andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2006-01-27 12:35 am
andrewducker) wrote2006-01-27 12:35 am
Entry tags:
Frustration part 1
One of the many, many things I have done to annoy my various girlfriends is to treat their problems as things in search of a solution. They would come to me and say "X is wrong." and I would explain to them how to fix it.
Clearly, this is not what they were looking for, and they would find it very annoying that I would spend time trying to explain the patently obvious to them. What they were actually looking for was some emotional reassurance while they sorted it out themselves, which they were perfectly capable of doing so, if only someone would give them a hug, and tell them it would all be ok.
My problem is that when people come to me with their problems, I take them on as my own. If someone says "I can't do X." then I treat X as _my_ problem. I care about X. I worry about X. I desparately want to get X sorted. Knowing that X is out there, carrying on with it's wilful existence, makes me feel itchy and frankly I want it gone.
With some problems (other people's computers, for instance) this is fine - I can step in, fix the problem, receive a brief round of applause, and then relax.
Other problems, however, aren't so simple. They involve emotional situations which _aren't in my head_. They're in someone else's head, and no matter how much I want to lean over, flip open their head and fix the problem, I can't. Which means I get more and more frustrated, because I've taken on this problem and I'm not allowed to fix it. And then I make things worse by pressuring them to fix it, so that I can feel better again.
The question, then, is how to care about someone else's problem without taking ownership of it. I can do that intellectually, but if I actually _emotionally_ care about someone's problem, then I get sucked back into this horrible situation again, pressuring them to fix their problem, so that I can feel better again.
Hmmmm. Going to require more work, I think
Clearly, this is not what they were looking for, and they would find it very annoying that I would spend time trying to explain the patently obvious to them. What they were actually looking for was some emotional reassurance while they sorted it out themselves, which they were perfectly capable of doing so, if only someone would give them a hug, and tell them it would all be ok.
My problem is that when people come to me with their problems, I take them on as my own. If someone says "I can't do X." then I treat X as _my_ problem. I care about X. I worry about X. I desparately want to get X sorted. Knowing that X is out there, carrying on with it's wilful existence, makes me feel itchy and frankly I want it gone.
With some problems (other people's computers, for instance) this is fine - I can step in, fix the problem, receive a brief round of applause, and then relax.
Other problems, however, aren't so simple. They involve emotional situations which _aren't in my head_. They're in someone else's head, and no matter how much I want to lean over, flip open their head and fix the problem, I can't. Which means I get more and more frustrated, because I've taken on this problem and I'm not allowed to fix it. And then I make things worse by pressuring them to fix it, so that I can feel better again.
The question, then, is how to care about someone else's problem without taking ownership of it. I can do that intellectually, but if I actually _emotionally_ care about someone's problem, then I get sucked back into this horrible situation again, pressuring them to fix their problem, so that I can feel better again.
Hmmmm. Going to require more work, I think
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I don't think it's even that. I find it kind of odd that men get so confused about this, because I know men don't only talk about things they're happy with or that they need someone else to fix for them. If you get annoyed at other drivers, it doesn't help for me to say "If it upsets you like this, I think you should get rid of your car," or other ways to fix the "problem".
If I'm complaining, unless I specifically say something like "I don't know what to do about it," I'm just bitching. If someone starts trying to tell me what to do about it (especially if they're telling rather than offering suggestions) I generally feel patronised as hell. Partially because it is often a male/female thing, I think, which gives the impression that blokes think I need them to sort stuff out for me. But then, I'm stubborn, and won't let men help me build flat-pack furniture on principle, because they always think they know best :D
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Maybe it is just my own monstrous arrogance.
Not to say that I haven't had my moments when I was younger - teens/early 20's, but I can't recall any real instances since then.
And plenty of men do 'just bitching'!
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Unless the guy's a complete dolt, he'll likely pick up that you're just venting after a few times of being told. Getting pissed off and defensive because someone's trying to help is never going to help the situation. Even if a guy is laying out a plan of attack for your problem, 9 times out of 10, he's not trying to insult your intelligence. He's probably just trying to help, because he gives a damn.
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Every fiber of my being is wired so that if you relate a problem, I assume that you're doing so with the expectation of assistance. When I try to solve it, I'm not trying to prove that I'm better, or smarter, or any other weirdo social manuvering because I just don't work that way. I don't do social manuvering. I solve because the problem is there.
If you present a problem and you just want commiseration, that's fine, but there's a fairly large subset of people that don't communicate that way. Presenting a problem to us isn't a prompt for empathy. If empathy is your desired response, you'll get better results by making that plain to us. You show me an equation and I solve for X because "solve for X" is implied. "Give me a hug" is never implied by an equation.
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This is exactly why I married you.
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That problem is insoluble as currently phrased as it's based on the assumption that (A) all women want the same thing when they tell us their problems and (B) any given woman wants the same thing every single time she tells us her problems.
All I can do is respond consistently to try to achieve consistent results.
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Presumably you're making an assumption about what they want, and always applying that assumption. As that assumption seems to be the less likely one for women (not always, but it seems to be statistically so), it seems like an odd choice to make...
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And yet, according to the person who you're most commonly generating C for, you do it _wrong_ more often than not. Surely, in that case, you'd be best off changing how you generate C based on B each time, so that the odds were more in your favour?
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Why?
You're _guessing_ that that's what you should do when someone does that.
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You seem to be suggesting that I deviate from that predictable response and play the social mindgame where you say something that's only tangentially related to what you really mean and I try to figure out what response you're attempting to elicit.
I won't. That's not a rational way to communicate. All I ask is that if you want me to do something, you tell me. Why is that so arcane?
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Because they _have_ told you. You've been told that this behaviour is not what the other person wants. And yet you persist in it. I can only assume that (a)you're incapable of learning things and (b)you don't care about the feelings of the other person.
(And yes, I'm being hyperbolic, but not that much - if you've been told that when the person says "X" they are upset and looking for a response of Y to make them happy, and you persist in saying "Logic dictates that I respond with Z" then you're _deliberately_ failing to solve the problem "How do I make the woman I love happy.")
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Here are two solutions. One involves communicating openly and reasonably about desires and expectations. The other involves social posturing, emotional guesswork, and for someone who's not good at that sort of crap, ends in flaming wreckage.
I like the one where we just say what we want from each other. Is that really difficult?
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She doesn't say "I have a problem, please solve it for me, and give me no emotional support." She says "I have a problem." For some reason, you seem to think that these two statements are identical.
Why do you think this is?
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Saying "when I tell you a problem, ignore the problem, just say nice things and hug me" doesn't work for me. It's asking me to act in a way that's not just unusual, but actually repugnant.
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What the hell?
Yes, it used to bother me at first, because I had previously dated insensitive assholes who'd rather smile and nod and "isn't that precious?" or equally insensitive assholes who'd try and tell me exactly what I OUGHT to do.
Having someone who actually cared enough to think through the problems I was facing was relatively novel. I didn't understand the motivation at first, honestly, but Matthew is not only one of the brightest men I know, but he's also incredibly good-hearted. It didn't take long to recognize he wasn't condescending, he wasn't implying I couldn't come up with a viable solution. When hard times hit, some people hug. Some people bake casseroles and leave them on your doorstep. Others send flowers. Matthew's the kind of guy who glosses over all that extraneous stuff, but will bend over backwards to make the problem disappear.
I'm a big girl. I can solve my own problems. However, one of the million reasons why I married Matthew is because there's no one else on the planet I would rather brainstorm with. We both approach many things from wholly different perspectives, and sometimes, the best answer is somewhere in the middle. When you're as close as we are, one person's problems ARE your partner's problems, no matter how carefully you try to compartmentalize. If we didn't talk about and then suss out our issues, I don't think we'd be as strong of a couple as we are. We understand how the other thinks.
If I want a hug, if it isn't glaringly obvious, I'll ask for one, because he's not psychic. Sometimes, I want a hug while we figure out how to slay the latest dragon. Sometimes, I just want to vent. Most of the time, though, I tell Matthew things because while I know I can figure it out on my own, I like sharing my life with him. I don't see it as weakness or condescension or anything ridiculous like that: I see it as sensical, and desirable.
Re: What the hell?
And I'd have asked you how I'm asking your husband to do that, because I'm not understanding how I'm doing more than asking him about why he does something.
Re: What the hell?
I think it's not the "does he try to solve your problem" but "how does he try to solve your problem." You've encountered two different guys try to solve your problem in two different ways -- one you like, one you don't.
Oh, and is one of the most stupid things I've read this week. It's wrong on so many levels, I'm astounded.
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Which means he used to do something that bothered you. Despite knowing that it did. And what he could do to stop it.
Now, I'm not saying that this makes him a bad person (I mean, I used to do this a lot, and I'm sure I will do it in the future).
But when he's bull-headedly refusing to admit that his "problem-solving nature" isn't actually that, because if it was, he'd have solved the problem of how to deal with the woman he loves in the way she wanted to be dealt with (as opposed to you having the solve the problem of how to deal with him), then I moved to the devil's advocate position, because he seemed to be saying that you were clearly in the wrong, when I don't think you were.
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Man, I sure am bull-headed.
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But it doesn't make one way 'right' and one way 'wrong'. Pretty much any communication requires compromise, and I'm glad the pair of you found one that works for you. I just objected to you saying that you were only capable of dealing with things in one way. Because I'm sure that you're smart enough and capable enough to deal with things in another way, if you wanted to.