[UmYeah]

I never realized this until I was living in a house with 3 girls. One day, one of them walks in a starts telling me about some problems she was having with her boyfriend. I gave her my advice on the situation.

She responded by telling me that whenever anyone comes to me with problems, I try to give them an answer (why else would they be coming to me, right?!?). She told me people don't always want solutions to their problems, they just want someone to listen to them. She didn't apply this to only girls, as some guys I know seem to deal with their problems in the same way. This is something I still don't really understand but this article sheds a little light on the subject.

[DaniFong]

I think one of the problems is that the solutions people offer usually don't make sense for some reason, possibly complex, emotion driven, with a lot of past history that's difficult to reveal, and difficult to communicate. Offering a solution that ignores all of these issues, which are likely present but would take days to untangle, seems slightly arrogant and ignorant, and thus annoying. Often times the advisees are too nice to explicitly say that the solution doesn't make sense, or are too reserved to explain the reasons why it doesn't make sense, so they just get annoyed. This annoys the advisors, who just want to help.

This isn't confined to boys and girls. Imagine parents saying -- "Kids! Do X! It is good for you!" The response is of course "but you don't understand me!"

This is the problem. It's hard to hear advice from someone you don't think understands you. For whatever reason, boys in this culture have a lower threshold for giving advice (though who knows who's more likely to actually take it).

The process of being listened to isn't mere venting. Being able to tell your story helps you to understand it. The solutions you come to will be your own, and you'll feel more confident about enacting them. Hardly anyone follows advice anyway; the storytelling and listening process seems just as a effective as a collective decision making strategy as giving advice directly.

[joelhaus]

Well put.

To take this a step further, one can actively listen. By asking the right questions (frequently, posing them in an open ended way; using the word "how" is effective), you can encourage the person to examine their problem from a different perspective. The other benefit is that you gain a better understanding as a result.

Therapists commonly use this approach.

[stavrianos]

It's terrifically easy to solve a problem you know next-to-nothing about.

[mattm]

This is pretty typical with women from my experience. What many women fail to realise is that few things are more frustrating to a guy than being presented with a problem and not being given the opportunity to solve it. If a women does this too many times to a guy, eventually the guy will avoid talking to her because she is making him feel useless.

[ajuc]

If guy understand that women needs this he can manage to listen and not give advices, and to not become frustrated with all these "unsolvable" problems.

This is a matter of points of view - for men (esp. programmers) problem solving POV is the default, but they can switch to just listening from time to time, if the women doesn't charge them responsible for these problems.

It works the other way too - if some "on the spot advice" slips from me when I listen to my wife she shouldn't be angry - I didn't meant to dismiss her, sometimes I just can't help it.

A little understanding and everything is much simpler.

[dkarl]

Heh, that's the simple case. The weird cases are when there's no literal truth that will properly reflect their feelings, so they just start saying whatever random stuff reflects their feelings. For example, I was talking about people at work and happened to mention a female name, so my girlfriend said, "Does she make more money than me? Did you sleep with her?" That meant she was a little insecure about being unemployed, and I should try to support her by not making any reference to the fact that there are, in fact, women with jobs.

[TheSOB88]

Seriously, if she's so insecure about being unemployed, she should maybe get a job, not try to control what you talk about. Am I missing something here?

[TheSOB88]

What a crazy bint.

[AndrewDucker]

People mostly know the answers to their problems already. Certainly with social ones, they mostly know what they ought to be doing, but they don't necessarily have the emotional strength to actually do it. Feeling listened to and supported helps them to feel more comfortable and motivated so that they can then get out there and do it.

[dkarl]

Heh, that's the simple case. The weird cases are when there's no literal truth that will properly reflect their feelings, so they just start saying whatever random stuff reflects their feelings. For example, I was talking about people at work and happened to mention a female name, so my girlfriend said, "Does she make more money than me? Did you sleep with her?" That meant she was a little insecure about being unemployed, and I should try to support her by not making any reference to the fact that there are, in fact, women with jobs.

[Dellort]

They want me to listen, I want them to shut the hell up. I think they should compromise and shut the hell up.