In a recent article that I’ve mislaid, an expert whose name I forget has found that people, particularly smart people, don’t behave as rationally as we’d expect when facing uncertain situations. He, like others who study such things, asks study participants if a bat and ball cost $1.10 and the bat cost $1.00 more than the ball, how much does the ball cost? Most answer a dime with confidence. Wrong!

Smart people get this and other things wrong with great frequency not because they don’t know how to do the calculations but because they’re used to being right. Instead of doing the calculations, they intuitively respond $1.00. They don’t question the result which can easily be shown to be incorrect. Rather, they think that because they’re smart and usually right, they accept the first response from their brain as being right. Ego blinds them to the obvious truth.

Smart aspie girls sometimes place too much emphasis on intelligence, both theirs and of prospective boyfriends. This bias sometimes creates blind spots in their thinking. Their logic goes something like this: I am intelligent. I made the decision. Therefore, it is a wise decision. Smart people are constantly making bad decisions because of this huge blind spot.

My protagonist, Tookie, gets whipsawed by what she thinks are smart choices in Only Tim Sent Flowers, the first book in my Tookie series which comes out for pre-release on Monday, December 7 from Black Opal Books.