On Being the “Dumb” Friend by Allison E. '27

A lot of people at MIT were probably seen as the “smart” friend in high school–the one who excelled in classes, or juggled impressive extracurriculars, or always seemed to have some interesting trivia on hand. Being the “smart” friend was a piece of our identities, a point of pride, even. Maybe we weren’t the funniest friend, or the best listener, but we had a niche. The “smart” friend.

Then we came to MIT, and met all the other “smart” friends. *cue identity crises, rediscovery of self, and everything else contained in so many past and future blogs*. I don’t want to talk about those journeys right now. I want to talk about the new niche I’ve found myself in amongst my MIT group of friends:

Namely, I am the “dumb” friend.

Ok, ok, that’s a statement with MANY caveats. There are so many ways to be “smart”–street smarts and people smarts and intuitive smarts… the list goes on. Generally, though, when we say “smart” or “dumb”, the first thing that comes to mind is book smarts, and that’s what I’m referring to.

Being the “dumb” friend also does NOT mean I am dumb. On the contrary, I am quite smart, because everyone at MIT is quite smart. No imposter syndrome allowed here 🙅🏻‍♀️. 

But, indulge me in the simplicity for narrative’s sake, because some facts are both qualitatively and quantitatively true: I am not as smart as my friends. It’s evident even just with classes–whether it’s the number of classes they take, the difficulty of said classes, the amount of time they have to spend learning content / doing psets, or the grades they get. Then there’s the times I’ve asked them for help with a pset problem, when they had to explain it four different ways because their solutions relied on an intuition that I just don’t have. I see them skipping prerequisite classes that are kicking my butt, and making leaps in logic in seconds that would take me three hours and fifteen intermediate steps. There are dinner conversations that I simply don’t have access to, because my friends learned in 9th grade some of the content that I’m set to learn next year.

Perhaps even more importantly, they have an intellectual curiosity and drive that I just don’t–reading textbooks in their free time, creating and solving complex puzzles, or immersing themselves in discussions about the things they’re learning in class. 

And yes, sometimes it stings. Going from the “smart” friend in high school to the “dumb” friend is a weird mental transition, and I think most of us instinctually react to this by berating ourselves for “not working hard enough.” 

When I catch myself thinking this way, though, I remind myself that the average basketball player in the NBA is 6 ft, 6 in (199 cm) tall. More importantly, the average NBA player also gave up a large portion of their childhood and adolescence to practicing and playing the sport seriously. I grew up playing basketball, and still enjoy the occasional pick-up game. But I don’t beat myself up for not being a professional basketball player, because 1) I’m not physically built for it, and 2) I didn’t spend 10 years practicing the sport for 20 hrs/week. 

My friends are like those NBA players. Maybe they were born 6’ 10”, intellectually speaking, and then they’ve spent the last four, six, eight years working their asses off at skills perfectly tailored to academic success at MIT.

We don’t come to MIT on an equal playing field. My friends came in with a massive advantage, and even though they worked for it, it’s still an advantage. There is simply no feasible amount of studying that I could do to catch up with their years of preparation. So, just like I don’t beat myself up for not being a professional basketball player, I don’t beat myself up for being the “dumb” friend.

In fact, I kind of love it, because there’s a freedom that comes with being the “dumb” friend and accepting it. Every time I find myself comparing where I’m at to where my friends are at, I sit back, take a deep breath, and remind myself that I’m just not as smart as them. I’m not taking as many or as difficult classes as them because I’m not as smart as them. My GPA isn’t as high as theirs because I’m not as smart as them. I’m not TA’ing that class, or securing that internship, or or or… the list goes on.

“I’m not as smart as them” can be a refrain of self-flagellation, but it can also be one of self-liberation. These particular goals–straight A’s and upper-level classes–are simply unrealistic for this version of Allison. I am not seven years old, imagining myself to be Albert Einstein as I finish my multiplication tables in 60 seconds instead of 70. I have realistic expectations, and that constant sense that I’m not doing enough is just silly.

I’ve shared this mental framework with various friends, and often get a number of knee-jerk reactions. Even as I write this, my own brain keeps raising questions.

For example, some people reject the idea of genetic advantage–the idea that there are some people born 6’ 10”, intellectually. Growth mindset! Everyone can achieve something if they really set their mind to it! I don’t disagree with that concept at all. In this case, though, I think it’s a question of magnitudes. I’m starting to repeat myself here, but the number of hours I’d have to spend to catch up with my friends is simply astronomical.

This does beg a second question: If fully catching up to my friends is impossible, why don’t I at least try to get partway there? I’m not arguing against this at all. I’m a student, that’s the entire purpose of getting an education.

At a certain point, though, you have to draw the line. If I’m constantly striving to fully catch up with my friends, at a certain point I’d hit diminishing returns. And what would I have to give up in the process?

Theoretically I could just study longer on the weekends, or spend the summer learning about topology, and then maybe I could be as smart as them. But every hour spent on topology would be an hour less to spend with my friends, talking about life. Every extra hour reviewing lectures would be an hour less learning to sew, or singing karaoke, or building an igloo. Why should I give up all these other possible experiences just to be a little bit smarter?

Maybe, then, I have to beat myself up about my past choices. We all love a good session of self-recrimination. I could ask myself: Why didn’t I work harder in high school? Maybe then I could’ve been on the same level as my friends. I could’ve spent those hours poring over math textbooks, or drilling physics concepts until they felt like my own intuition. But what would I give up? Would I give up the hours I spent in marching band, learning about music and leadership? Would I give up the afternoon cross country runs, pushing myself to physical limits? Would I give up all the experiences that have made me who I am? Absolutely not. 

So if that’s how I view the past, why should I view my future any differently?

The other main reaction I get to my “being the dumb friend” spiel is variations on “Allison you’re so smart though” or “but there are so many ways to be smart!!” These are usually perfectly genuine, and I think they’re not unnatural reactions at MIT, where intelligence is perhaps the singularly most prized value. When intelligence is the most valuable thing, anyone who professes a lack of it must be reassured, because that must mean they think their entire self (or at least the most important part of them) is lacking. We act like being the dumb friend is the worst thing that could happen to us, so we reassure each other that it’s not true. But in the case that it is true, then the message we get from each other is that our “dumb friend” status is so bad that we have to pretend it’s not. Which maybe feels a bit worse.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m still a nerd, and intelligence is still something that I strongly value. But so is singing. I love singing, and I think being able to sing well is one of the coolest things in the world. I’ve been trying to learn how, but I’m still bad at it. And I don’t mind that, because I know I was born with a… less than talented voice. I haven’t been taking singing lessons since I was six years old, and I don’t have a lot of time to learn. Even though I value singing, it’s fine that I’m still not great at it. 

And when I tell people that I suck at singing, they don’t feel the urge to rush around and reassure me that I’m really an operatic talent. Because singing is just one skill of many. I can be the friend who’s bad at singing as easily as I can be the dumb friend, because I’d rather be the friend who can plan a group trip, or the friend who’s good at listening, or the friend who you bakes cookies at 2 am. 

Being the dumb friend is completely fine with me, and I don’t need people to reassure me about it, because intelligence is no longer the be all, end all of my identity. Accepting that fact has also made me more accepting of myself and my own limitations, and it’s made me more willing to spend time developing other skills and doing things I enjoy. In fact, I think being at MIT, surrounded by people who make me the dumb friend, is one of the most freeing things that could’ve happened to me. I am the dumb friend. And I’m not ashamed of it.