I've often found that people who "don't have the patience for stupid people" are really masking a deep seated insecurity. They figure out the one or two areas t

I've often found that people who "don't have the patience for stupid people" are really masking a deep seated insecurity. They figure out the one or two areas they regard as their strengths and arbitrarily define that as "intelligence" (and, sometimes, they really aren't even great at those cf: Dunning-Kreuger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dun... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dun...). That way, they can look at the world and see that the majority of people are "stupider" than them. In reality, we all have areas of strengths and areas of weakness. Some people are great conceptual thinkers, some are great communicators, some are brilliant at being detail oriented etc. When I meet somebody for the first time, I really try and find where they are strong & I am weak so that I can learn something from them. Over so many dimensions of human endeavor, there's usually at least one or two major areas in which I feel like I gained something from that encounter. Once in a while, you genuinely will meet someone who has nothing to teach you and nothing you want to associate with them. In those cases, I just put up a wall, be pleasant and engineer to be away from that person as soon as possible. But I pretty much approach everybody with an open mind and a humble heart and it's worked wonders for me.