Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

One of the problems of being intelligent is learning how to tolerate and accept boredom. I used to rebel against being bored and being ahead of the class. I would think: "this is all so easy and why isn't anybody interested in anything interesting?"

Once I learned that dealing with boredom is basically the price you pay for fitting in things improved a lot. I deal with a lot of friendships that are profoundly boring just so I can have people to talk to and socially interact with. I don't complain. I don't patronize. I just go through the motions so I can cargo cult my way to a social life. I lowered my expectations on everything and everybody to absolutely nothing and it works great.

I overhear other people's conversations and I think to myself: "how can these people even put up with that level of conversation?. They must be pretending to be entertained!" Then I remember all about the boring world out there where people go about their daily lives talking all day about boring stuff.

After all this boring interaction I'll occasionally go to a Deep Learning study group and we'll read the latest paper. Very smart people will analyze the paper and leave me a little disconcerted that there are people that I can engage with intellectually and be challenged and entertained by in a sincere way. Anyway, that's just my two cents about the world for the disgruntled /r/iamverysmart crowd out there, whether you actually are or not. :)

Personally, I feel like I'm somewhere on this spectrum, but perhaps not as far along as your two examples. Depending on my choices over the next couple years, it could go either way, I think.

I have terrible OCD and anxiety, and usually spend 1-2 days a week dealing with that problem alone. But thankfully my job is flexible and well-paid enough that I can still live pretty comfortably.

More than anything else (and embarrassingly), I sympathize with your examples' misanthropy and consequent social isolation.

In my opinion, being almost completely subject to disciplinary structures such as work and school for most of their lives makes most people pretty uninteresting. I can't say that I've done lots of super interesting things myself (working on it!), but unfortunately that doesn't really help me feel better about my peers.

I also dislike the kind of social interactions social media seems to encourage. For me, the need to constantly seek or maintain approval of a wide audience of people is extremely unbecoming. Being an introvert, I also can't really deal with the 'little bits of social interaction sprinkled over time' pattern. But unfortunately, it seems that social media now dominates patterns of social relations, so it seems that I have to deal with that somehow...

What makes me very sad, as a slightly tangential note, my university had covered grades first semester freshman year. This let me do terribly, learn from that experience, and not have it impact my future prospects. They've since removed that, and I honestly feel sorry for new generations of students to have one less helpful safety net. With a good support system in place to help recovery, the chance to fail (in a scenario that would be "non-terminal") has been critical to my learning to suck less across the board.