, but dammit don't try to pretend you don't like them yourself!

When you're 'dumb', it's totally acceptable to make mistakes. And! The smart ones--at least the sort of decent ones among them--show you a lot of mercy, you can ask them for help and they take it as a compliment, and you get away with a lot of study time saved.

And obviously, when you're 'dumb' you never have to deal with being in charge of a group project! I haven't had the chance to put this theory to test myself, but olala, wouldn't it be nice to not have to do all the work alone for a change!

Man, the things you can get away with for being dumb.

Personally, I don't bitch about people. But people really love to. I guess cos sarcasm is the 'in' thing these days, some of the stuck up and smart variety of people really love to throw discreet gossip or insults everywhere.

For whatever reason, I happen to be at the hearing end of this a lot. When they make a really mean but cleverly disguised remark about someone and then wiggle their eyebrows at me to validate their joke.

But me? :)

'What?'

'I don't get it.'

'What do you mean?'

'I'm sorry, what was that?'

It's brilliant.

Image: Tomas, Flam, and Cesc (2007 the Arsenal midfield), I feel like Cesc in that picture for this entry so thought I'd post it haha. Aaahh I wish someone would get these Arsenal references with me.