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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to not understand what the problem is?

82 replies

complainingcommuter · 16/03/2017 20:41

A couple of weeks ago I went to a quiz with friends. We were in a larger group at the quiz with friends of friends, the event itself was organised by a club 2 of my friends are members of, so they knew most people there.

I like quizzes and am pretty good at them - I'm just lucky to have a memory for trivia. Sadly I don't find it anywhere near as easy to remember what my DC have on at school, or what I'm meant to be doing at home or work, as I do to tell you which monarch ruled 1702-14.

Anyway we all joined in with the quiz, I knew a fair few answers but by no means all. A few times others disagreed with my suggestion, and I went with the majority each time (some of the answers ended up being wrong). However we did win in the end, by a couple of points only.

During quiz, one friend keeps commenting on how i should 'let other people have a go, hahaha' although it really wasn't that funny. I corrected a couple of spellings (place/ people names) which were quite wrong, just by changing the spelling on our answer paper and had other friend saying that's nearly right isn't it, and when i said no, inferring i was bring difficult/ making a fuss/ putting other people down. On the night after we won friends said oh you won't be able to come next time as we did too well.

All that i was just like whatever, til today nearly 2 weeks on, friend texts that this person and that person was really annoyed my team had won and how they weren't happy at me coming back hahaha, and maybe i should answer less or dub myself down next time!

Which has now annoyed me all over again and left me thinking wtf?! Is it me and am i being completely humourless if this is all meant in a jokey way?

OP posts:

ILikeBeansWithKetchup · 16/03/2017 21:42

You're a victim of that rather British 'too clever by half'/ ' what a knowitall' labelling, often aimed at women. sadly. It's why even contestants on Pointless feel the need to say ' Geography's not my subject or roll their eyes at literature. It grinds my gears. You carry on being clever and informed. But don't go to that quiz again. Ignore your friend's comments (or say the kitten thing!)

Eolian · 16/03/2017 21:44

I would have demanded offered to be the answer writer for all rounds . If others were writing and spelling everything badly, I'd have corrected it too. But then I am a teacher... I can't help it.

Sandsnake · 16/03/2017 21:45

They sound ridiculous and defensive. Some people can't handle others knowing more than they (especially if the person knowing more happens to be female, as I'm presuming you are). Well done on winning. Winning is fun

BillSykesDog · 16/03/2017 21:47

Weebarra, I've come across the odd one like that. But they do tend to be ones with established teams (and people who know each other hence the competitiveness) so you know people well enough to do it without offending. But it sounds like this isn't the vibe here. Plus, sounds like this was an established team and on her first outing the OP started correcting people. It just doesn't go down well.

ILikeBeansWithKetchup · 16/03/2017 21:49

Bill you just totally contradicted yourself with the 'established team' comments above.

Sorry if that appears to be correcting you...

OhYouBadBadKitten · 16/03/2017 21:50

we'd make a good team. I take my quizzes seriously and I like to win.

Boulshired · 16/03/2017 21:53

Sometimes it does depend on the atmosphere of the pub/club. They do not mind who wins the quiz as long as it is one of the regulars. I dated a really good pool player but when I took him to my old local I did warn him not to play until he got to know them.

HeddaGarbled · 16/03/2017 21:55

Oh dear, you have come up against the unspoken rules of pub quizzes:

You must pretend that you are playing for fun and you don't care whether you win or lose.
If you are the most knowledgeable person on your team, you must pretend not to know the answers at least 25%, preferably 50% of the time, in order not to make the rest of your team feel inadequate.
If you disagree about an answer and you are proved right, you must not notice or comment on this in any way.
The winning team will win by a very small margin and probably as a result of a controversial decision. Do not argue with that decision.
If you win, your team prize will be one bottle of wine and one box of chocolates. Expect not to be taking either of these home with you.

Someone told me a great story about someone who was brilliant at quizzes who had annoyed his team mates by answering every single question himself. When told how annoying this was, he asked what would be a reasonable proportion to answer and was told about half. So, at the next quiz, he answered every question for the first half of the quiz and then declined to answer any for the second half.

egosumquisum1 · 16/03/2017 21:57

If you disagree about an answer and you are proved right, you must not notice or comment on this in any way

You can feel a bit smug though.....

But what if you've insisted an answer is right and then it's wrong. What's the rule then?

BillSykesDog · 16/03/2017 21:57

I said that teams where they are competitive tend to be established ones. Not that all established teams are competitive.

Christ, if you can't answer the old 'some xs are ys, all ys are zs, can we be sure all xs are zs' question you must be rubbish at quizzes.

No offence like.

ExplodedCloud · 16/03/2017 22:02

Eolian I usually offer to write too! My old quiz team were very well behaved and wrote things correctly I only do occasional quizzes now and acquire the pen by stealth.

egosumquisum1 · 16/03/2017 22:02

The dynamics of a team where people just meet up and new people arrive is fascinating.

How do you convince people your answer is right? How do you establish confidence?

It's fascinating the psychology of pub quiz teams - and the diverse knowledge people have - and don't have but are just there for the wine.

Witchend · 16/03/2017 22:02

It often depends on how you say the answers/correct though.

"Do you think it's...?" comes across much better than
"Oh that's easy, it's ...."

Or the spelling:
"I think it's spelt something like..." type of comment rather than crossing it out and rewriting with the manner of a teacher correcting a rather bad student.

I've been on teams with people that know everything before now. I never know anything-or rather anything I do know either everyone else knows or it goes straight out of my head.
But sometimes the know it alls are great fun, make you feel that the answers are tip of your tongue and it's only looking back you think "actually they did most of them"
And sometimes they make you feel stupid and as though you're a dead weight on their team and they resented you being there.
It's a matter of their attitude and the way they express things rather than actually how many questions they answer.

LottieDoubtie · 16/03/2017 22:11

Crack on OP.

I am shite at quizzes - my DH is a genius.

When we were childfree we did a monthly quiz for a year as a team of two- first prize free dinner at the pub for the next quiz night. We didn't buy dinner out that year and we just ignored the glares from other people

Original poster

complainingcommuter · 16/03/2017 22:22

Again they're not a regular or established team, I think this quiz happened once last year, although I wasn't able to go. They're not doing this weekly or monthly, it's just an annual charity event.

Now I know that I am a bit of a know it all. I also learnt long ago that as a woman this tends to rub people up the wrong way. So I really do take pains in these situations to not dominate. I don't ever offer to write the answers because I might get accused of taking over. I don't pointedly exclaim about spelling errors, I give in to the majority.

Honestly other than pretending I didn't know the answer to anything I'm not sure what more I could do, and I'm still getting grief from my friends, and then people on another team I didn't even know! I have got to say that the others on my team were fine, and didn't say anything snippy to me, unlike my actual friends!

OP posts:

HappyFlappy · 17/03/2017 10:46

But what if you've insisted an answer is right and then it's wrong. What's the rule then?

Ritual hará-kiri Ego. You have to disembowel yourself with a razor-sharp pork scratching.

Original poster

complainingcommuter · 17/03/2017 12:11

I never insist any of mine are right unless I absolutely know they are, thereby avoiding the need to fall on my sword!

OP posts:

BirdPerson · 17/03/2017 12:21

AIBU to say your team mates sound kind of daft? It sounds like they had no real clue about trivia and you were a perceived threat to their intelligence. But then again, I'm as thick as two planks of wood and if I had a brain box like you on my pub quiz team I would just hand you the quiz sheet and start planning how to spend my £12.50 share of the winnings...

AuntJane · 17/03/2017 12:32

I used to belong to a social club that ran occasional quizzes that my team (three people) usually won. One night they said "teams of two or three - but you can't be a three". So the other two entered as a pair and I ended up on my own.

The result? My two friends won, and I came second.

MadMags · 17/03/2017 12:36

She's being a bit odd about it but you sound like an insufferable know-it-all!

Did you say that you corrected other people's spelling on the answer sheet? Like a teacher would?

Unless you were quizzing in the Olympics, I don't think it should have mattered that much.

plainjanine · 17/03/2017 12:41

I think there is a type of mindset that strongly resents anyone else being more knowledgable than them. They basically stopped learning when they left school and have seen no reason to restart at any time since then.

They don't like being corrected, they don't like being proved wrong, and they really don't like people who know lots of things they don't, because they think it makes them look bad by comparison. It may do, but it doesn't have to.

They will refer to more knowledgeable or better educated or more lucid people as brainboxes, know-it-alls etc... They don't genarally mean it kindly. I think it's a kind of inverted snobbery.

Dumbing down may be the only way to be accepted by them. Sad isn't it?

MadMags · 17/03/2017 12:41

I think OP was a know-it-all and I'm highly educated, so not sure that theory washes...

alltouchedout · 17/03/2017 12:54

You know what, this thread is reminding me of school, where being hard working, knowledgeable, conscientious etc was just not cool and led to accusations of being a know-it-all.

TheStoic · 17/03/2017 13:01

Don't dumb yourself down for any reason, OP. People who can't handle it are not worth a second thought.

MadMags · 17/03/2017 13:04

It's nothing like school! School is where you're supposed to learn and work hard, and gain knowledge.

This was a pub quiz, not Mastermind!

Imagine being the person whose answer OP corrected on the sheet!

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