What are some things you pretended to know but didn't?

I can’t think of a time I pretended to know something. There have been times when I thought I knew something and turned out wrong. There have also been times when I pretend I have heard someone or understood them, when I didn’t. I have a girlfriend who is ESL, and her English is very difficult to understand (and I usually am very good with accents) especially over the phone, sometimes I just aha, and nod, or smile, etc.

I can’t remember a time I’ve done it intentionally, but I have tried to relay facts from tacit knowledge, and that is difficult. When you have the points in your head, but can barely remember them to speak out is frustrating. The result is one starting off strong only to crash and burn, which makes it seem like they do not know what they are talking about.

I have not ever pretended to know something I didn’t actually know. What I have done however is professed to have known it a little better than I actually did. But that was within the honest hope and want of using that as motivation to better myself at things that I either ended up being lax at and getting lazy or I just never got around to cultivating things to the level I had hoped I would.

I had a guy do that to me once. His father spoke french, and I get terrible performance anxiety when I am asked to demonstrate things I can normally otherwise do perfectly well on my own but I freeze up in front of people. I met his dad and I was nervois anyway because that was the very first time I was meeting him, The first words out of his mouth were “Say something in French.” I basically fell all over myself, tripped on my own tongue and couldn’t understand what he said because native speakers speak really fast.

Basically he made me look like an idiot and then accused me of being a liar too. I never said I was good at speaking it anyway, I translate it in literature and my skills are basic. I tend to understand some languages more listening and some more in reading words on a page.

I may have exaggerated on my actual skill level (Which varies anyway honestly) ... but Parlez voux Francais indeed! Sucka… not my fault you’re just a rude insensitive A-Hole that enjoys putting people on the spot.

Come to think of it, he did the same thing to me with singing too… He actually put me on the phone with someone and told me to sing. I am a trained soprano for many years, but again I just have terrible anxiety so this douche put’s me on the phone and says “sing” naturally I was nervous and I sounded terrible and how do you take those moments back for do overs? I sang in the sound of Maria Callas because I did an aria from Bellini’s Norma, called Casta Diva, and although it sucked, (Honestly, and in all fairness it did)

that however, was my impression of Callas (something a non opera person wouldn’t understand anyway) that actually sucked too, because I sing more like Joan Southerland or Kathleen Battle (I am far cleaner and brighter than Callas) . But he is an A-Hole like I said and now again, I am supposedly a liar and after training opera and geing pretty darn good at it too… Iam again because of an idiot, deemed a liar, because he is a jerk!

Who all these relatively obscure metal bands were – The Mountain Goats, for example. But, I mean, it wasn’t actively contributing to the discussion, just nodding along and laughing where everyone laughed… Which, I maintain, is a valuable social skill.

When I was in kindergarten I interrupted storytelling by talking and the teacher was angry and said “if you think you don’t want to listen, perhaps you would care to come up here and read instead.” So I did. Maybe even thinking I could read when I got up there and pit the book in my lap. But I couldn’t.

This happens to me when I’m in a group and someone is speaking and I start thinking about something else (usually because I“m stressed about it). At some point, I’ll realize I have no idea what they’re talking about and every once in a while they’ll ask me something related to what they said and then I’ll have to fake it. Usually a smile and a “I don’t know” shoulder hunch works or a laugh w/head bob. Sometimes a fake call on the cell will get you out of it as well.

Never done this & never will. Pretence is unbearably shallow & naive in the extreme.

@GabrielsLamb Lol, wow.. what a dingleberry! I have done the same thing for spanish. I knew what to say, but in the moment it just didn’t come out. Immediately after, the words flowed flawlessly in my brain. XD

@Aethelflaed I do this all the time too. Someone will say “You’ve heard of suchandsuch right?” .. I will of course say yes because to say no puts an end to whatever point they were about to make and effectively ruins the conversation. XD

@anartist Gahahahaha… priceless!

@Gabby101 Yet another one I’m guilty of. Sometimes my mind just wanders and there is a distinctive moment in time where I re-focus and they are looking at me expectantly…

@ucme In certain situations I wouldn’t call it pretentious at all.. such as some of the ones above

Socially, conversationally, I’ve done this a lot. I’m not trying to pose as anything I’m not or assert an undeserved claim. Rather, I’m looking for interesting conversation. Watered-down beginner-level stuff is generally boring. I have enough knowledge about enough things to want to skip over as much of that as I can and get to the good stuff.

If I know a little bit about a subject, just enough to ask an intelligent question, I can get a knowledgeable person talking about the subject in a way that they simply won’t do if they think I know nothing about their field. Then I really do learn something.

I never claim the knowledge—just let someone else assume it. And if I really have to ask what something means, I do, without fear of sounding stupid. People are usually more than happy to explain.

This same ploy works doubly well when it comes to (a) the workplace, (b) confidential topics, and  (c) confidential topics in the workplace. Again, I never lie about what I know. But if someone says, for example, “I assume you heard what happened to Karen,” I don’t say “No—what??” I say, making my shrewdest guess, “I know she’s been out a lot lately,” or “You’re talking about the thing yesterday with the presentation, right?” or “I know she’s still having her problems with Vic.” This type of response always elicits information that I would never get if I just waited to have everything filled in. People who think they ought to be discreet are only too happy to open up once they think you already know something; then they aren’t the one spilling the beans. (Even if they really are.)

By the same token (the other side of the same token, actually), playing dumb when you do know something can net you an earful. When someone has told me something confidentially, I never break the confidence. Never, never, never. And when people trust you, they will tell you things.

This means I may still be keeping mum about something that used to be secret even after everyone else has started talking about it. BUT sometimes people will tell you more than they mean to when they think you don’t know its significance. So you can use your privileged knowledge to ask a seemingly innocent question and get back a tidbit of information that they would never give you if they thought you had the rest of the picture. And in this way you can get hold of the whole story without anyone’s realizing you have it.

Being able to do this in the workplace can, believe me, be a really valuable skill. There are fewer surprises, and you can take steps to protect yourself and those who deserve your loyalty when things get dicey. In between crises, it just adds to the entertainment value of being at work.