
blond_elf_bard
Major
★★
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2017
- Posts
- 2,191
I was at a conference where a girl was presenting her experiment. Just as everyone else at the conference was doing, I walked up to a girl standing near her poster and asker her about how it went. She seemed to be in a fairly calm, happy mood.
Then, I asked a question about the structure of one of the molecules she had printed on the poster (I'm a chemistry major) . She started to answer, "That's..." before abruptly freezing for a moment. She started tearing up, her hands shaking, completely silent, looking away from me. After about 30 seconds, I began to see her hyperventilating through her KN95 mask, tears streaming down her face at that point, before picking up her backpack and walking out of the convention hall.
I felt a bit guilty . Did I ask the question aggressively? I asked the girl across from her if she was going to be okay, and she said she didn't know her and that "she was probably just nervous about presenting".
But I think there may have been something deeper than "just nervous"....
Then, I asked a question about the structure of one of the molecules she had printed on the poster (I'm a chemistry major) . She started to answer, "That's..." before abruptly freezing for a moment. She started tearing up, her hands shaking, completely silent, looking away from me. After about 30 seconds, I began to see her hyperventilating through her KN95 mask, tears streaming down her face at that point, before picking up her backpack and walking out of the convention hall.
I felt a bit guilty . Did I ask the question aggressively? I asked the girl across from her if she was going to be okay, and she said she didn't know her and that "she was probably just nervous about presenting".
But I think there may have been something deeper than "just nervous"....