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Intelligence is sometimes perceived as a superpower, something that gives a person an edge over their fellow human. So much so that some people make it a habit to flex their intellect whenever they get the chance.
But in doing so, a few of them may come off as weird, even creepy. These are the types of stories you’re about to read, all of which are responses to a Reddit thread from a while back.
Here, people shared the oddest ways they’ve seen someone try to show off how smart they are, only to freak out everyone in the process.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
There was a kid in my wife's 7th grade class that knew absolutely everything about spiders. He could identify any kind by seeing the spider or the web or even just a part of a leg or the corner of the face. Standard issue nerd.
But then I find out that the kid can call spiders out of hiding to come to his hand. He showed the trick to a bunch of friends outside at school, whispering to them and they jumped in his hand. He worked out some whispery sounds that different species liked, just from watching them outside. Imagine how much time that takes hanging out with spiders in your back yard.
I kind of wanted to know what his home life was like and kind of didn't.
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#2
My dad, who would be 102 this year, lived on a farm. The neighbor called my grandparents and said he heard that he had the best mechanic and could he borrow him. When my 13-year-old father showed up, the guy couldn’t believe it. My dad said, “Do you want your tractor fixed or not?” He fixed it, collected his payment, and left.
#3
My great uncle was an in demand nuclear engineer in his working days, he’d be requested in multiple countries. Easy route? Hire a translator for trips. Did this man want to hire a translator? No, no he did not. The solution? Speaking 12 languages fluently.
#4
I've got a number of them, but one in particular - my friend who was a car mechanic who couldn't do it anymore because his lungs were being negatively affected, too much exposure to exhaust. I've been in computers for decades, and figured if I used automotive terminology, I could describe some computer concepts so he could work in computers. My God, he picked it up so astonishingly fast that he started his own computer repair business. He was smarter than your average bear when it came to automotive things, too. He added a Corvette transmission to an old diesel pickup truck and could go way over the speed limit and get 50 mpg all day, too. He restored old cars and motorcycles and would frequently modify them to operate better than when new. A naturally brilliant guy all the way around and a great person to know. Crazy. Out of the box thinker too, which I like.
#5
My grandma was one of those people that could play piano by ear. Never took lessons, didn’t play often, but she just “could”.
#6
I was a waitress from 1995 to 2015. I worked with a woman who never wrote down a single thing. Most impressive thing I saw her do: Take a party of 29, not write down one single word, and bring every person exactly what they ordered with zero mistakes. I still don't know how her brain could function like that!
StrangeOne 1 hour ago
I'm guessing if you have excellent memory, or just able to visually keep the order in your head, it's easier to keep track of who ordered what. Just theorizing, perhaps being busy by writing down orders could distract one from being able to memorize because the eye is and mind is focused on writing the words, taking away the focus of putting distinguishable traits of the customer to the order.
#7
My husband is like this. He was fixing the electricity for his mom's renter at 14. He takes stuff apart and fixes it... Sometimes I want a new appliance, though. He didn't want to pay 15k for a new boiler install, so he decided he would learn about it and do it. It's perfect. He has done our plumbing, electric, building, makes me furniture, rigs cool lighting, surround sound, landscaping, fixes our cars, builds computers from scratch, puts networks together, and troubleshoots computers... There is only one thing that regularly stumps him... me! :).
emorinelli49 1 hour ago
That’s a MacGyver guy - I’ve got a husband just like that! He always has the battery, a little clip, the s***w, etc., that you need.
#8
During one of my advanced courses for my M.S. Machine Learning degree, this old Computer Science professor made borderline impossible worksheets. He was the stereotypical CS professor with a ponytail and glasses, and he believed the best way to teach was to give students time to try and solve complicated problems independently. His theory was that once he taught us how to solve them, we would appreciate the theory more since it made a problem that stumped us understandable.
Anyways, he would give us a worksheet with 4 to 6 questions and 4 hours to solve them in pairs. Most of the class could do one or two in the allocated time. The biggest outlier was this international student from Singapore who solved many of them each time. He wasn't even from our program - he was from the Mathematics department, taking the class for extra credit.
One day, I partnered with him to solve some graph problems, and we progressed well. We only got stuck on the last question, which was the type of question you had to read five times for it to make sense. It was on a completely different level than all the others. We started working on it and kept bouncing around ideas for about one hour.
Then, this guy has a brilliant insight and approaches the problem from a completely different branch of Mathematics. He solves it in just a few lines after that. We call the professor and show the solution to see if it's right. He looks at us wide-eyed like we're aliens.
It turns out he put an unsolved problem as the last question. It came up during one of his PhD students' research and stumped both. He put it in our worksheet just to see if someone could make some progress on it. My partner solved it in one hour flat. I was both impressed and thankful this guy was my partner lol.
#9
I used to work in human services on a psych unit, and we had a repeat patient who, sadly, was VERY schizophrenic. Still, with a deck of cards, he could do all sorts of mind-blowing tricks, and he was a human calculator when it came to numbers. He couldn't articulate well enough to explain how he did it, but I still am curious to this day how he truly saw the world.
#10
When I was three, I took apart my mom's sewing machine just to see how it worked. Mind you, I've always taken things apart to see how they work. Always reverse-engineering and improving. Well, my parents were very upset. I don't remember it; it's from what they and my aunt told me. But when they left the room, I somehow put it all back together again, and it worked. So there's my claim to greatness lol.
#11
My niece taught herself to read at 3 while she was listening to her parents read to her. The family found out in an email she wrote to her grandmother.
Single Spinner 1 hour ago
My nephew did this, taught himself to read while looking at the text while his mother read to him. He’s now in advanced classes.
#12
My sister’s neighbor had a 4-year-old boy, and I took him and my nephew to the pool. We were having lunch, and the boy asked what time it was. I couldn’t see a clock, so I said I didn’t know. He proceeded to take his lid and straw out of his drink and said I’ll just make a Sundial. And he did. I was very shocked! I told him, Mom, when we got back & she said he has a high IQ. lol.
#13
My son is incredibly gifted at 4 years old. He has been able to read properly since 2 and has grown drastically since. Memorized exponents up to 10^123, converting numbers in the thousands to roman numerals and how to do multiplication. He's now onto anatomy as his subject. What he said isn't a creepy display of intelligence, but coupled with his intelligence scares me.
The other day he told me if he cuts a dragons legs, it will be shorter as well as other creature alterations. Asks "If you remove my skin cover, will you see my digestive system."
Keeping a close eye on this one.
#14
The story reminds me of my son now, 10, but at the time of this story was 5, maybe 6. My ex-husband ( father of my children) had an older 80s model work van that had been giving him issues, wouldn't start, and if it did, it died shortly after, if I remember right. He'd been messing with it for a few weeks, and he was in the driveway yet again trying to diagnose the issue. My son and I are walking to my car, and my son stops to listen to the van my ex is trying to get started. As soon as we get in my car, my son says to me, "I'm pretty sure it's the fuel filter or carburetor." I can't remember which it was. So I tell my son, "Go tell your dad." He tells dad, dad says nah, buddy, that ain't it, but I'll check it. I asked my son why he thought that... Said "Pawpaw, old tractor sounded like that, and that's what fixed it". To wrap this up, my 5-year-old son was right.
#15
Last year when my niece was 4, my brother was having some issue with his heating system. My niece looked up a youtube video on what was going on, and was able to correctly diagnose the problem. It was definitely something an adult could've figured out as well, but it was just really surprising that she was able to figure it out on her own. She's a smart kiddo for sure.
#16
I went to college at USU from 2015-2019. During a party, I met a kid who said he could answer any mathematical equation without a calculator down to the last decimal point… and he was not lying!
Any math equation I threw at him, whether it be division, multiplication, square root, numbers big and small…. this kid always answered it 100% correct. Down to the last decimal point. I was mind blown.
#17
About 15 years ago, my orange cat Kiki batted about a dozen small cat toys into a straight line from smallest to biggest to smallest again. That was the only time she ever did something like that.
#18
Howdy.
Mathematician here. I creeped out my teacher in fourth grade. Through intuition, I showed her that there are the same number of integers as counting numbers. I was almost correct in figuring out the formula.
Naturally I got sent to the office for badgering this poor woman lol.
#19
My husband was taking apart and air gun (for.some.reason?) while our younger son watched intently. I'm sure he was under 7. When my husband went to put it back together, he got so far in and our kid is saying "no daddy! This goes on first!" And he was absolutely right. He became an electrical engineer and worked as a trouble shooter for years with various high tech companies. Not sure what he's doing now because I am.not that smart.
Mel in Georgia 1 hour ago
Having kids who can do things far better than you is both gratifying and scary. Both of our kids have skills that combine my and my husband's intelligences that go beyond ours. On the downside, they both have some of our negative qualities that have also combined. Genetics is weird.
#20
It’s not creepy, it’s cool. Some people are just preternaturally gifted in this way. Almost everyone on my dad’s side of the family is this way. My grandfather was an engineer, my father started as a heavy equipment mechanic (later opened his own business) and my son, who is only 17 has already shown signs of having the same ability. Not to the tune of fixing tractors or large equipment, but like, he was the kid building the Lego Avengers helicarrier set (the 3000 piece one) at 8 years old, won a school district invention fair in 4th grade and won a school physics competition in 11th grade. He’s just good at figuring out how things work and conversely, figuring out how to make things work.
I would say that it skipped me because I’m not very interested in this kind of thing, but I have been known to have a weird talent for fixing household appliances like vacuum cleaners, washing machines and coffee makers. I don’t really even know how any of it works, I just have this weird way of fiddling with something until it fires back up. 🤷♀️.
#21
My daughter was 4, almost 5 when my mom and my stepdad took her back to her father’s house. They had not been there before, but my stepdad said he knew the area well and knew where her father lived. Anyway, they ended up getting lost and my mom said that my daughter kept saying she knew how to get there. My stepdad kept dismissing this, and an hour or so into them being lost and quite far from the house, my mother suggested they let my daughter show them. My mother said she recognized houses and what the roads looked like and the lead them straight to her fathers house. My mom and step dad were shocked!
#22
Not particularly creepy, but my six year old autistic daughter said something the other day that kinda stunned me. I was trying to clean her, and she kept questioning everything I did or told her to do. Exasperated, I finally told her she didn't have to question everything. Without missing a beat she said, "but momma, if I don't question everything, how will I know what's true or real?".
Mel in Georgia 1 hour ago
When "because I said so" will never satisfy an intelligent child. It can be frustrating as a parent!
#23
My brother was this kid… he took apart every engine and electronic he could get his hands on at a very young age, despite my parents pleading with him to leave things alone. In fear of him being a defiant, sociopath, my mom once took him to the pediatrician expressing her concerns (using the exact mentioned adjectives), to which the pediatrician told her to relax, and assured her that these gifted skills would eventually get him very far in life, despite the stressors they caused at the time. He had friends (sort of), but related more to successful, grown adults and could hold conversations with just about any age group as a small child.
His intelligence is still wildly baffling to me, and it’s not at all shocking that the pediatrician’s predictions came true. Today he is a very successful engineer and in his late 30’s… and almost seems BORED.
He was born with the rare ability to work smarter and not harder.
As his older sibling, growing up in his smart shadow totally sucked … but nobody ever said genetics was fair.
Mel in Georgia 1 hour ago
I'm not what anyone would call "dumb," but growing up with a younger sibling who's demonstrably smarter than you is frustrating, especially when he is such a brat! That said, I can say I married much better than him. He's on his third marriage. There are all sorts of intelligences!
#24
My wife has always been amazed that I can mentally take things apart, and put them back together in my head. Then just fix things without any real experience of doing it before. I can’t explain how it works, it just makes sense in my head. From blenders, washing machines, computers, cars, guns, toilets, dishwashers, lawnmowers. Chainsaws, pressure washers, etc… just about anything.
#25
One time I scared a man pretty bad, because I'm good at spotting 4-leaf clovers. I found several in a row, and he got freaked out. Decades later I took an IQ test for dyslexia diagnosis, and scored a 17 on the blocks. I'm just really good a visual pattern recognition.
#26
My grandson, the younger of twins is on the autism spectrum.
He is wildly intelligent but in a different way.
He was asking his Dad what existentialism was at the age of 8.
His twin brother goes to school for the highly intelligent, but he's not interested.
I keep telling him he's going to do great things someday.
#27
You have not lived until you have met a full fledged savant . A man lived next to me for years. Could not really function in real world. Not creepy - but it is very strange, hard to understand and pretty mind blowing.
#28
My 2yo Nephew is the smartest baby ive known. Like no kidding he could recognize all family members including intermediate with him (like there were 9 people or so) by calling out their name when he was barely 2. Also first time in an airport he looked out the window saw the plane and said "plane". That was when he was barely 2 plus never air travelled before that.
#29
My daughter was 2 and she asked where something was, we'd thrown it out because it was broken the night before and hadn't gotten around to replacing it, so I told her it was lost and she says, "Why are you lying to me, you know I can always tell when people are lying to me." Sent chills down my spine. She had no idea it wasn't in the house, she just knew it wasn't the truth.
#30
Looked after a small child for a number of years and watch them grow. They always had some mad talents, not all round super genius but….
Before they could properly speak they were drawing shapes… one day they were drawing lots of triangles all together and getting increasingly frustrated. By the bottom of the page they were drawing perfect 5 point stars… there was none in the room to copy the just worked it out. I kept the paper.
Would nap for exactly 47mins everyday.
When older they would come back from a trans Atlantic trip/ any sort of jet lag inducing trip, look at the clock and go… oh its now 7 o’clock and go to bed and be jet lag free the next day… regardless of how little/much sleep thry had.
#31
I once figured out how to change a tyre with no experience as a 12yr old. Step Dad was out and Mum was taking me to an appointment but the tyre was flat in the driveway.
This was looong before Google and mobile phones. Mum was about to call the NRMA road assist and I thought nah I can do this.
She told me where the jack was and what it does and I figured out the rest.
Kids can be fearless....
#32
I read that there’s a parasite (toxoplasma gondi) that lives half its life cycle in rodents and half in cats. In the rat, it knows it needs to get back intot he cat to keep the cycle going, so it hijacks the rat’s brain. It makes the rat less afraid of cat pee smell, less afraid of cats in general, makes them more curious and exploratory. Meanwhile I’m sure the rat doesn’t think anything’s up, just “hey, I feel like sniffing around this cat pee for awhile, let me be me man.”. Freaky.
One of the creepiest aspects to me is that this relatively super simple life form, way less evolved than mammals, can take control of them like they are a mech suit and steer them into disaster.
IN THEORY ONLY, a parasite could evolve that would do the same thing to humans. Brings up questions of free will, autonomy, mind control, freaky stuff.
#33
I'll go - I once knew a young adult who had a genuine 'photographic memory'. Lots of people claim to have this, and maybe they do to an extent, but this kid had *perfect* recall of anything he'd seen.
I think maybe neurologically he paid a price for it though. He's on the 'needs assistance' end of the autism scale. I'm not really sure if that's how it works, but that's my (non-expert) take on it.
#34
One night my ex and I came home after going to the bar with some friends.
I had just gotten over a cold so I decided to be the DD and not drink.
She was pretty hammered (maybe important to the story?).
Anyways, she goes into the kitchen for snacks, I go to the bedroom ACROSS THE HOUSE. Suddenly a thought pops into my head "oh ask X if her mom still wants to get lunch tomorrow".
I am 1000% sure I did not say this out loud, and even if I did the bedroom and kitchen were NOT in earshot.
My girlfriend comes down the hall and into the bedroom and very drunkenly says "what did you just say?"
I say "huh? I didn't say anything."
She says, "yeah you did, something about my mom and lunch tomorrow?"
Again, I was totally sober and absolutely sure I didn't say anything out loud. It freaked me out so much I never even told her.
Was never into paranormal stuff, but that got me questioning things.
#35
My claim to early mechanical fame was buying 2 cb750's when I was 19 or 20. Only prior hands on stuff I had done was oil changes, spark plugs and change wheels. Tore them both down to the frame so I could pull the titled frame off the bad motor and put it on the good motor by myself. Built it back up, got some help from a buddy synching carbs and rode it for a few years. The first ride after getting the points right, all four firing, made my knees weak when I got off it.
#36
I had a flat tire on my corrola one night. Pulled over near a building with a fence around it and got out the jack and spare tire. While I removed the flat tire, a guy came up standing behind the fence watching me. He scared me and I kind of jumped and tripped at the same time. I asked who he was and he said Marvin. He said he lived there and it was an insane asylum. So I said hello, and explained I was changing my tire. I went to put the spare tire on and realized I had lost the lug nuts when I tripped. As I was about to give up, Marvin says that I should just remove one lug from each of the other tires, and then I'll have three on each wheel. Excitedly I told him thanks, that was a great idea.
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