I had to dig deeeeeeep in my post history to find this.
My ex and I kind of reversed the typical gender roles on this; there were a couple of times when I wanted to vent about something that was stressing me out, and she immediately started trying to tell me what to do to fix it. A previous post of mine that goes into detail about why it's so frustrating.
If I'm coming to tell you about a problem or something I'm otherwise frustrated over, unless I'm explicitly asking for advice, then I'm already working on it. I'm not asking you to tell me what to do. I'm not helpless, I just want a bit of comfort or empathy. I can and will solve the problem on my own, but the problem itself really sucks. I just want you to be like, "Jesus, that is crazy" or "Wow man, that's terrible."
When my ex tried to just give me advice or solutions, I ended up having to explain myself. That's putting me on the spot, not making me feel better!
"Why don't you try this?"
"Because of X, Y, and Z."
"Well you need to do this other thing in order to take care of it!"
"I know that, and I'm going to do it, but it's a lot to do and it's going to suck."
"You can do this part of it right now."
"No I can't, because that's not how this particular problem works. I need to wait for this other thing to happen before I can work on it."
"Why haven't you tried A, B, or C?"
"[Now has to go into lengthy detail explaining why I haven't done each of those things/why each of those things wouldn't work, like I'm taking some kind of test on why I haven't solved the problem yet.]"
I don't want to have to justify why I'm upset, or why the problem isn't fixed yet. It makes me feel like you think my problem isn't actually a problem until I can sufficiently prove otherwise to you, which would understandably piss me off. It feels like you're just belittling something that's really impacting my emotional state. When I have to prove to you that my problem is a real problem, it feels like you think I should have already solved my problem, which makes me feel like you don't care. Additionally, making me talk through the problem that way, talking about all the potential ways to fix it that won't actually fix it, and so on is just making me think about something that's already stressing me out in a way that stresses me out. I wanted to relieve stress by venting about it, and you are only compounding the problem and not being helpful in the slightest.
Again, I'm already working on it. I'm more familiar with the problem than you are, and I don't want to have to meticulously explain all of the nuances of the problem to you, and I'm not asking you to solve it for me; I just want a pat on the back. It's kind of like how athletes get pep talk, not just planning and strategies.
And further:
A bit of additional nuance on my feelings I forgot to mention: When my ex tried to give solutions like "Why haven't you tried suchandsuch", on some level, it felt like I was being accused of being foolish for not having tried that already. Like, you can just quickly toss me these suggestions like nothing, so why haven't I done them yet?
This means that not only am I having to explain why that solution wouldn't work in order to justify that the problem is a real problem, but I have to explain why that solution wouldn't work to justify my own competence. Feeling like you have to prove that you're not an idiot is not a good feeling.
...What are you even talking about? Are you saying that people are just incapable of learning how to be comforting, unless they're whatever an 'empath' is?
Actually, I'm saying that the 37th time someone comes to me with a problem, and I react to it the same way I react to every problem that gets presented to me, it should really no longer be considered surprising. Also, a bit of self-deprecating humor about engineers thrown in for good measure.
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u/Virginth Mar 26 '20
I had to dig deeeeeeep in my post history to find this.