Hi V. I'm on the opposite side of the gender fence here, but have had a similar experience. I do think that quizzickle is right, it is more about feeling inadequate than simply being flat-out stupid. But when you've given up on every other facet of yourself and put all of your efforts into one area--i.e., your intellect--and you watch yourself fail over and over, I suppose it's that much more devastating because you know you have "nothing else to offer."

So being female, my entire worth (according to everyone else) is placed on my looks. It shouldn't be this way, and I wish it wasn't, but it still kind of is. And I, of course, was not particularly good-looking, and even committed the "sin" of being fat. I was pretty much tortured for this in school. So I decided to lose the weight and I did. I wasn't any more confident--it was the start of an eating disorder, of course, which I still struggle with 8 years later--but people at least stopped spitting in my face (literally). They just kind of left me alone, and once in a while I'd have a friend! Amazing, right?

So I figured, heck, I'm not good-looking at all, I'm completely socially retarded and awkward, I can't do art, but I can do math. I'm actually pretty darn good at math. But never, ever was I "the best." I was never really noticed for it, and when I was it was treated more like a cute parlor trick (because, you know, "girls can't do math"). I tried and tried and tried to dig up some self-worth for myself based on my academics. But that never worked, and it never will. I just ended up falling on my face over and over again.

You're smart. You write well and can express yourself. That's something. Not everything, but something. I don't believe that "everyone is the best at something," but I also think the emphasis on specialization is completely wrong. What has helped me (though I have a far way to go to having something even remotely close to "self esteem") is to go back and look at all those other things I gave up on because I had absolutely no natural talent for them. Yes, my "best" talent is probably more academically based, but it's not all I have to offer. So there are 2 or 3 people in my class who are better at math than me. It still hurts, it hurts a lot because I'm ridiculously competitive, but I do more than just math now. It's not as easy for me to "calculate" how much worse I am than them, if that makes any sense, because I have a couple of other feeble talents as well, so that adds something to my self-worth.

And just remember: a lot of the people who are just ridiculously good at everything are conceited jerks anyway.