Is all that folding in your cerebrum hurting your social skills? Are you the life of the party, or the person in the kitchen explaining to the one person too slow to escape why “sparkling wine” cannot be called “champagne”?
Experts agree: Being too smart can be a bummer. Deep thinkers struggle with all sorts of things that regular, well-adjusted, blissfully vacant people breeze right through. Which raises the burning question to help you prepare for this holiday season:
Do YOU think too much?
Grab a pencil, a lo-cal seltzer, and absolutely no context.
Answer each question below “YES” or “NO”. Don’t overthink it. No “MAYBE” or “DEPENDS” responses allowed!
The Quiz:
- Is making “small talk” difficult? A stranger at the bus stop says, “Crazy weather, huh?” Do you feel an irresistible urge to bring up ocean surface temperatures and methane-producing cattle?
- Do you have trouble delegating tasks? When a coworker offers to take a task off your plate, do you say “Great, thanks!” and then quietly redo it at 11:40 p.m. in your bathrobe?
- Do you struggle to faithfully follow a recipe? Do you treat recipes as a rough first draft? Have you ever swapped baking powder for baking soda because you got a B+ in chemistry during the Reagan administration?
- Do you struggle to “stay present in the moment”? While watching a gorgeous sunset, are you actually thinking about how the Earth is spinning, an email you sent last week, and the colonoscopy you’ll need in 2031?
- Is it difficult to “accept things at face value”? When the cashier says “Have a nice day,” do you spend the drive home wondering what she meant by that?
- Does relaxing make you antsy? Does watching a movie make you feel guilty unless it’s a four-part documentary about the development of democracy in the 18th century?
- Does spontaneity put your teeth on edge? A friend texts, “Concert tonight??” Do you respond with a risk-benefit analysis, a parking question, and, eventually, nothing at all?
- Are you a maven of multitasking? Are you reading this quiz while also listening to a podcast, answering a text, and mentally reorganizing your garage?
- Do imperfections needle at your subconscious? Is there a picture on a wall in your home that is a quarter-inch off level, and have you thought about it at least once today?
- Do you struggle with having fun just for fun’s sake? Have you ever turned a hobby into a spreadsheet? Do you keep win/loss records for family Yahtzee?
- Do you have difficulty expressing your emotions? When someone asks “How are you feeling?” do you answer in three acts with a prologue and footnotes, when the correct answer is always “Oh, OK”?
Now count your “YES” responses. Count them once. Do not recount them to make sure. Put down the calculator.
What Your Score Says About You
0 to 2: Blissfully Thoughtless. Congratulations, you gorgeous golden retriever! You follow recipes. You enjoy sunsets. You say “good” when asked how you are, and then you stop talking. People love you at parties. You have never once lain awake wondering if your houseplants suffer from over-attention. Please don’t change, and please don’t read anything else on this website.
3 to 5: Pleasantly Vacant. You think, but only recreationally. Like a social smoker, but with ideas. You occasionally correct someone’s use of “literally,” but you feel bad about it afterward. Your prognosis is excellent, provided you stay away from books and podcasts.
6 to 8: Chronically Pensive. Uh-oh. You’re the one standing near the bookshelf at the party, reading spines like they’re tea leaves. Your recipe-aversion has ruined at least one meatloaf on principle. Friends have stopped inviting you to spontaneous things (and you’ve noticed and pondered why at length).
9 to 11: Dangerously Thoughtful. Stop. Sit down and don’t analyze how you’re sitting. You are a menace to small talk and a danger at dinner parties. You are the reason the group chat went quiet. Somewhere a perfectly nice person who said “Nice day, huh?” to you is still in recovery. Follow all the steps below carefully!
How to Think Less and Be Happy!
Good news, brainiacs! Other experts also say you can learn to be average with practice. Here’s your six-step makeunder:
- Memorize “Wild, right?” for small talk. It works on weather, politics, celebrity divorces, and the heat death of the universe. Say it, smile, walk to the bean dip.
- Follow one recipe like it’s a court order. One teaspoon means one teaspoon. You are not Julia Child. You are a person ignoring the measuring spoon with much too much confidence.
- Read your horoscope and simply believe it. Don’t research the precession of the equinoxes. Mercury is in retrograde. That’s why your printer is broken. Done.
- Watch reality television without commentary. No sociological framing. No “this says so much about late capitalism.” She threw a drink on a bitch who deserved it. Enjoy that.
- Say yes before your brain can boot up. Concert tonight? “Yes!” Then hide your phone until the parking anxiety passes. It will pass in (in a few days).
- Feelings: one word, maximum. Go with “OK”, or if you are feeling spicy, “Tired”, “Irritated”, or “Hungry” are acceptable. If you catch yourself saying “I think what I’m experiencing is a kind of anticipatory grief rooted in…” just say “hungry” and eat a cookie.
🌱 Try This
Pick the one quiz question you answered YES to with the most enthusiasm, and do the dumb version of it exactly once this week.
- Choose your question, whether it’s the recipe, the spontaneous invite, or the how are you feeling question.
- Do the simple version on purpose: follow the recipe to the letter, say yes before you think, or answer how you feel in one word.
- Afterward, resist writing a post-game analysis and just notice whether anything terrible actually happened.
- If nothing did, consider that some of your thinking may be optional equipment that you can jettison.
A Brief Word From Your Quizmaster
The article that inspired this quiz, a sincere piece on the hidden burdens of a big brain, lists the eleven things that are difficult for “people who are unusually deep thinkers”.
It also contains the following sentence about perfectionism: letting things be “good enough” is “easy for smart people, but very challenging if you’re smart.”
I read that line four times. I diagrammed the sentence. I considered emailing the author for clarification. I eventually decided to accept it at face value and let it go. (That is a lie. It still haunts me when I consider anything related to perfectionism.)
So, yes. I answered yes to 10 of the 11 questions. I took the quiz twice to make sure. I considered adding a few items to the list of eleven, but then decided it would be more fun for all of us if I revisited the Cosmopolitan-style “Take Our Quiz” articles that were a plague in the 1980s. I hope you found the quiz helpful, or at least amusing.
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