Why do people assume I'm smart even though I don't feel so?

[Anonymous]

While I was in school, I was a pretty mediocre student and never very hard working. However, later life I topped my university and got called 'eccentric' by my teachers. I also write stories and poems part time.

But the thing is, people have always considered me to be smart. And specifically strangers who do not know about my life well are more prone of believing so. At first glance most people believe that I'm very serious and intelligent though I have never felt so about myself. This question tormented me more when recently someone I have been friends with for a while on a social media platform told me that he has always considered me to be his sapio sexual crush. He also told me that this aspect of mine keeps men away from me as they consider me to be intimidating.

Sometimes I feel excluded and lonely as people are never comfortable around me. Are there reasons why some people appear as more intelligent than other people? And if so is there a way to blend in?

Thank you.

[AmeerX]

In school I wasn't the best but a backbencher 😅 and absent from school and barely getting grades but in University I also got medals and they are collecting dust now.

You are probably feeling how I feel. People think I am "Professor" and "Master" (their words not mine) and people start to make assumptions about me too.

You should get it out of your mind that it's going to make you feel good. Only people who really don't say I am smart or intelligent are my family.

[Asker]

Exactly. It doesn't make me feel good either. My best friend calls me dumb from time to time, doesn't care to be superficial to attract my attention and doesn't pretend to be respecting me. That's why we are best friends. People don't understand that excluding someone by calling them smart isn't really that nice a thing as it seems.

[AmeerX]

I get how you feel. In fact people used to only come close to me because I was considered smart.
And when I went looking for job it back fired. Oh, hey you are so smart then why don't you start your own set up kid.
Oh you have a medal, "probably thinking if I hired this guy he will put my job at risk.
And even my teachers didn't want to hire me over a dumb girl (she wasn't dumb she was a friend) because they just wanted someone who is dumb enough to control and apparently I wasn't it

[Dargil]

You don't learn that much about life in school. You take an interest in things that make you interesting in conversation. I have been "accused" of having a Liberal Arts Master's. Trust me, I don't.