(urth) Lack of Peers?? and social problems associated with intelligence

[Gwern Branwen]

>From the dual n-back mailing list:

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:31 AM, Dennis Peterson
<dennisbpeterson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I recently saw Gene Wolfe speak at a conference. Aside from being a great
> writer and an engineer, he's a Korean War veteran. He said he once asked a
> bunch of college students what a friend is, and they all said "Someone who
> shares your interests, who you can talk to about interesting things, etc."
> He was somewhat appalled. He said "No. A friend is someone who will give you
> a drink out of his canteen."
> He went on to talk about some of the great friends he had during the
> war...guys who had nothing in common with him, but they liked each other
> anyway and looked out for each other.

-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net