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I honestly find this behaviour so difficult to understand. Why treat people like this? What advantage does it serve? If someone does not know something, it is

• leephillips 13y ago
  "Why treat people like this? What advantage does it serve?" You seem to have answered your own question in your subsequent remarks. The feigned surprise is a habit of people with very low self esteem. They constantly seek to reassure themselves by trying to place others (usually people whom they fear are more capable than they are) into a position of lower social status. If you are on the receiving end of a feigned surprise attack, think back through your interactions with the attacker: you will probably remember something recent that revealed that you had some skill or knowledge that the attacker lacked. From that moment on, he was looking for a way to reassert his social status.
• emmelaich 13y ago
  They have to say something, and for some people it's hard to find the right words to be nice without sounding condescending or superior. So they try to be funny without realising it is received completely differently. At least it's one of my theories. I find it marginally more common in people with poor verbal skills. It's a subset of the 'we judge others by their behaviour, and ourselves by our intentions.' phenomenon.