overcompensating
Often I have friends tell me off for over-explaining things to them because they think I think that they're stupid. Obviously, that's not true. They can be idiots at times, and I don't agree with a lot of what they have to say, but it doesn't necessarily mean I think that they're stupid.
I think that I overcompensate for my perception of social norms a lot. My over-explaining is a heavy part of this, I think. For instance, I was talking about something from the past, and while I knew I had talked about it to the friend I was talking to, I said "I don't know if you remember this, but.." and after confirming that they did in fact remember it, I continued on to explain what I was referencing before actually talking about it's relevance. I did it on the off-chance that they felt obligated to tell me they did, through the knowledge that I myself to that to others quite often--I try to avoid it when I can, but sometimes a train of thought shouldn't be interrupted.
That being said, I find myself doing this when I'm telling friends about things as well. I've always been relatively smart, I get okay enough grades and I have a handful of academic achievements to be proud of, but I'm a person who needs to know and understand everything I come across. Curiosity is important to me. My curiosity for the world and my resulting discoveries combined with the childish extroversion of my character means that I constantly want to share the things I learn with my friends, and also with my family (though that's mostly a lost cause--living with me for ~18 years means that anything I have to tell them is usually filed into their "Rei's Meaningless Rambles" mind cabinet, but I appreciate that they pretend to listen).
The things I learn are often mundane, but I enjoy sharing them anyways. I also like doing research for other people, I like being able to tell them interesting things and I like feeling helpful. Still, some of the things I learn are so mundane or contrastingly, "niche", that I feel the urge to provide an overload of context before my explanation, yet in doing so I've been told that it feels like I'm belittling the other person. But I've also been told enough times that I talk too quickly about concepts others don't fully comprehend that they completely miss whatever I've said to them, so I need to work on finding an even middle ground where my "Hey X, I know we're at the bar right now and I'm relatively pissed, but did you know that alcohol is highly soluble in water because of it's polar hydroxyl (OH) group?" becomes a little more legible without making it seem like I'm teaching a class of kindergarteners (which I think would be fun, by the way. Once I've had my fill of life I'll dedicate myself to a teaching degree and lock in.~)
This train of thought was heavily inspired by this post. As always, big love!
Rei ( ultramushikeraboy (at) gmail (dot) com )