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Ever since I was three years old and they were shoving words in my face, waiting for me to chirp the written word into speech so they could gawk at my precociousness, I knew the most important thing was being smart. Later it turned into a struggle for scores and percentiles, for grades and medals, and if I accumulated enough of them then I would achieve success and happiness. Now I'm busing tables for a restaurant that doesn't serve anyone under fifty and no one cares how smart I am – in fact, I suspect they get their satisfaction from gambling on how dumb I am. When I get home to my apartment reeking of fried fish and cabbage I walk past my bookshelf and collapse on my couch. It isn't a far walk. I take out my laptop, and if it's a more desperate day I might spend a minute, eyes glazed, staring at political headlines before turning on a more pleasant selection of gag videos and cat pictures.

I am twenty-four and I have burnt myself out. No one listens when I talk anymore: no one smiles when I speak. It seems only yesterday my thoughts on globalization turned heads. Now they roll eyes, and I'm faced with the realization that I am just like everyone else, except my shoulder is more chipped and burdened. Diego thought so too for the two months he was here: I still haven't put away the jaundice-colored beanbag chair he insisted on keeping here. It wilts in the corner along with my half-filled notebooks and the copy of Emma I keep promising I'll read.

Diego took a job doing something idealistic, but I can't remember if it was a campaign for that Democrat or if it was the community management job in California. But he's not here anymore, and that's the point, because he's not around to pretend my intelligence impresses him. It's a funny thing, because no one gets offended when an athletic person demonstrates their talents. But an intelligent person who brandishes their prowess is criticized: they're a show-off, a narcissist. In college that's okay, depending on the venue, but after graduation the intelligent people are better off being quiet unless they surrender themselves to the perils of the academy. My friends say I'm better off this way, that I have more freedom, that I'm not tied down to the nausea of a dissertation. My fading friends, I think, just take pleasure from my unhappiness.

Last week I stood on a stage and read poems I wrote when my flickers of affection were more consumptive. The audience murmured all the while about their engagements and their affairs while I read verses about inauthenticity. The dull tide of applause wasn't enough to numb the embarrassment inherent in digging up emotions I never felt. I remember catching the eye of a boy slumped in his chair, his hands running almost frantically through his hair, his mind on anything but my words. I couldn't blame him when he got up on stage and launched into a recitation of clunky, hand-me-down feelings. When I returned to my chair, the young woman beside me with a scar and an uppercut told me my poetry was written well. I thanked her and turned away, too abashed to respond.

My parents called me directionless for the first time on Tuesday, and I was too busy cursing adulthood to think of a good comeback. Dad apologized later and told me Mom would come around eventually. I was too scared to thank him for not calling me dull instead.