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 :⁠-⁠\

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Pulptastic@midwest.social 5 points 8 months ago

Relevant XKCD.

https://xkcd.com/2501/

[–] Manalith@midwest.social 2 points 8 months ago

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."