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
Just NDOC NDOC some more
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
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?
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.
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😅
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
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.
Yet more evidence that intelligence and wisdom are separate things.
Not really. Technical knowledge is still a form of knowledge not wisdom.
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.
I get it from my father. He was one of the smartest people I've ever known, but if you asked him anything, you better have a lot of free time cause it is going back to first principles.
I know his reasoning was that he wanted me to learn how to understand and find the answer, not just be given it, and now I'm guilty of the same thing.
I don't do it at work, or at least I try not to, as they are paying me for the solution not a dissertation, but if friends or family ask for tech support, they are getting the whole explanation while I solve the problem.
I guess another part of it is that like me, he really didn't have anyone to talk tech to other than his family, and really just enjoyed the time being able to share things he was knowledgeable about.
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. 😆
Is bolding every other word an ADHD thing or some zoomer thing
I'm an old millennial AuDHD and I have to resist the urge to use bold and italics everywhere for different kinds of emphasis. I'd use even more variations when available (text size, colors).
When I was younger, I used to do the same in analog form with multi colored pens when taking notes.
I don't often bold comments, but i do like using italics and sometimes all caps to EMPHASIZE an important part. I guess the difference for me is whether it's something I get fired up over like bodily autonomy. I use caps to emphasize more than italics.
In a regular discussion or if I'm just overexplaining something, I stick to italics. (and if I feel something needs additional clarification, but also maybe the reader wants to skip because it's not really necessary, I'll use parenthesis to show where you can skip to)
Oh! Same. You cannot portray the nuances of speech easily through text. I often feel like my intentions may be misconstrued if I don't emphasize or elaborate, lol. I still have an array of colored pens for personal and close friend/family use!
You can read the bold parts only and still understand the text
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 feel called out.
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.
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."
One great habit to get into is when you have something like this that can be mistaken for something rude you can just preemptively apologize for it. “I’m neurodivergent and have a tendency to overexplain” doesn’t make it not frustrating but it does make me not think you’re assuming I know fuck all. I also like using “I don’t know how much you know about x” it makes it very clear I understand you may be more knowledgeable than me on this
Although if you do this to people who already know you, it seems to gather less sympathy and more "oh great, time for 10 minutes of vaguely related facts"
Tangents! Tangents everywhere!
I'm autistic and I feel this.
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 feel attacked
Third option: Neurotypical comms major
Fourth Option: words are coming out and not sure what I said but just want to leave although I just got here.
….oh
Then there's my wife for whom it's both. I'm the idiot she has to explain her complicated thoughts to.
I can always tell between when thoughts are (bonus thoughts) or when they’re condescending. Most the time it’s neither, but there are some assholes.
I‘m like expecting the problem is me, changing what needs to be changed so I can definitely not be the problem, and then blame you.
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.
So which one is this post?
