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> I’ve worked on actually pretending not to be surprised even when I actually am a bit surprised the person doesn’t know the thing and it’s awesome.

I try to do this too but sometimes I forget. However, I find that acting surprised is ok if you then show your excitement to tell them about the thing e.g. xkcd.com/1053

The key is to not express “You don’t know about this? What is wrong with you?” but rather “You don’t know about this? You’re going to love it!”



I think this nyc workshop place (recurse center?) had a rule about not doing that.



Yeah it's ok to feign surprise if you use it as a "Wow I feel lucky to show this to you." Some people genuinely mean it that way, and if you can communicate that's your intent, I think that's fine. It's exciting when someone hasn't heard about something really cool. And it's nice to feel like you're being brought into the club.




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