I’ll be the first to admit that I’m just a little bit jealous of that fellow’s mad math skills. I was never good at solving mental equations and I’ve only gotten worse over time. Now that I think of it, I don’t know if I even have a basic grasp of mathematics anymore.

People make the mistake of assuming that I’m a complete poindexter because I wear soda-bottle glasses and dress like your senile dad, but I’m am as thick as granite and I have the test scores to prove it. I wear big glasses because I’m blind, so kind of need them to see, and I dress like your dad because I’m so frightfully unhip that I’ve come full circle and hipsters worship my fashion advice. I started off as a jock who was too cool for sports, lost my vision around middle-school, and I’ve been an accidental hipster icon ever since.

I’m not blind because I’ve spent many hours immersed in books that have dulled my vision, or because I spend my days programming super-software to hack into foreign banks, or whatever. My dad doesn’t have very good vision, and neither does my mom, so I’m stuck like this. Now you try explaining that to people who assume you’re a genius because you wear glasses the size of a Palomar lens. Try telling them you’re secretly a mouth-breather. It’s a lot harder than it sounds. At this point I’ve gotten so sick and tired of explaining that I’m not very smart to people that I’ve completely given up. Now I just pretend, which is essentially the same as actually being smart.

In my heart I know I’m not that bright, which has brought me solace and a sense of relief, because I couldn’t live with myself knowing I was a massive NERD.