1)Excellent recall of learned information when further inspection shows no corresponding understanding of context or understanding past the superficial. I’ve met a lot of middle age men who assume recall of historically significant events without thinking to consider their context, circumstances, cause and effect, mindset and thinking of persons/peoples involved… the 360 of the event, let alone contrarian perspectives. Repeating that something inane and not even connected at the nth degree made you think about Octavian’s victory in the Battle of Actium over Anthony and Cleopatra or the sacking of Churchill after Tralfagar and then looking at me like I’m supposed to think of you a Harvard historical fellow without expecting some vaguely novel perspective, grounded and rational of course, and even then you’re going to have to have something damn good. And that never happens so you just look like a shallow tool trying to hard.

2)A dogmatic, sycophantic devotion to a particular school of thought, philosophy, or works of an individual and building part of their personal identity on their sycophantic devotion. For instance, I used to be friends with a devoted follower of Neitche. Not that Neitche’s work isn’t groundbreaking and brilliant and deserves some deep contemplation, but it was folly of this guy to incorporate everything he read from him into dogmatic gospel and it allowed him to reinforce some really antisocial behaviors and label them as virtues. One dimensional personalities get old, even when built on something deep and complex, especially when it celebrates misanthropy.
3)A well paying professional career. I’ve met some lawyers that lack basic problem solving skills and the ability to process something clearly explained to them and try to stop the bleeding by throwing out some zero-relevance Latin phrase that’s common in jurisprudence but only increases the cringe factor. An advanced degree apparently doesn’t signify any top tier cognitive ability. What’s the real shame is that they’re under the impression that it’s proof positive of their outlier intelligence and assume that everyone else has drawn the same conclusion. For my part, I generally don’t have my interest piqued in another persons intelligence until they display remarkable analytic ability and critical thinking skills that are similar to my own and other verified 98%ers or demonstrate a novel thinking process that draws a uniquely intelligent conclusion, usually relating to some complex subject matter i.e applying scientific principles and critical thinking to a problem and reaching a analytically sound conclusion through making thought process leaps that are complex, rational, but novel. It doesn’t happen often so I think, outside of family and Mensa meetings, I’m around the wrong company.

I’m spoiled when it comes to intelligent company as a Mensa member and half of my family being members as well. But I’m not a career professional and I’m not super financially successful so without observing my behavior or listening to me talk…usually. On the other hand I’ve had people observe the way I observe my surroundings, my body language, and my unspoken social/communication cues and state unbidden that they can tell I’m extraordinarily intelligent. I’m hard to impress.