Sometimes I feel ashamed at how easy it is to imply I know more than I do. It's a trick, using one or two pieces of information to temporarily create the illusion that there's an informed mind at work instead of a dilettante. It makes people think I'm operating at their level of competence, or knowledge, or share their point of view. It's a quick, dirty way to establish a bond, and it's fun to pretend to be smart. But it makes me feel besmirched. I know I'm weaving a spell and if I don't have the genuine goods to back it up the tenuous relationship will collapse for lack of substance, or (worse) the discovery of my grandstanding will cause me to lose the respect of the very person I wanted to impress.
I do it all the time, though. I can't help myself. It's how I learned to make small talk to strangers. You find a point of interest and get people talking about it by offering an opinion or asking a question. That part's fine. It's when I lead people on that bothers me. The urge to be clever nearly always gets the best of me. "Yes, A is phenomenal, but can you really compare it to B?" And of course I won't know the first thing about A or B, but I know that A is regularly spoken of in the same breath as B. By urging someone else to talk about their respective merits I imply I understand A, B, and why they're related. I don't get caught by my lack of knowledge very often. When I do I cheerfully admit I know nothing, and while this means I don't establish that sense of being among peers it does allow the person who knows more than me to lecture me, and which of us doesn't enjoy the chance to show off what we know? So sometimes the backfiring works to my advantage as well.
But it's intellectually dishonest, and I've relied on it far too much. By now it's practically reflexive in social situations where I feel undereducated or hopelessly naff. On the other hand I now know quite a lot more than I did when I was first learning how to work the trick, and so I don't have it in heavy rotation. I can muster an informed opinon on all sorts of topics. It's just that occasionally I hear myself making conversation based on, oh, a college catalog or a CD cover. "My understanding of Restoration Drama isn't what it used to be," I'll say. That is correct. It used to be nil, now it includes two names and a vague sense of historical period, thanks to that tv special/New York Times book review I saw last week/month/year. Honestly, sometimes I'm such a fraud.
Well, I try not to do it much. Plus it really is useful socially, especially if you need a quick method of getting someone's attention. I imagine it works for flirting, though I don't flirt with intent anymore. I can't decide whether it's a bad habit, pure manipulative evil, or simply part of human social repetoire and therefore no more reprehensible than lying by omission. I feel so guilty when I catch myself doing it, though, that I try not to give in to the urge.
Curiously, I can't think of a time when I've caught other people doing it to me. I'm sure it's happened, but I'm inclined to forget things that make me feel bad. The important thing is I'd rather actually know what I'm talking about than fake it all the time. That's why I'm back in college. Some day I'm going to actually know the difference between Moliere and Congreve, and if it comes up in conversation I'll be able to make a contribution.
That, or send everyone around me to sleep from my droning on about it.
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