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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

No, it is not different definition. Women think they can learn things too. However, if you ask them how good they are in something or whether they already know it, they are more likely to provide accurate answer.

Also true story: if I am solving a problem and ask dude whether he knows the solution, he says yes I do, takes away my keyboard, starts googling and then refuses to return keyboard back, it is serious wtf annoying.

Also, people react different to overconfidence from woman - in my repeated experience, if woman claims she can do something technical she then starts figuring it on the fly, she will be butt of jokes. I mean, I cant figure technical stuff out on the fly in presence of some people, cause they will seriously mess into it.

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As a man I did the take away keyboard thing many times in the past. In SOME of the instances the people asked for help were incompetent. Regardless, I think a better approach should be spending time helping them do it themselves instead.

In that particular situation, saying "no I don't know" would be only acceptable behavior, imo.

If I am asking for my keyboard back, I should not have to physicality touch or fight you to get it back. Regardless of what you think about me.

We're all just really smart monkeys here, and communication is complicated. "He's always trying to fix things when I just want to talk" is this same interaction just in a home context. Same communication error. There's a gap, you're saying "Do you know, at this moment, how to do this" to which the answer is clearly no. However, men are hearing "Can you solve this problem for me". Giving you back the keyboard means admitting that I failed to fix it.

EDIT: In my head, I feel like you've given up on the idea that I can help you, and you're probably going to go find someone smarter and more competent than me. In this context, a guy who doesn't want to give the keyboard back is afraid of admitting failure.

It is absolutely not and I hate that phrase. If I ask whether you know something, I am not trying to "just talk". If you know the answer, I am asking for it.

If you don't know answer, the normal response is no. I don't want you to highjack my computer and completely prevent me from working. That is ridiculous. And it is not solution either - it is literally preventing me to solve it.

> However, men are hearing "Can you solve this problem for me". Giving you back the keyboard means admitting that I failed to fix it.

Then men should fcking learn how to parse human language. Because based on this, betweem them not being able to interpret direct speech and then supposedly being unable to interpret hints, there is not much space. How exactly am I supposed to communicate? And none of this is believable, because above interaction rarely happens against other men.

The whole "he is trying to fix it while women just want to talk" is insulting in situation when he is preventing me to solve thing, when he is not solving anything and I was not chatty at all.

Agree that phrase paints a stereotypical image of men as problem solvers and women as... talkers?

I guess the way I interpreted it wasn't "can you do this?". It's more like "we need this problem solved, and I already gave a try". Again that was younger me, these days I would just kinda query their approach instead.

It was long ago so I don't really remember if the phrasing was "do you know..." or not, but yeah now I agree that just give people direct answers and maybe an open offer like "do you need another set of eyes?" or just leave them alone.

The problem in the middle can also be explained by him treating your question as rhetorical instead of as an actual question

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