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by photonemitter 2402 days ago
This is covered in the book «games people play» (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book)) under the name «why don’t you? yes, but...»

In some cases People aren’t looking for the advice/solution, as much as the recognition that they have a problem... person A tells a problem, person B suggests ways to resolve the problem, to which person A has to give/come up with a reason why that solution won’t do. We then repeat this until a stalemate is reached, and everybody can acknowledge that person A is justified in their feelings about having a problem...

So on the flip side; your example seems to be a misinterpretation of this game. I.e. some person who’s played this game, and learned that this is what to do, meets a frustration where you’re not playing along with it... (maybe)

Short order solution; don’t play that game with people who don’t have a healthy relationship with frustrating problems.

1 comments

Bernian games are situations where the initiator is looking for a pay-off (eg. validation). The parent's comment is not about such a situation.