Not me but a friend, honest
Now my friend Karen is a lovely woman and very intelligent but her grip on reality is often iffy at best.

She's a GP and very bright and we often end up in conversations in the pub with her and another friend that I struggle to keep up with (i'm not dim, but medicine is not a strong point) during one such discussion Karen and my friend were discussing treatment for rheumatoid arthritis and bandying around all sorts if serious medical and chemical terms. I had therefore activated the smiling and nodding subroutine and was enjoying my beer. Five minutes into the conversation Karen suddenly stops as if struck by sudden insight and turns to me with a very serious look and asks "do you like lobster?"

Conversation grinds to a halt and everyone looks confused, there is a brief pause as everyone mentally goes WTF then Karen turns round and goes back to the medicine.

Now this is just one example, Karen is capable of conversational shifts that can totally derail any conversation and she never ever things the changes make anything less than total sense
( Rhubarb_Triangle, Wed 27 Jul 2011, 9:52, 2 replies)

Haha - reminds me of being on holiday with a girlfriend who had brought her 6 year old daughter and her schoolfriend with us.

Half way through a completely unrelated conversation about what we were going to do that day, the friend suddenly pipes up, excitedly: 'WE'VE GOT A DOG!
(tcp, Wed 27 Jul 2011, 11:28, closed)

The most intelligent people I have met have all done the same.
It's about making connections between words or concepts and does make conversation tricky. I suspect that, for example, they were talking about Calcium buildup and it made her think of the buildup of Calcium to make a shell.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 27 Jul 2011, 18:24, closed)