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You forgot about the part of option 2 where you realize midway through explaining that the other person either understood and you misread the situation, or they just don’t care, but now you’ve gotten too far into the explanation and you just have to power through even though literally every fiber of your being is telling you to shut up
… wait
Also the need to include irrelevant context and to overly correct yourself on irrelevant details.
“So I learned this from a coworker who drove a blue car, or was it red? Either way it was definitely a 1993 Honda Civic. Or '94. Definitely from the early 90s. I could tell when they got to work because the brakes sounded like a duck that got hit by a rock, not that I’ve ever thrown a rock at a duck! I did chase a goose away from my dog with a stick once. That dog was fearless in every situation except against birds. I never found out what breed he was but probably a shepherd mix. I remember the day my parents brought him home…”
Why you guys calling me out like that?
Yeah… Explaining things the other person doesn’t care about…
My wife called me on that earlier today. “I know you need to ADHD info dump on me, but it’s time to wrap it up.”
That’s sweet.
I’m very lucky to have a partner that’s helping me manage and understand my ADHD!
In my experience, they usually lose interest partway through the clarification and then later ask three questions that were covered while they weren’t paying attention.
that’s a thing, sure, but at least personally most of the time it’s neither of these, it’s “i have so much knowledge of this topic lodged inside my brain that it’s fighting to escape and i have a profound need to talk about it to others, and there is no greater joy in life than having a person ask follow-up questions”
And it would be so much better if that something was something others actually find interesting. Instead its something esoteric like energy storage solutions, or the difference between b550 and x570. I was once asked, “what’s the difference between m-ATX and mini-ITX?” And I knew way to much about it to be socially healthy…
This is what I like about the makerspace community. We get a lot of new members who almost reflectively react to the perceived “WTF are they talking about, why won’t they shut up?” vibe that most people give off. It’s an amazing trainwreck when they realise that they are not only not annoying people with it, but that people have an active interest!
m-ATX is if you need a computer without excessive IO, mini-ITX is when you have to choose between proper VRM and a second DIMM slot. Oh, and pay double for less than half the real estate.
you will fucking love sociology and philosophy then.
the cycle goes something like this:
- You write a shitty book about philosophy.
- Someone else reads your shitty book. Decides they have a lot of thoughts on your shitty book, and then write their own shitty book about it.
- You then read that book, because now reading is the only thing you do in your time ever (on account of the philosophy) and now you have more thoughts on the topic, and so you write another shitty book.
And this is how we get shit like “incars” philosophy is truly incredible.
That sounds like you may too few people in your life to talk a lot and deeply to? Or you simply have a way higher urge to talk than the average person
Oh man this hits hard.
I’ve been working on a project at work lately and everything I explain to people about it (namely people above my boss), I feel like I have to give like 5 years of backstory first.
I want to tell people this sometimes, but I figure they’ll just think I’m mansplaining mansplaining.
Not really. When a dude pulls the “sorry, I’m neurodivergent and can talk way too much about this” or “I’m sorry I struggle with getting my thoughts clear to other people so I can overexplain” I’m a lot more sympathetic. I really think it’s best to think of mansplaining as gendered preemptive assumption of lack of knowledge
The key is to never take a clear pause; semicolons only; make them worried if you’re alright with a torrent of Skink facts.
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Regretfully I only have two skink facts. If you’d like, I can start making them up? Or replacing real facts with skinks?
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Isn’t mansplaining just being condescending?
In theory yes, in practice some people use the term very broadly.
IMO, it’s just being overly confident and stubborn in your explanation of something. specifically in relation to the two sexes (or genders, depending on the scenario)
Anything else just doesn’t apply. But i also have a pretty strict definition of anything like this tbh.
Poor communication often by men. Assuming the other is uninformed and then not picking up on cues from them, taking the explanation way too far.
That’s rather broad i think. Like are we including people who don’t socially communicate very well? Like autistic people for example. I like to define things specifically enough that they have an explicit category. I don’t interact with people physically very often, i’m not good on picking up cues, and often just completely ignore their physical state, because i’m in the middle of doing something else.
Forgive me if i’m rather brazen here, but like, just fucking tell me i’m being a dumbass and explaining something i don’t need to. It’s fine.
My dad does the opposite of mansplaining, he explains things using terminology and concepts that are way above my level of understanding and gets frustrated when I ask too many clarifying questions or when I struggle to catch on.
It fucked with me pretty bad growing up and in an effort not to put other people through that I tend to assume people know little about esoteric subjects I’m talking about and try to explain things in a way the general layperson would understand. If they let on that they seem familiar with the subject then I adjust but I do often worry I’m coming off as being condescending :-\
I tend to assume people know little about esoteric subjects I’m talking about and try to explain things in a way the general layperson would understand. If they let on that they seem familiar with the subject then I adjust but I do often worry I’m coming off as being condescending :-\
I do the same thing. I feel like I suck at explaining things, because I am so deeply into a few things, and shallowly into a ton of things, I have no idea what the average layperson knows. When I’m explaining how I solve a Rubik’s cube, do I use the word algorithm? Do people know what algorithm means?
How much does the average person know about space travel? I got into KSP at a relatively young age, so I have no idea if most people are aware that to get to orbit you have to go really fast sideways. I have no idea how many people think that astronauts could drop something off of the ISS onto the planet. Can I use the phrase ∆v? How deeply am I going to have to explain the concept of ∆v?
I think the most complex thing that I can reasonably explain is what a parsec is, but it still takes like 3 paragraphs, and that’s assuming I don’t have to explain the concept of using degrees to measure how far apart things appear to be in your field of vision. Which I genuinely don’t know whether that’s general knowledge or not.
Relevant XKCD.
I tend to just lean into the fact that I can’t explain things well and get as vague as possible.
“Hey honey, how was work?”
“Not bad, did a thing that lead to another thing needing to be done and broke all of the things at the place.”
Option 3: I work in IT. I see on a daily basis people with bachelor’s and PHDs doing some of the stupidest shit. I assume no one knows fuck all.
Them: “My camera for teams isn’t working please help!”
Me: Flicks open the webcam cover and smiles trying not to make them feel too bad😅
The older I get the more I kick myself for “knowing” I’m too stupid for a PhD or master’s in anything.
I’ve always had an interest in science, I love watching something like PBS spacetime or fermilab videos (because I’m obviously a layman and won’t understand anything actually detailed), but I’ve always held this belief that I’m “wayyyy too stupid to actually do the work.” and then I hear story after story of “very smart people” simply not understanding the simplest of concepts.
Oh well lol
then I hear story after story of “very smart people” simply not understanding the simplest of concepts.
Usually this is because their knowledge and skills go very deep, but not very wide. There is also a big divide between the practical side of things and the theoretical. Another thing I’ve noticed is that if you spend a lot of time working on very complicated problems you tend to forget that most things have simple solutions. So when confronted with a simple issue your mind kind of ‘skips over’ all the simple stuff and immediately assumes it must be something complicated.
i like to classify this problem as an optimization problem more than anything.
The simplest possible solution is an impossible feat, and varies depending on the requirements and shenanigans willing to be committed. The approximate simplest possible solution is very achievable, but requires a lot of thought, a very specific use case, and an established ecosystem. The most functional solution is whatever you manage to cobble together quickly enough to prove that it’s possible, only for it to be used for about 3 years, because it works finetm
Anything else is a nightmare abomination and should never be classified, exposed to the light of day, or shown to other people. Except as a cautionary tale.
Having received a screenshot of an Excel spreadsheet, embedded into a Word document, I always go option 3.
I’m also old enough to have had to explain why a 27MB Publisher file could not fit on a floppy disk to be sent to the printers.
Gosh these are great examples, holy hell they’re wild
Yet more evidence that intelligence and wisdom are separate things.
Not really. Technical knowledge is still a form of knowledge not wisdom.
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I’m right there with you, but I can’t ever seem to thread the needle. Like in your Matrix example I have had people get offended by a question like that.
More generally speaking, I think it’s so difficult because a lot of people aren’t actually all that interested in learning or communicating in a way where a mutual understanding of each other’s base reality/knowledge are understood. They prefer to operate on their innate or learned social cues and prefer making assumptions or reading between the lines of what the other person is saying. Or in modern parlance, they just go by the vibes.
I have watched two people completely talk past each other and misunderstand the other person and yet they both seemed to come out of the conversation pleased with the interaction so many times. It’s baffling to me.
In theory, asking them first makes sense, but when you’re me, and your nerdy interest is in stuff like nuclear reactors and linux. You don’t bother asking because 90% of the time, you either know who you’re talking to, and can assume that they have a similar level of knowledge, or you assume they don’t because you’re pretty certain they don’t and it works well 99% of the time.
This is what the case is 9 times out of 10.
Mansplaining is a thing, sure. lit happens. But I think a key aspect of it is talking down to someone. Its explaining things like how to turn on a computer or telling an engineer how to do addition.
My head is filled with mostly useless facts. I’ve learned that if im talking to someone about something I’m interested in chances are they’ll have never heard of it or no nothing about it. So I make sure to ask things like: do you know much about x? Or have you heard of you before?
It gives me an idea of how much I’ll need to explain. Ive had a few instances where someone has gotten indignant to the question. To which I normally reply by jumping right past first principles and into to the heart of it. Cue confused look.
usually when i’m getting into some really nerdy shit, i tend to explain the ever living hell out of it, because shits complicated as fuck.
I could ask whether the other party knows it, but let’s be real, i’m enjoying myself too much to ask lmao. Just tell me to stop and i will.
I’m autistic and I feel this.
As the goto “Tech Support person” in my friend group, this really strikes a nerve. I really hope I haven’t come off as a know-it-all. Trying to explain any kind of broad subject feels like playing pinball with all the thoughts in my brain while trying not to let the conversation flow sink into the gutter.
I think if your friends are coming to you and asking for help, then you’re in the clear. Part of being a know-it-all/mansplaining, is that nobody asked and they decided they needed to bestow that information onto others.
As an over-explainer I never got the mindset of being mad at more information. Regardless of whether I know something or not I would never get upset that someone shared knowledge with me. The more information the better. If I already knew, what’s the big deal? If I didn’t, great learned something new. If I disagree, I’ll say why and try to understand their point of view and maybe end up with a better understanding based on their knowledge/perspective.
Genuinely curious why it is so upsetting? Why would we not want to encourage knowledge sharing? Seems like the person thinks you are calling them dumb by telling them things, but how are you supposed to know what other people know? Personally I think it says more about the person getting mad than the person sharing information, but I know I’m in the minority for that.
To prevent mansplaiming I just assume everyome knows as much about a topic as I do and get annoyed when they ask me questions.
i would classify this as manderstanding
To avoid a manderstanding I make sure to never relate to anyone
lol
I feel for me it’s more like:
A problem is presented to me that I haven’t encountered before but I feel like I’m expected to help. So I start talking while my brain works its way through all possible scenarios leading to me rambling on until I maybe possibly arrive at a conclusion which will hopefully make the whole thing make sense in the end.
Of course later, once the situation has long resolved, my brain will have completed a few other calculations subconsciously and I will know for sure that I was an idiot and you, the person I tried to help, will probably think so too. 😆
No I mansplain because too many dumb fucks in my life will tell me they understand what I mean and then when I explain it anyway they have no idea what I meant.
Sucks to suck stupid people ruined it for everyone now y’all have to listen to explanations regardless.
So, everyone suffers because you surround yourself with people that you think are beneath you?
I don’t think anyone is beneath me but the amount of times I’ve gone through the aforementioned scenario.
"Hey do you understand how to do x?
“Yeah sure!”
Proceeds to not even slightly understand how to do x
“Hey this is how you do x”
“STOP EXPLAINING I ALREADY KNOW”
In reality it’s more of a 50/50 whether I actually explain it after they’ve fucked it up because I just can’t be bothered but a lot of the time if someone fucks it up it falls on me.
I should also say this is mainly a work thing. I don’t generally do it to random people.
The thing is that there are almost an infinite number of things you can learn and you only have enough time to learn a few of them. So if I talk to someone else, there is a very small chance that person spent their limited time learning the exact same things I did. Of course, this depends on context. At work I assume that the people who also work in the quite specific niche I’m in have a large overlap in knowledge, but a random person I meet anywhere else probably won’t even be aware that this thing I know a lot about is even a thing. Not because they are stupid but because they spent their time learning other stuff I know fuck all about.
I ask what people know about a topic before I start. Most people don’t like being put on the spot to prove their knowledge about a random topic, but it seems to work better and be more engaging than just assuming they do or don’t know and dumping accordingly.
