Vicarious Experts

This blog was named the Tantrum, so I feel entirely within my rights when I actually throw one within its cyber-confines.

I pride myself on the fact that in the last four years, I have managed to rid myself of most, if not all of the things I once considered my pet peeves. Among the very few remaining exceptions to this new rule are tricycle drivers, die hard Republicans, and vicarious experts. The last of these is the topic of this post.

A vicarious expert is someone who, as the term implies, purports to know everything there is to know on a given subject (e.g., relationships, practicing a profession), without having any first-hand experience of that subject to speak of. Imagine a lawyer telling an astrophysicist how to do his job in the most condescending tone of voice possible and you will have an admittedly extreme but otherwise accurate picture of how irritating a vicarious expert(VE) can be.

The first VE I encountered in my life presented herself as an expert on relationships, not because she ever actually said so, but because of the way she addressed me every time we talked about the subject (usually my infatuations with other girls). It was as if she wanted to be my big sister in that regard, whether or not I wanted one. We parted ways on very bad terms, in no small part due to her pretensions towards expertise on the matter of relationships. That is to say, she persisted with these pretensions long after I had exposed the fact that she had never had an actual relationship on which to base her endless pontification. It was a bitter experience, mainly because I never got the last word; I never got to tell her what a fraud she was. I eventually took a measure of comfort, however, from surrounding myself with people who didn't preach like that, or who were at the very least considerate enough to preach about things they had actually experienced.

Years later, I received an unpleasant surprise to find myself face to face with yet another self-proclaimed expert on the matter of my chosen profession. In deference to the wishes of someone close to me I will not disclose the details of exactly how much of a know-it-all this person can be on the matter of this profession, but I have taken some personal pride in being able to just grin and bear it. Some of the advice, albeit second-hand, is actually quite sensible to a degree, although it consists largely of some annoying misconceptions.

What broke the camel's back (and inspired this post) was when this second vicarious expert was joined by a third one on yet another topic on which, to the best of my knowledge, NEITHER of them has any first hand experience to speak of. As a matter of fact, in our circle it is a highly publicized and oft-lamented fact that these "experts" don't have any first-hand knowledge on this particular topic.

Why are some people the most sanctimonious when talking about things they know nothing about? It gets under my skin like nothing else can. I realize that stories from friends can be most informative, as can the perusal of self-help books or magazines concerning relationships, but what makes certain people think that they are experts on any given topic just because they know someone is personally knowledgeable, or because they read about it in Cosmopolitan?

I am told that deep down, these people are just being caring and want to be helpful. I concede this but offer by way of counter-argument: those people love to shoot their mouths off about these things because it makes them feel better about what they haven't been able to do with their lives. It's a form of overcompensation, and I really wish I didn't have to catch the brunt of it. To my mind it takes a particular kind of insecurity to act that way, and while part of me wants to pity people who feel are beholden to this personality quirk, that pity is quickly squelched by annoyance.

I honestly don't know how to deal with know-it-alls like that, because I'm really not the kind of guy who likes to say hurtful things even to someone who's patronizing him (having regretted the few times that I actually did), but to anyone out there who may also be bothered by this most unfortunate kind of person, I hope this will give you a glimmer of understanding as to why these people feel morally compelled to show you how intellectually or emotionally superior they are to you, and perhaps a degree or two more patience with them. If you have any advice on how to somehow get them to shut up (tactfully, of course), please know that I welcome it. Just don't be condescending when you give the advice, though...