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Comment by OGWhales | Hacker News Reader

My dad gave me very similar advice growing up, as I love for things to be factually correct. To me, it didn't bother me if someone corrected me. However, most people don't appreciate it and it isn't worth upsetting them 90% of the time. This is something I didn't understand.

Another thing he told me was not to be a know it all. One example would be when people said something and I had learned before, instead of diminishing their statement by saying I knew that, I should say something like "wow that's cool" as it makes the person feel better.

He gave me lots of small little interaction tips that helped me come across as a better person even though none of them were nefarious in nature.

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> Another thing he told me was not to be a know it all. One example would be when people said something and I had learned before, instead of diminishing their statement by saying I knew that, I should say something like "wow that's cool" as it makes the person feel better.

Taking this a step further, if you know the topic well you can instead say something like "I know, it's very cool isn't it? Did you also know that <related factoid>".

Delivery is important of course, with the "I know" part needing to be energetic and supportive, but I've found this approach to be an effective way to build rapport and it has lead to some really interesting discussions.

Spot on! I was terrible at making it seem like I wasn't just trying to one-up them or seem smarter when I was little. Delivery is so important.

I now drop the "I know" and go with something like "so cool that you brought that up - I was just reading about it last week!"

> when people said something and I had learned before, instead of diminishing their statement by saying I knew that

I know someone like this. Their reply is always, "I'm not stupid". Clearly they were offended when I told them something they already knew, even though my intentions were to educate rather than offend. But their reply actually always created two offended people because to me, it's obvious I had no ill intentions and I'm left resenting their reply.

So now I just don't tell them anything unless they ask and I'm highly specific in my answer to their question. That ensures I'm only providing information they have indicated they don't know. If they want to know more, they'll ask more.

For my part, there was almost certainly an element of my being a know-it-all which is what got this person so riled up in the first place. Regardless; this simple change has helped me a lot and has improved my relationship with other people in addition to this one person.

This is why the whole “man-splaining” thing is weird to me. As a male, I’ve always appreciated people telling me things or explaining things to me, because they at least cared enough to take the time.

Similarly I once watched a woman at work struggle opening a jar. She congratulated me for not offering to do it for her. When in fact I felt like a jerk in that moment for watching her struggle. There’s an odd difference of perspective here I don’t fully understand.

> when people said something and I had learned before, instead of diminishing their statement by saying I knew that, I should say something like "wow that's cool" as it makes the person feel better.

That's really great. I'll have to pick that up.

Sounds like your dad was/is a pretty smart guy.

He is. Today is actually his birthday, funnily enough :)

I would get super annoyed at his doing that when I was a kid and felt that he was hard on me for no reason, but man do I really appreciate that now. I still have lots to learn from that man.

>when people said something and I had learned before, instead of diminishing their statement by saying I knew that, I should say something like "wow that's cool"

Sure, "I know that" isn't great either, but hopefully there's some way of dealing with that situation (which happens constantly in everyday conversation) without lying like that. Seems like manipulating the other person to me, not treating them as a person just like you. Imagine the roles swapped. Would you want the other person to pretend and be condescending, or to be honest? Saying "Wow that's cool" when you don't at all mean it, an honest, real conversation can never get started.

Maybe I didn’t phrase it well but the idea was to not phrase it in a condescending way like “I already knew that” or “I’m not stupid” and instead be like “right, isn’t that awesome”. Those are probably better phrases and was the idea that my dad was trying to teach me

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