Like many of us, my special interests tended to create significant repetition, studying, memorizing, etc. In my late adolescence, my parents purchased a cabin in the woods about 4 hours away from our house (previously mentioned in an SMotD) and during the years when I was too young to stay home, we made regular weekend trips. This was a long drive, and in order to entertain us, my parents put trivial pursuit game cards in the car. Not the kiddie version, but the real adult thing. I always had a good mind for memorizing facts, and I started reading the cards and testing myself on the answers, regardless of whether anyone was playing with me. After a few years, I became so familiar with many of the correct answers, simply from repetition. My mother made several positive remarks about this ability, and my sister made some offhanded remark about “how it’s not fun to play with Dave since he knows all the answers.” So, my NAT mind automatically filed trivial pursuit as “something where I knew all the answers” and “not fun for others to play with.” A point of pride. The fall would come at age 18.
On perhaps my second or third day or college, having been introduced to a whirlwind of guys and being overwhelmed by the possibility of a “fresh start” where other guys didn’t know my annoying ways, I wandered to the basement level rooms in my dorm. I was in an honor’s dorm, which meant at the least I wasn’t overwhelmed with people of questionable intelligence and study habits. We had all kinds of people as the honor’s entry requirements were fairly basic, but the small size of the hall meant there were many, MANY smart people in the building.
In the basement, I ran into Joe. He had been introduced to me the previous day by a friend of my roommate. My roommate’s friend and Joe had gone to the same high school. Joe said he and two other guys were going to play trivial pursuit and asked if I wanted to join them. With what I am sure was a paternalistic look, I glance at Joe and said, “Thanks, but people usually don’t like it when I play Trivial Pursuit cuz I know all the answers.”
Yes, folks. I could have said anything else, but I didn’t.
Joe politely responded, “Okay. We’ll be down here if you change your mind.”
It took me all of ten minutes to change my mind. How could I not impress EVERYONE in an honors dorm with my knowledge.
Needless to say, that’s totally not what happened.
I brought my air of supreme self-confidence, my “boundless” knowledge of the cards and official answers that I had memorized on so many trips, and lost.
Badly.
I don’t remember exactly how things went, but I had FAR fewer answers memorized than I though I did. Maybe it’s because I largely stopped going on cabin trips when I was 16 and my parents trusted me to stay home.
Feelings: pride, shame, superiority, confidence, letdown, disappointment in self
What I learned:
1) Real self-confidence came not from what could be shown, but what could be noticed.
2) Special interests do not make a NAT smarter than other people, not even in the particular arena of the interest
3) I have a significant fear of losing games, and had issues with sportsmanship.
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