People Are Sharing The “Non-Obvious” Signs Someone Is Smart (15 Posts)

Have you ever met someone who is just incredibly intelligent—like, Einstein-level intelligent? These people are fascinating to be around—and on Reddit, folks are discussing if there are any non-obvious signs of intelligience from just interacting with them. For the most part, people agree that a non-obvious sign of intelligence is being honest about their breadth of knowledge and open to learning more—intelligent people are curious. But as always, there are differing opinions on how you can tell someone is secretly smart. And if you’re secretly smart, apparently you’ll be able to take a nuanced look and balance these opinions against your own without feeling threatened!

1. 

“They acknowledge areas where they lack knowledge.” — Electronic-Goal

2. 

“Nuance in their understanding of things.” — Hynjia

3. 

“The common trait is that that whenever I speak with them, they make me feel really smart. They genuinely come off like they learned something from me. It makes me feel good. It’s a hell of a skill. From what I can tell it’s about being honest about what you don’t know, realizing when someone may know more about something, asking a lot of good questions, and expressing gratitude that the other person shared their knowledge with you.” — Nylund

4. 

“They tend to be (at least in my experience) more open to criticism or being shown facts that change their opinions on things. I don’t know if that really falls under ‘smart’ or more of a ‘wise’ trait.” — kazu-sama

5. 

“I suppose if I were trying to get a sense of someone in an interview setting, I would look for evidence of active listening and ability to ask critical questions on the fly. That said, I know some pretty smart people who are perpetually distracted listeners.” — GreenestFerns

6. 

“Pattern recognition. Part of the reason smart people throughout history are well-known is because they discovered something new and figured out how to maximize its potential.” — Xechwill

7. 

“They won’t argue with stupid people. Even if they know they’re right they won’t do it.” — NANANANANANANAAAAAAA

8. 

“They realize not everyone is smart the same way. Your ‘stupid hick neighbor’ might have dropped out of school in 8th grade, but he can drive your car once and tell you exactly what’s wrong, then fix it. That asshole in school that had no empathy for anyone and showed no emotion made that sci-fi shit you thought would never be real. Yeah, she’s dingy and her worldview is tiny, but she’s the best teacher you’ve ever met and inspires tons of kids to go on and do great things with themselves. There’s no one size fits all answer here really.” — RidiculouslyPicky

9. 

“They’re happy to be wrong about something, and then will take the time to learn about the subject. The same will go for politics, rather than just dismissing the other person’s opinion they’ll take the time to understand it.” — zerbey

10. 

“Not constantly bragging about their intelligence. If they truly are smart, people can figure that out pretty quickly without them doing anything to show it.” — J_Paul_000