The Stupid One/Smart One Relationship
In all group/partner exercises, there's inevetably one or more people who act as "the smart ones": those who provide the interesting ideas and keep the group on-track. Consequently, there are also "the stupid ones": those who have nothing worthwhile to contribute, and end up completing all the banal things, like writing things "the smart ones" say and making posters and whatnot.
My whole life, I have been "the smart one"; I have always been frustrated with group activities because my ideas were generally better and more complete than those I worked with. I've always wanted to do everything my way, and ended up just doing the whole project by myself, voluntarily. But, now I know how it feels to be "the stupid one." I'm working on a presentation for my Feminist Theory and Gender Studies class with a brilliant girl I've befriended this semester, and invariably, if she's more brilliant than me, I must adopt the "stupid one" role. I know how it feels to be told, "oh, I can just write that," and have the entire project exist without hardly any of my input. And the thing that sucks about it, is that she's totally right in doing so, because I'm completely clueless about the article on which we're presenting. And, moreover, she isn't trying to be mean about it--the presentation will simply be better if she mans the "thought" part of it.
I can't stand not being the best--and even though I know that I'm not the best at everything (or anything, undoubtably), I hate that I now have to know it, and have proof of it. How did this happen?
On another note, this week, I'm going to put to an end the passive-agressive discourse I've had with a certain person. I'm just fed up.
A record of the life and times of one brown shirt-wearing university student, struggling to escape his fear of intimacy, overcome his hunger for eternal supremacy in every aspect, and never have to write a description of his life like this again.