24F here, an engineering grad and working as a software engineer currently. I have always felt like the dumb imposter among my friends who are super smart (street smart). I was always the academically smarter one but now that everyone has started working, it feels like to me that I am not the street smart one. And this feeling overwhelms me so much every time we hangout. I get anxious and end up doing dumber things infront of them about which I overthink later and make myself feel more miserable abt my lack of awareness and smartness. I think it's also owing to the fact that they have some spent large amount of their college life in metro cities while I was in a small city and hence I am new to a lot of things that they already know about (like how things work at airports or how to negotiate well with ppl). Although I do learn fast but I am tired of feeling like the dumber and immature one. How do I get better at my social and street smartness or how do I stop feeling bad abt it?
I recently went on a trip with these friends and was awestruck with their social skills and skills to handle different situations independently. While I feel like I am missing out on a lot of personality development because most of my time I stay at home (fully remote job from a small city).