u/7HR0W________4W4Y

I think I meet a lot of the criteria for being stupid.

* Rigid thinking - it seems like I can’t even convince myself of different approaches of perspectives. Whatever perspective other people offer me may not even resonate with me, so the effect is nothing.

* Poor thinking - can’t even think deeply. I think shallowly and am not interested in the world around me. No deep thoughts. I feel like this might make it harder to grow and solve my personal problems and improve myself as a person.

It doesn’t help that this is a turnoff according to posts I’ve seen on Reddit; people, or at least Redditors, don’t like dumb people as partners. I can imagine intelligent people in general wouldn’t.

* Low curiosity - again, barely any interest in the world. No interest in people, either. I’d have to practice curiosity instead of having it come to me.

* No creativity (or lost creativity) - maybe I had this over a year ago, but it seems to be gone. I don’t come up with cool ideas anymore, which is probably why I don’t write anymore.

* Feel like I struggle to learn - the lessons I learn seem to just leak out of my head later on. I think I also struggle to learn those lessons in the first place.

* Poor processing - things come to me slowly. Even your advice probably will come to me quite slowly, and even then, it may not even resonate. Still, I’ll take advice because why not?

* Probably not as self aware as I think - I thought that self awareness could’ve been my one strength, but that may not be true. I think my lack of self awareness appears in arguments where I act immaturely.

* Barely any desire to do anything about anything - this is probably not related to intelligence but it surely doesn’t help me at all. Hard work is not familiar to me, and I’d have to force myself into being better because I have no internal will to be better. I pretty much have no internal world and am not complex.

And writing well doesn’t negate any of this so please do not say “but you write well!” The Dunning-Kruger effect also doesn’t explain any of this. My only explanation is when I used marijuana 7 times from ages 17-19, and a couple of those times were extremely high doses, one with the extremely potent THC-O. Another was some gummy that I don’t know what was in it, but didn’t make me feel well.

You might say “nah you’re good dude,” but it seems like I haven’t been intellectually the same since this happened.

So I’m asking, what do you do when you may just actually be slow? I’ve been diagnosed with major depressive disorder but I am doubtful if I have it or if it’s bad enough to make me this slow.

Don’t sugar coat anything. What the fuck do I do when I’m likely duller than average? Does this not limit some of my dating options? Because I get the feeling people don’t wanna date a shallow-minded person. Just look up “dating stupid people” on Reddit and you’ll see (granted it’s only Reddit).

So what would you do?

22M

I did not use AI to write this. I bolded headings and sentences and used bullet points to make it more organized.

All of a sudden, I’m experiencing the following:

Intellectual/Cognitive Changes

* Poorer ability to think and comprehend things, especially when learning. This makes it harder for me to feel like I’m participating in a discussion just by reading it. For example, I saw a YouTube short about young people in Japan being called out for using some sort of mental illness tag, sort of like a disability tag. The comments were talking about it, but I wasn’t intellectually there.

I already was not very intelligent (and I mean it, I have dogshit thinking, I mean my brainpower).

* Less creativity. It’s harder to come up with new ideas, and this could be because my thinking ability is dogshit, like having less brainpower.

* Quotes or hard-hitting comments or posts don’t touch me. They don’t register with me.

* Misreading things (I don’t think I have dyslexia). For example, switching words around or, for example, this paragraph from an article I read:

> Alternative theories for why monogamy evolved propose that males who provide food and safety for females boost their odds of being selected as mates

I misread that as females boosting their odds of being mates, instead of males.

Personality Changes

* Suddenly blaming others. I used to not do this, but for some reason, this has started to develop. Blaming others when they give me critique on a behavior or action of mine.

* Close-mindedness and feeling offense when seeing information that I don’t agree with. I already was fairly close-minded. For example, I just read a good amount of an article about why humans aren’t built for strict monogamy (the paragraph from before was from this article).

I felt annoyed instead of curious, but I read a good amount anyways. I feel like I should be someone who only feels curious about conflicting information, and I believe that this is common among intelligent people (I don’t think I am intelligent).

* More judgemental. I already struggled with being judgmental of others for any reason: alternative fashion/appearance, having a promiscuous lifestyle, sex work (less so now, I think), profile picture.

If I perceive them as more intelligent than me and they are a pretty woman and maybe are alternative or promiscuous or whatever, then I feel annoyed. This is probably because I believe I’m dumb (and it seems very true with all the intellectual problems I have, and how I lack traits of intelligent people).

* More irritable with my own father. I try not to disrespect him, and I think I’m sorta successful at that.

* Probably mentally weaker, too. I was never really a serious or strong person, but I think I’ve become weaker.

I currently have these bad habits:

* Porn addiction
* Poor diet and not eating very much
* Not going outside much. I guess I don’t feel very compelled to.
* Having little discipline.

I don’t really hang out with anyone, except for my sister but that’s not often. I don’t feel *that* compelled to make new friends, but I’ve been meaning to go to this goth/alternative bar to find someone (it’s just kinda scary to go to a bar for me).

I already have little ambition and desire to truly better myself and grow compared to others. Little intellectual curiosity, too. Yesterday I wondered if I should just accept that I am probably not a bright person, and that I have to think harder and longer than others. I felt unusually suicidal, too.

Any help is appreciated. This was a long post, but I guess it’s thorough.