When we think about a person having two very different personalities, we often think of mental problems like multiple personality disorder, or bipolar disorder. However, in many cases I don't think there needs to be anything wrong with the person. It's just that their personality is, for some reason, such that they behave very differently in different situations, their attitude is very different, so much so that they almost feel like different people.
When I was at university, I had a professor of English (who himself was Irish, if I remember correctly), who was very much like that. I don't think he had any sort of problem. He simply had this strange personality quirk.
During class he was the most amicable and talkative person you can think of. He had tons of anecdotes to tell, and he constantly encouraged his students to speak and have conversations (it was, after all, an English class, for Finnish people). Overall, he seemed like a really nice, warm, friendly and amicable person, always having nice things to say, always talking with his students and encouraging them to speak, and so on.
However, the very second that class was over, it felt like some kind of switch turned in his brain, and he became a completely different person, which was the almost complete opposite of before.
I noticed this quite clearly when a couple of times I went to ask him something about the lecture, or about the English language or such, right there in the same classroom immediately after the lecture was over. He was very distant, reserved, quiet, and quite blunt, answering with very short (often single-word) answers, never answering any more than he had to and never delving deeper into the question, and his demeanor and tone was a bit like he was bothered that he had to talk to some annoying stranger who was pestering him (even though he knew me quite well from class. It's not like this was a huge lecture hall with hundreds of students. This was a very small classroom with something like 20 students at most.)
The first time I didn't really pay much attention to it. Maybe he was in a hurry to get somewhere and I was delaying him. However, it happened again a couple of times.
One day after his class, when I was at the school cafeteria (well, one of them; large university, half a dozen cafeterias around campus), having ordered something and going to sit at a table, I noticed that he was coming there as well. He put his stuff, jacket, briefcase etc. at a table, and went to the counter to take his order. I thought I would go to the same table, so we could have a nice after-class smalltalk. In fact, what better practice for me than to speak English with the professor.
When he came back, carrying his tray of food, what followed was one of the rudest things I have ever experienced in my entire life.
He stopped, he looked at me, he looked at the table, hesitated for a second, looked around, and then took the tray to another table, and then came back to move all of his stuff from this table to that other one. Without saying a word, or anything.
This behavior was so strange and so utterly rude that I swear that for like 10 seconds my brain couldn't process what was happening. It simply couldn't process that someone could be so amazingly rude. I think my jaw might have dropped.
Mind you, I was not some stranger he didn't know. He knew me perfectly well from class. He had talked directly to me several times in class, and as mentioned, I had talked to him directly from up close several times right after class. He knew me by name, as he always used people's names in class so yes, he knew perfectly well that I was a student in his class, and I was at the lecture that had just ended like 15 minutes earlier.
Yet, he still decided to do that, without saying a single word.
And even after that, in class he was very talkative and friendly. It's like there were two people inside that one person, one replacing the other immediately when class started and ended.
When I was at university, I had a professor of English (who himself was Irish, if I remember correctly), who was very much like that. I don't think he had any sort of problem. He simply had this strange personality quirk.
During class he was the most amicable and talkative person you can think of. He had tons of anecdotes to tell, and he constantly encouraged his students to speak and have conversations (it was, after all, an English class, for Finnish people). Overall, he seemed like a really nice, warm, friendly and amicable person, always having nice things to say, always talking with his students and encouraging them to speak, and so on.
However, the very second that class was over, it felt like some kind of switch turned in his brain, and he became a completely different person, which was the almost complete opposite of before.
I noticed this quite clearly when a couple of times I went to ask him something about the lecture, or about the English language or such, right there in the same classroom immediately after the lecture was over. He was very distant, reserved, quiet, and quite blunt, answering with very short (often single-word) answers, never answering any more than he had to and never delving deeper into the question, and his demeanor and tone was a bit like he was bothered that he had to talk to some annoying stranger who was pestering him (even though he knew me quite well from class. It's not like this was a huge lecture hall with hundreds of students. This was a very small classroom with something like 20 students at most.)
The first time I didn't really pay much attention to it. Maybe he was in a hurry to get somewhere and I was delaying him. However, it happened again a couple of times.
One day after his class, when I was at the school cafeteria (well, one of them; large university, half a dozen cafeterias around campus), having ordered something and going to sit at a table, I noticed that he was coming there as well. He put his stuff, jacket, briefcase etc. at a table, and went to the counter to take his order. I thought I would go to the same table, so we could have a nice after-class smalltalk. In fact, what better practice for me than to speak English with the professor.
When he came back, carrying his tray of food, what followed was one of the rudest things I have ever experienced in my entire life.
He stopped, he looked at me, he looked at the table, hesitated for a second, looked around, and then took the tray to another table, and then came back to move all of his stuff from this table to that other one. Without saying a word, or anything.
This behavior was so strange and so utterly rude that I swear that for like 10 seconds my brain couldn't process what was happening. It simply couldn't process that someone could be so amazingly rude. I think my jaw might have dropped.
Mind you, I was not some stranger he didn't know. He knew me perfectly well from class. He had talked directly to me several times in class, and as mentioned, I had talked to him directly from up close several times right after class. He knew me by name, as he always used people's names in class so yes, he knew perfectly well that I was a student in his class, and I was at the lecture that had just ended like 15 minutes earlier.
Yet, he still decided to do that, without saying a single word.
And even after that, in class he was very talkative and friendly. It's like there were two people inside that one person, one replacing the other immediately when class started and ended.
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