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
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!
I want to tell people this sometimes, but I figure they’ll just think I’m mansplaining mansplaining.
The key is to never take a clear pause; semicolons only; make them worried if you’re alright with a torrent of Skink facts.
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…
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
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.
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.
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.
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
Tried it. It didn’t work
I feel called out.
I am so repetitive when explaining things or telling stories, it is awful.
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.
Hm, I think it is probably a bit more nuanced than that. Sure, insecurity with rejection plays a huge role. So does having having a brain that orders information in a neurodivergent way, be it more jumbled up, associative or more structured.
I often need to know everything about a certain topic until I feel like I understand it. And it has to follow logic. If you only give me single bits, I will be confused. So when explaining stuff to other people, I try to convey as much information as I can because that’s what I would need as well. This might easily be confused with mansplaining or with being pedantic. I point out logical fallacies when I spot them because my brain gets confused otherwise. Some people might also misread this as power play. But usually my insecurity speaks for itself I guess because if you are outwardly insecure it will fail as power play (e.g. mansplaining).
Another aspect of neurodivergent oversharing is getting obsessed with a special interest that then everything revolves around and you want to only talk about this topic. I guess it is a state where the brain is so focused on this one thing that the outside world just isn’t as relevant. This might also be confused with mansplaining, but is probably more likely to be read as socially awkward? Although both have in common that the other person is seen as somewhat irrelevant and unknowing.
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.
….oh
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.
Then there’s my wife for whom it’s both. I’m the idiot she has to explain her complicated thoughts to.
So which one is this post?