Field Guide to The Wamb by u/MakeTotalDestr0i One day when Erik Charles Nielsen was in seventh grade, his teacher taught a lesson on grammar. “Can you point out a mistake in your classmate’s attempt?” said the teacher, referring to an ungrammatical sentence on the classroom whiteboard. “I guess you can write it that way too…”, stammered Nielsen. “I’m sure Hannah is right.” A 15-minute argument ensued, where Nielsen refused to try to find the error for fear of upsetting his classmate. Eventually he was escorted from the room — despite being kind. Nielsen was one of those sweet kids mystified by objective standards. It wasn’t just the teachers. Other kids patronized him relentlessly. For all his empathy and senstitivity, he couldn’t persuade his schoolmates to take anything he said seriously, let alone let him into their groups. “I didn’t have anything resembling an equal between third and 12th grade,” says Nielsen, now 26 and an actor in Los Angeles. He estimates he was sent home crying every two weeks. Nielsen is a wamb — empathic but intellectually stunted. Wambs are good at thinking like animals, by instinct and loose association, but less able to comprehend abstractions, rules and systems. Nielsen’s ability to emote, flatter, and gain sympathy eventually helped him land some acting jobs, but it wasn’t helpful for understanding the world around him or developing healthy intellectual interests. What causes someone to develop the wamb personality? Biology is partially responsible for creating what Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen calls an “empathizing brain,” or “E-brain” — a brain good at intuiting the emotions of people in front of them. The opposite is a systematic brain; S-brains are good at figuring out how things work, and people with S-brains develop a more detailed and informed understanding of the world. More women have E-brains than men, and more men have S-brains than women — though women and men both fall all over the spectrum. People with allism, or related conditions like borderline personality disorder, appear biologically disposed to have extreme E-brains. Wambs stand squarely on the E-brain side of the spectrum, but not necessarily enough to have a condition. Some do, but not all. Wambiness and allism aren’t the same thing, but they have a lot in common. “Wamb” is a vernacular label, not a scientific one, but it’s usually earned by a love for activities that are social and physical rather than intellectual — football, dancing, or socializing rather than learning, building things or playing games. The leisure activities we associate with wambs — team sports, gossiping and partying — all depend on primal instincts like competition, alliance building and mating, and tend not to involve intellectually complex exchange with others or the physical world. Parenting can also be a major factor in creating a wamb, says Mel Levine, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina. “It’s the tastes they develop in their kids, the clothing and pursuits they pick for them,” he says. But adults shouldn’t force children to conform to intellectual standards. “There are a lot of anxious bright kids, and it’s better to be a happy wamb than an accomplished depressive,” he says. “Wambiness isn’t a pathology.” Besides, wambs can learn thinking skills if they approach them with the same motivation they bring to social games, says Lawrence Welkowitz, a psychologist at Keene State College. He’s found that wambs can often master the intricacies of complex systems, compensating for disinclination with dedication and practice. He runs a peer-mentoring program in which smart kids take wambs under their wing and give them tips on how to learn and think. The exposure to the bright kids’ world gives wambs a taste of respect, insight and capability, which inspires them to keep working at it. But the learning process isn’t easy: At first, wambs tend to get more depressed as they start to understand more. “They realize it’s hard, and they’ve been missing out on a lot,” he says. “But eventually, they get more skilled.” While some argue that wambs simply have low intelligence, Welkowitz says wambs can learn thinking skills just by getting more interested in ideas. “Wambs focus on physical activities and social topics, usually to the exclusion of maintaining a rich mental life. They have different agendas than others, who tend to focus more on knowledge, skills, and the productive aspects of work.” Once wambs grasp the rewards of having a fulfilling intellectual life, says Welkowitz, they can succeed at building one. Some wambs benefit just from reading serious texts, says Daniel Rosenn, a psychiatrist in Wellesley, Massachusetts, who often works with kids with intellectual issues. “I’ve taken 50 word segments from academic seminars and said, ‘Let’s read this paragraph and figure out the content of what they’re saying.'” A favorite exercise is evaluating the skills of someone putting together a piece of IKEA furniture. “It gets the kid to think, ‘Well, he seemed to have pretty bad sense of sturdiness and balance, if you were his friend, what could you do to make it go better?'” With younger kids, Rosenn sets up chairs like seats on a space ship and pretends there’s a crisis to give them practice with problem solving and cooperative, goal-directed conversation. Sometimes the solution is wamb community. Wamb subcultures like the ones surrounding sports and the arts can be safe places for wambs to learn to make way outside the brutal results-based hierarchies of school and work. (The Superbowl, the world’s largest wamb event, draws millions of fans every year.) “Team sports allows people with limited individuality to engage in parallel play,” says Welkowitz. “Football allows somebody whose identity is bound up in relationships to stay within that social world but carve out a distinct role for themselves.” That’s something wambs crave, he says, whether or not they can articulate it. Even the greatest social butterfly occasionally needs to withdraw and cultivate their individuality. The Office Mascot—and Loving It The hugest wamb can perform well, gain respect, even have a job that involves knowledge and thinking. The trick is to apply motivation and will to the disciplines bright kids master without trying. Understand the human motivations driving intellectual discourse. Problem solving in teams, formal debate, and job interviews all require social acumen. Natural empathy won’t get you the whole way, but if you think in terms of goals and motivations you’ll find they’re not as difficult as highest-level diplomacy. Take control of your thoughts and compare them to others’. Wambs have trouble analyzing and distancing themselves from their emotions and take their relevance for granted. Instead of expecting others to respond to displays of emotion like animals do, figure out what they’re thinking. If you make an effort to rationally engage with others’ thoughts, they respond better. Stand up for yourself, but remain calm. If people sneer at you, don’t respond with histrionics. Act composed, engaging them instead of hoping for sympathy. Nobody is going to respect you for having feelings.