“I Never Dared to Ask You Out”

And Other Weird Interactions I’ve Had as an Academically Bright Young Woman.

At my university graduation. Photo by the author.

As a widely recognised know-it-all, I’ve experienced all sorts of reactions from those around me. I’ve always been academically smart, top of my class at school and in university, and always seemed to have had a natural ability to thrive in an education environment.

Disclaimer: The reason why I insist on saying academically smart is that there is no conventional way to measure brightness, and people can be smart in very different ways. Being smart at school is just one way, despite being sadly still used as a general standard.

My male classmates, also top of the class, seemed to receive just one of two general reactions: admiration or indifference. Although I admit, this is just what I observed from the outside. But as a female candidate for absolute academic brightness, some of the reactions I got were downright bizarre.

From overt to expertly covert jealousy, to admiration, to being called a nerd, a loser, or a study machine, I’ve had all sorts of interactions with people who couldn’t brush off that I happened to have high grades.

A boy I had the biggest crush on pretty much through my entire secondary school cycle later told me he’d never dared to ask me out…