I call them Toppers. Anything you know/say/did, they say/did/know it better/more/harder
I used to work with a girl I called “Moongirl”. Because whatever you had done–whether it be having a picnic during the weekday or skydiving buck-naked–she had done it too, but on the moon! She could one-up you on everything. She turned out to be a huge liar. But it took a while for me (or anyone else in the lab) to figure it out.
I’m guessing, they’d probably be dead from their “soul” abandoning them if their collection of quotes didn’t influence them.
In the 70’s we knew a young woman who was intelligent, funny, and pretty, but also a compulsive liar. The lies were usually painfully transparent, and always a one-up. In hindsight, it was sad because she genuinely had so much going for her, but at the time it was just obnoxious and embarrassing.
In one otherwise normal group conversation, someone mentioned having just seen the movie “Woodstock”; Kathy immediately piped up with “I’ve seen Woodstock eight times!.. (brief pause)… twice on mescaline.”
Not exactly naked lunar skydiving, but for my wife and me the phrase “Twice on Mescaline” has been a much-used sarcastic intensifier in the 35 years since we’ve seen K.
Reminds me of a director I worked for at a large consulting firm. He was chastising me that I had essentially micromanage my team more because one analyst is inexperienced, another analyst is unmotivated, this one’s an idiot, that one has chronic performance issues.
So then he tells me “this is a highly competetive, high performing group…”
“Wait a minute.” I interrupt. “You say this is a high performing group, and yet everything you just told me about every single person in it is in direct contradiction to any definition of ‘high performance’ I’m familiar with.”
I see this a lot. All these delicate flowers coming out of these top schools needing to be coddled and told how they are such great performers. You want to be considered a good performer, deliver your shit on time and without a bunch of stupid mistakes in it.
Yep, we call 'em one-uppers.
One of my favorites was from a well known one-upper who went into detail about quality of the dining experience of Applebees. It was hilarious because he was giving details like it was the finest establishment in the world.
People make this argument all the time. But the thing is, pretty much everyone knows how to eat healthy. So a fat blowhard who lectures others on healthy eating deserves a bit of scoffing.
As the old cliche goes, some things are easier said than done.
I don’t count people out based on thier performance. A lot of very successful men don’t know much, but they are good at recognizing talent as in guys who know a lot. Everybody has different skill sets, knowing a lot of things may not be a sufficient skill set to quarantee success, it takes energy, passion, a good feel for economics, good reader of people, I could go on and on. Knowing a lot just is not sufficient.
My ex’s dad was like this, in a way, but he could top most toppers I know. To be fair, he was legitimately wealthy and grew up poor, he did it by being a cop and teaching himself some sort of computer engineering. So he’s obviously not a moron and he probably has some good advice. Granted most of his advice is crazy regardless of how functional it is – for instance, he legitimately believes that people are scum if they watch movies, listen to music, watch TV, play video games or does anything other than study until they’re over 40 and make over 6 figures. I can see why he’s successful, but it’s one of those “but to what end?” things. And then he uses it to justify why he treats people like shit – because if they’re not rich, they’re lazy and probably partake in ENTERTAINMENT scare chord :eek:. (And he does have hobbies and interests like antique cars, he’s just convinced himself that his hobbies are the only legitimate ones and not “really” hobbies)
That aside, however, and more to the topic at hand. He is seriously right about everything. Especially things he’s wrong about. A common conversation with him is
Him: <Some completely wrong fact>
You: “I don’t think so, I think <this>”
Him: “No you’re absolutely wrong.”
<this goes on>
You: “Okay, let’s just look this up.”
…
You: “No, see, it’s really <this>”
Him: “Yeah, that’s what I said! See? You were wrong!”
But not in that cheeky “:p” sort of way. In that way that if you challenge that he’ll give you a lecture about how he always knew that this thing he just learned was right (and since he just learned it, he’ll probably completely fail at explaining it). It’s legitimately maddening in the way that he has the ability to make you think you just misunderstood or something. If you’re not on your guard, he has enough charisma and tenacity to make you doubt if you even were right. It’s to the point where I can understand why my ex never had confidence to think she was right about anything and never had any opinions. Because if she was wrong, she was wrong, if she was right she became wrong after the fact. It takes dealing with him for a long time and can be a real test of self confidence to realize that he just has to be right, and you’re not just stupid. He’ll use this to go back on handshake deals to reimburse you for something. “That was never part of the plan, you broke the agreement and did something we didn’t agree on, so I can’t pay you back” sort of stuff.
But yeah, he prides himself on knowing everything, but if he’s called on it, then suddenly YOU were the one with HIS incorrect position.
We say people like this “know a lot about nothing”, meaning they can talk incessantly, without ever really saying anything.
“Omg, dude never shuts up.”
“I know, right? He sure knows a lot about nothin’.”
“What a douche.”
Something I learned a long time ago: People who think they know all the answers aren’t asking the right questions.
I guess I fall in the camp of being able to share what not to do because I’ve fucked up royally and am still learning why. Which is nice and kind of interesting but doesn’t help me a whole hell of a lot. So maybe it could help somebody else.
Maybe.
My aunt is exactly like that. Married and divorced eight times, but is an expert on relationships. Just ask her.
The thing is, there are a lot of people who like to give advice and expect people to act on it but themselves do not necessarily follow it or live by it. To me there are just motormouths.
The problem is really posts like MOL’s, where she seems to think that fat people can’t exercise. And you seem to think that fat people can’t eat healthy. Eating to lose weight and eating healthy may overlap, but they aren’t the same thing. And not all exercise is for losing weight. It’s one of my pet peeves when people mix these up.
What you are saying makes more sense if they are telling you what to eat (or what exercises to do) to lose weight. And, even then, you need to actually consider whether they’ve actually lost weight and just used to be a lot fatter than they are.
I do agree with your previous post on the subject, however. There is just no way two cheese danishes are healthy food. Maybe you could use them to lose weight if you still restricted your calories–especially if they were replacing a couple meals. But that doesn’t mean the food is healthy.
Sure, it’s okay for you not to always practice what you preach. But if all you do is go on about how everyone should do a certain thing, I expect that you actually do that certain thing.
(And, no, that doesn’t mean a smoker can’t tell you not to smoke. It means they shouldn’t go around telling people they should quit if they aren’t also trying to quit. Not smoking to begin with is different from quitting smoking.)
I call those people “The Straight Dope Message Board”.
This man has no ideas. He doesn’t even have HAIR!
rubs forehead I just… I can’t even right now.
It’s difficult to respond to this because the words “healthy” and “can’t” are susceptible to different interpretations.
I do think that if somebody is fat, then it’s very likely they have been eating an amount of food which is unhealthy compared to an amount of food which would have resulted in them being thin.
I also think that if somebody is fat, then it’s pretty likely that they have been eating a lot of “junk food,” broadly defined.
At the same time, I believe that it’s possible for a lot of people to improve the healthiness of their diets while losing little or no weight.
Last, I think that it’s very challenging for fat people to change their diet in such a way that they become thin and stay thin.
It depends what you mean by “eating healthy.” But I do agree that it’s possible for a lot of fat people to substantially improve the healthiness of their diet while losing little or no weight. Quite possibly, (1) such an improvement is a more important goal – for the sake of health – than weight loss.; and (2) such an improvement, made before weight loss, increases the chances of success of eventual weight loss.
What I think is that a smoker should not go around telling other smokers HOW to quit. Such behavior is actually pretty unusual with smokers.
But in other areas, such as relationships, weight loss, and business, it’s pretty common. ETA: And very annoying when it happens.
Could be worse.
Oprah has been giving advice on marriage since the 80’s. Never been married.