I saw a post about someone discussing why a fictional character would pretend to be dumb if they're actually a genius and half of it was like "it's a calculated plot."
... and I was like, no, I guess you've simply never experienced consistenly being the smartest person around, because if you had, you'd understand why someone would do this without ill intentions.
I guess this will make me sound like an absolute asshole, and I don't even think I'm that smart, but thinking is kind of my job, and there are a lot of people in this world who make a virtue out of never troubling their mental faculties with anything even approaching a conscious thought. Dumbing yourself down around these people is survival. It usually doesn't end well if you try to think for other people (who refuse to think at all).
Also, unless you are a white man, being too obviously smart in public gets you persecuted by nasty people really, really fast lol.
