This. Someone who is willing to come down to my ignorant level in a subject and reward me for my tiny effort and interest in it, is an immediate win in my book. Though it is a hard line to cross without going into smirky/mansplaining territory.
For example, Veritasium videos are always fantastic, but I can’t get over how the man smirks when he explains concepts, despite the fact that it’s his natural smile.
I have a friend who teaches high school history and has traveled a lot. She’s great at this! I feel like i can talk to her about almost anything and she never makes me feel stupid.
Somewhat related… I work at a garden center and my manager is a professor of horticulture. When I transferred to her department, I thought I would be learning so much, but this woman has no passion for teaching and is cynical about everything. She sucks the life and fun out of work. Luckily I enjoy working with my other coworkers, and everybody likes me better than they do her.
Bit of an update… 3 out of 4 of us employed under her are planning to quit after the new year. We’re just finishing the holiday season because it’s a busy time and don’t want to bail when it’s all hands on deck right now.
The 4th person is only part-time and we haven’t told him yet about our plans, so he may join us once he finds out.
I do this when I play MTG or board games with people. I’m not like professional MTG good or anything but it is the kind of complex system I tend to do really well in. I want to have fun too though so a lot of times I end up trying to control the board in a way to make my opponent think about specific challenges to overcome to defeat me. Gives me something to do that isn’t obliterating them and they get to have an engaging game out of it too
I’d say it depends who I’m against but overall yeah. There’s always something to be learning in that game and if someone completely new to the game finds a novel way around a challenge than I’ll tuck that away in my toolbelt as well. I also have to know some really obscure parts of how things work together to orchestrate the kind of board state I’m talking about so lots of research goes into it.
I actually do this mostly as a way to learn about new people; see how they approach problem solving and how they socially interact with me (MTG is a space I’m comfortable in so I end up talking way more than usual during play); but I have a couple close friends we mostly try and out shitpost each other with ridiculous gameplay. And then sometimes, on a rare occasion if someone is rude to me, I can take off the training wheels and use my finely tuned bullshittery to make them pick up their ball and go home lol
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This. Someone who is willing to come down to my ignorant level in a subject and reward me for my tiny effort and interest in it, is an immediate win in my book. Though it is a hard line to cross without going into smirky/mansplaining territory.
For example, Veritasium videos are always fantastic, but I can’t get over how the man smirks when he explains concepts, despite the fact that it’s his natural smile.
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This, the enthusiasm sells the authenticity of it, and people are more willing to listen.
I have a friend who teaches high school history and has traveled a lot. She’s great at this! I feel like i can talk to her about almost anything and she never makes me feel stupid.
Somewhat related… I work at a garden center and my manager is a professor of horticulture. When I transferred to her department, I thought I would be learning so much, but this woman has no passion for teaching and is cynical about everything. She sucks the life and fun out of work. Luckily I enjoy working with my other coworkers, and everybody likes me better than they do her.
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Bit of an update… 3 out of 4 of us employed under her are planning to quit after the new year. We’re just finishing the holiday season because it’s a busy time and don’t want to bail when it’s all hands on deck right now.
The 4th person is only part-time and we haven’t told him yet about our plans, so he may join us once he finds out.
All of us are quitting because of the manager.
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I do this when I play MTG or board games with people. I’m not like professional MTG good or anything but it is the kind of complex system I tend to do really well in. I want to have fun too though so a lot of times I end up trying to control the board in a way to make my opponent think about specific challenges to overcome to defeat me. Gives me something to do that isn’t obliterating them and they get to have an engaging game out of it too
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I’d say it depends who I’m against but overall yeah. There’s always something to be learning in that game and if someone completely new to the game finds a novel way around a challenge than I’ll tuck that away in my toolbelt as well. I also have to know some really obscure parts of how things work together to orchestrate the kind of board state I’m talking about so lots of research goes into it.
I actually do this mostly as a way to learn about new people; see how they approach problem solving and how they socially interact with me (MTG is a space I’m comfortable in so I end up talking way more than usual during play); but I have a couple close friends we mostly try and out shitpost each other with ridiculous gameplay. And then sometimes, on a rare occasion if someone is rude to me, I can take off the training wheels and use my finely tuned bullshittery to make them pick up their ball and go home lol
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