Yea, very rarely is it relevant. Story time:
When I was a youngin I had lots of trouble in school because of how everything was taught. I loved learning but only a few teachers in my school really put in effort to make sure each student was doing well. I struggled through 2nd to 5th grade in the CA school system and eventually moved. Before we moved my parents had me go to a psych to get learning disability tests done (I was in the reading group at school with dyslexic and down syndrome kids, they where actually some of the nicest people BTW). I ended up getting a learning disability certification and IQ tested. Whenever I asked my parents never told me my IQ. I still don't know because I don't actually care. This is relevant to the rest of the story, I promise.
When we finally finished moving my parents put me in a private school but by that point I had a history of doing poorly in school and being bullied non-stop for my 4 years in CA schools (I had two friends in all that time). Finally in the private school in the brand new state I became very socially awkward because nobody ever showed me how to act in social settings and I never picked up on it till later. I was bullied still but over time I just accepted it and only hung out with my one friend. I was for the most part miserable and spent a good deal of my time programming with scratch and reading books about hacking (hacking specifically because it was one of the few things that made me feel like I had any power. I never was a skid though.) Finally in 7th grade I had adjusted well enough to my teachers and had gotten a mentor who was the father of anther student (he was a network engineer).
Now that I had a mentor, and good relationships with my teachers I began to get much more into other topics. Eventually this started my obsession with chemistry and I built myself a home lab. I read as much as I could and talked to my science teacher who gave me his college text books. I kept experimenting and reading through 7th grade, continually trying to be good enough at something to feel appreciated and feel the void in my heart.
Eventually I finally made it: I was able to contact a professor of biochemistry at the university and he talked to me. Apparently I knew enough that he invited me to sit in on a 1st level biochemistry course for fun. Because of the timing I would have to miss a good chunk of my regular school and so my parents pulled me out because the school didn't want to work with my schedule. They let me sit in on that class and learn about what I liked.
Being 13 or so and very excited about everything to do with chemistry I somehow got invited to be a lab monkey in the professors biochemistry lab. My parents signed the papers and I worked in his lab and sat in on the class for the rest of the semester, also growing my own lab and studying by myself. Over time I wandered around enough (and had no concept of how annoying I was, I cringe look back) meeting enough people that I established relationships with a few senior professors. They decided that I could be admitted as a part time student and, if I was able to complete the university's algebra course I could take chemistry classes for credit.
So over the summer I took the course and got a B in it. As well I was a lab assistant over the summer in a professors lab section which I thoroughly enjoyed. So I took the first gen chem course (not the 101 level which was the intro), and the second gen chem course after that. I got B's in both labs and A-'s in both lectures. All the while I annoyed everyone in the department. That summer I took trig and got C.
I wanted to start taking more courses (now being 14 I was a big boy of course) and so I took the ACT and got a 31 (passing), so honoring the agreement I was admitted as a full time student. All through this time I had been in counseling because of my social skills and variety of other problems such as I was bullied by other students for being so young. This being relevant that in the fall I tried to take 14 units and a few of the classes the teachers where very passive aggressive to me because of my age to the point where I ended up having a breakdown and my psychologist wrote me a doctors note to drop the classes late into the semester.
I tried to recover but when I went into the spring semester and had a psychological breakdown again, but this time it was just me. A teacher for one of my classes cared enough that he gave me a second chance once he figured out what happened. That was hell though. I went into the summer and my parents gave me one chance to complete Calc I in 7 weeks or they said they would have to send me to military school because of my behavior (which was constant panic attacks, breakdowns, fighting, ect.).
I got my shit together now at 14 and 1/2 and made an A- in Calc I over 7 weeks in the summer. Because of this my parents gave me a second shot and I went into fall semester and completed a full load with satisfactory grades. Spring I did well again and turned 15. Summer I got a B in Calc II in 7 weeks and took Philosophy 101 for fun where I got an A. I continued doing well and going along, switching majors 3 times.
Today I am 19 and still getting my degree as I am doing one major and three minors.
Now
Why is this something I spent the time to write? Because on here the people that act very smart make it sound fun and make it sound as if it is so much better. This is no the case. Starting university at 13 I was made fun of, picked out for my age, never taught how to act in such a setting. The teachers that knew me from the beginning always understood and helped me but other teachers later on where mean just like the students that bullied me. From the beginning of it I always just wished that I could fit in with everyone else. I sometimes felt proud of what I did but only because of my parents. I liked what I studied but I was never consistently happy until around 16. When I turned 15 I always tried to hide my age and blend in. Eventually people that didn't know me assumed I just was a young looking freshman. I never once went on the internet and bragged about how cool I was for being in uni. I hated myself and my only friends where professors and my one mentor who is still my friend today.
Being "smart" isn't fun. But it's not some egotistical function of that people have "lesser intelligence" and their all dumb so I can't talk to them sort of thing we see here. It's because I could never fit in with anyone in my age group and very few people outside of it (the ones that understood I was an emotional retard). I always tried as hard as I could to fit in to my understanding once I realized at around 15 that much of my bullying was caused by people knowing my age. I had mental breakdowns, severe depression, ADHD induced party from stress, and no real concept of how to socialize. I was put on Prozac and Vyvanse (both which did help quite a bit). I was an emotional retard and every day I doubted if I was actually even intelligent or not, sometimes having panic attacks caused by me feeling like I never belonged, that I was a fake, that I just to where I was because of pure luck, and I was terrified of that, never knowing who I was or feeling like I had any purpose. I even went so far as to go to some parties with friends and at 15 ended up getting smashed on tequila shots and rum more than once, hoping that maybe that I could fix what was wrong with me by fitting into a group.
This is a massive rant, but I had to get it off my chest, and here, on this sub, it is relevant: I despise people that are so smug and sure of themselves because that's not the reality of life when you are "smart". You don't post shit of facebook bragging about how you do vector calc for fun and listen to Beethoven, rather (at least from my experiences and other people I talked to), you end up doubting yourself, never fitting it and not really knowing why, very rarely having friends because every day you tear yourself up inside wondering what's wrong with you, what you did to deserve this, wondering why you can never fit in, why you just can't be like everyone else and be happy, wondering if your even have any redeeming value at all. When anyone complimented me I was always doubtful because inside I didn't want to be different. I wished all the time I could blend in and have friends and not be bullied. The only time it ended was when I learned to not be an emotional retard every day and to pretend to be no one special or different.
I never thought about my IQ, because it didn't matter, and it doesn't, and it will never matter, and no one elses IQ will matter. The only thing that matters if us. I just do what I do. I just want to be happy. I just want to fit in. The only reason I wrote this is because I needed to get this off my chest and needed to explain from my perspective why I despise people that get posted here. Thanks for listening, even if your the only other person to read this.