When I admit my ignorance on a certain topic, upfront and clearly, it usually works for me and gets the other person to trust that my intent is to learn and not to challenge them.
You can generalize this to thinking about what other reasons people might have to ask the question that aren’t nice and then signal that it’s not those.
In this case you can come off as curious instead of smugly superior if you forfeit the superior position of having all the answers
When I admit my ignorance on a certain topic, upfront and clearly, it usually works for me and gets the other person to trust that my intent is to learn and not to challenge them.
You can generalize this to thinking about what other reasons people might have to ask the question that aren’t nice and then signal that it’s not those.
In this case you can come off as curious instead of smugly superior if you forfeit the superior position of having all the answers