[scoofy]

People are allowed to care about what they care about, I think you're right there.

My only point is that, for me, if I'm discussing a subject where I'm exasperated and am complaining in a questioning way, say (to take a random example):

>Why are my local supervisors are advocating and incentivizing return to office!?! Having to go into the office is pointless and terrible!

Suppose this policy seems insane to me, and I can only suggest that it is happening because my local politicians are corrupt jerks who only care about corporate interests.

But, now, suppose that someone in the conversation is a municipal finance nerd and believes that since dangerous local budget deficits are being driven by work from home policies, that city finances and looming cuts to important services might be what is pushing the return to office mandates, not is something the politicians want, but as a kind of compromise.

So, for me personally, I very much want this person to suggest new paradigm as an alternative explanation. I many not be satisfied with the explanation, but it has more explanatory power than "the politicians are crazy" theory that I currently hold.

I have found, however, that a huge number of folks that would pose these questions aren't actually looking for an explanation, they are just trying to express their frustration, and seek reassurance that they are in good company and are being heard. If that's what people want, I'm now happy to oblige them. I just don't understand why they would want that from the conversation, but to each their own.

[t-writescode]

I’m someone who operates in both modes on the receiving end, so I think I can answer some of this.

I’m going to come at it from a slightly different angle, but I think the spirit will get there.

Sometimes, I’ve been working on troubleshooting my PC for hours already. I’m tired. I’m angry because I’ve spent all that mental capital, etc., so I come to friends to rant a little bit.

And then they start offering solutions. Solutions I’ve definitely already tried. Solutions that don’t work for a multitude of reasons that I’m not expressing because, again, I already spent hours on this. But they keep blasting me with troubleshooting tips and “have you tried this yet?” and “what’s the text say in this folder?”

But I’m already at my wits end, and now they’re wanting me to keep pushing, to do more labor to solve the problem. A problem I don’t want solved. I just want someone to hear my struggle and go “that sucks man, let’s have a beer”.

For me, sometimes it’s “I’m out of spoons”, sometimes it’s “I just want someone to see *my* struggle, too”. Sometimes I want to be validated for my current plight.

And when I’m reached with solutions and/or explaining, at the wrong time, sometimes that can be very invalidating.

In circumstances like this, when I’m on the end where I want to be the fixer or the explainer, I’ll even ask, “do you want fixer me? Or just company?”

You don’t have to lie and say XYZ are bad for that; but you can instead say something like “oh yeah that sucks when you’re already doing all this elsewhere”. Because it does suck. Even if it has a logical reason, it does suck.

Edit: Okay, I want to add a bit more. When someone is stressed or exhausted to a high enough degree, they literally cannot range in new information, no matter how well-meaning. So sometimes the commiseration and/or presence without offering solutions is just one of many steps to help them relax enough that they can even *hear* the new thought or suggestion. As well-meaning as advice or a reality check can be in those situations, until the stress is reduced, it’s literally falling on deaf ears.

[Fr0styMatt88]

When I find myself feeling like that, a good reframe I like using is to turn those comments into commiseration; “What about trying A?” — “Yeah it’s f*ked aye, I tried A, B and C and it STILL didn’t work!”.

[oddly]

I usually ask people straight at that point whether they want solutions for me or if they just want me to listen with empathically. Depends on the person how I bring this though, but it tends to work.

[calf]

Why can't it be the other way around, you don't know that I am out of spoons too and rather than talk about why I am out spoons I should not be expected to validate other people's vibes or spoonfeed them... And so forth.

As an exhausted person the issue is not being given advice. It is being given wrong, ignorant, or inappropriate advice.

[t-writescode]

How does someone know what is wrong, ignorant, inappropriate advice without first finding out from you, through communication, what kind of state you’re in and what you’ve already tried.

And if the “listener” / fixer is in a state where they can’t do the work of finding out what kind of help and/or fixing is needed, then maybe *they* need to step back and have a break, too.

In my experience, fixers tend to completely miss the cues of “please stop word-vomitting at me, you’re not helping” and continue offering unsolicited suggestions. And then it’s my job, as the person that was talked at, to make them feel better, *further* exhausting my current state.

The solution to both of our problems is to ask and listen and hear. And then move forward. It’s true, we both exist. (Though I would argue that sometimes “bad advice” is just “advice I already tried, or that doesn’t work, but you don’t know that because you didn’t ask”).

And the solution to both is setting ground rules about what each person in the conversation can give and is expected to give.

If a fixer can’t empathize for a bit, and that’s what the other person needs, they should be allowed to step out of the conversation, too.

Context, as always, is basically everything.

[calf]

Well that's the basis of rationalism. Many important truths don't depend on the details of someone's state or someone's life history. To require it is to commit an ad hominem and destroys rationalism.

For example whether to drink alcohol is entirely unsafe at any level, according to the WHO. Expressing this as common knowledge is a counterexample of the popular heuristic to "listen to people's context".

Communicative empathy is still a heuristic, it is not an absolute rule. There are times when the message really is more important than how it is being conveyed. And actually people who run out of spoons know that all too well.

[scoofy]

I mean, I understand what you're saying. I guess the main way I can explain it isn't in any idealized case, but in the transitional case.

I completely agree that people might not be looking for a solution in a discussion. My point is that transitioning from a place where there are plenty of people, having plenty of discussions, and ideas flow freely back and forth is normal and welcome. And then moving to a place where people have plenty of discussions, but more often than not, ideas flowing back and forth are treated with outright hostility...

I mean, for me, it was very obviously a completely jarring transition. It's not that there are times when solutions aren't welcome. It's that the vast majority of the time, with the vast majority of people, alternative paradigms aren't welcome.

[t-writescode]

I suppose I’ve found myself lucky when many* people are open to new and even contradictory ideas, one on one**, and when they feel respected and calm.

* but definitely not all

** because there’s no more ego, status nor hierarchy to defend.

[ttd]

Incoming wall of text, because this is topic that hits close to home for me, and I've spent a lot of time in the last few years exploring it. So, knowing absolutely nothing about you or your life or how it compares to my own, I'll proceed.

I personally agree with you. I want that municipal finance nerd to speak up and tell me that as well. I think I get a little jolt of endorphins whenever I learn something new, so for me there's actually almost a physical draw to people who can give that to me. I wonder if it's the same for you.

I think you're describing a position of resignation on your part: you've almost sort of given up, and tried to convince yourself that you're ok obliging people in the surface level conversation that they seem to want. And I suspect, resigned yourself to the fact that most people you meet day-to-day won't be able to give you those little endorphin boosts.

I struggled on this path myself. First: recognizing that you seem to want more from conversations than most other people are willing/able to give. Second: finding that your mind, which naturally draws you to learning new information, is not the mind that everyone has. Third: developing almost a sort of disdain for people who you find do not meet your imagined bar. Fourth: identifying the disdain and feeling bad about it. Fifth: telling yourself that ok, you'll just give up looking for it and also you'll stop being disdainful towards others for not being able to give it.

The sixth part is the first big leap: realizing that it's not that you want more from conversations, you want different. And what is engaging for you is not necessarily engaging for someone else. And that neither of you is righter or wronger in that.

The seventh, hard part that I suspect you may not have gotten to yet. You can't expect that people can give you the kind of connection you're looking for, that they can scratch that itchy brain of yours, without first allowing yourself to truly believe that their mind is just as deep and rich as your own, and accept that it's just rich and deep in different ways. The challenge, then, is to stop asking yourself "what is it that I have that all these other people don't seem to have" and start asking "what am I missing? what are all these other people experiencing that I am not?"

If it helps, you can consider it an intellectual challenge. Try to really empathize, imagine what it's physically like to exist in their body. Force your brain to consider the fact that in this moment, in this conversation, their experience may actually be richer than yours - just in ways that you can't, by default anyway, see.

[watwut]

> municipal finance nerd and believes that since dangerous local budget deficits are being driven by work from home policies, that city finances and looming cuts to important services might be what is pushing the return to office mandates, not is something the politicians want, but as a kind of compromise.

I mean, in that case, the municipality needs to get rid of that nerd asap. And the companies can and should push against that nerd asap.