- #1
mattmns
- 1,128
- 6
I seem to have a problem with how I behave in certain situations. Specifically if I see people trip up on things that seem trivial (or easy) to me I sometimes laugh. For example, I was helping someone with some graph theory problems and this person was not understanding this one thing after a few attempts at explaining it and I laughed a little (after she had given me an incorrect example), and she was a little mad that I had laughed. I don't think I had any reason to laugh, and it was not really funny, maybe it was amusing to me in some sick way, I don't know. Many examples of things like this have happened for at least five years that I can recall.
I thought I had "fixed" the problem when I was a tutor a year ago, and would instead just smile when people gave me something I felt was obviously (silly) incorrect.
Then last semester (fall) I took this Putnam class that had 4 students and a professor where we would present solutions to problems on the board in front of everyone. The problem here was that our professor is well, an arrogant jackass (perhaps like me, though him probably more rightfully so), and he would criticize the hell out of you for every little mistake you made (this one time he spent a couple minutes criticizing this guy because he did not draw a graph the way our professor felt was best). Now I like the professor criticizing us because usually he has some valid points no matter how silly they may be in reality. However, the kind of arrogant, demeaning way our professor speaks, along with his accent, makes me laugh when he is criticizing somebody (he even laughs sometimes too). In fact, one time I went to his office and he started criticizing the way I did a problem and I started to laugh a little and he just kind of looked at me strange. Now I think I really don't want to laugh, but I just do for some reason.
Then today I was playing a video game with a friend, and once I was winning and he screwed up a few times, I had laughed a time or two.
Am I just a jackass, or should I not really worry about this. Is there something I can do? (Perhaps gain some maturity )
Thanks.
I thought I had "fixed" the problem when I was a tutor a year ago, and would instead just smile when people gave me something I felt was obviously (silly) incorrect.
Then last semester (fall) I took this Putnam class that had 4 students and a professor where we would present solutions to problems on the board in front of everyone. The problem here was that our professor is well, an arrogant jackass (perhaps like me, though him probably more rightfully so), and he would criticize the hell out of you for every little mistake you made (this one time he spent a couple minutes criticizing this guy because he did not draw a graph the way our professor felt was best). Now I like the professor criticizing us because usually he has some valid points no matter how silly they may be in reality. However, the kind of arrogant, demeaning way our professor speaks, along with his accent, makes me laugh when he is criticizing somebody (he even laughs sometimes too). In fact, one time I went to his office and he started criticizing the way I did a problem and I started to laugh a little and he just kind of looked at me strange. Now I think I really don't want to laugh, but I just do for some reason.
Then today I was playing a video game with a friend, and once I was winning and he screwed up a few times, I had laughed a time or two.
Am I just a jackass, or should I not really worry about this. Is there something I can do? (Perhaps gain some maturity )
Thanks.