Emotional support

[andrewducker]

I still find it odd, even after all this time, to be emotionally supporting someone.

I'm pretty much defined by my logicality and befuddlement at peoples emotions (even though I have them myself), and all the understanding I have is from hard work, observation and practice, it almost never comes naturally. So to find myself, again, being the person that provides the emotional support for someone in need is puzzling to me.

Surely there are people out there that are better at this kind of thing and have more intuitive understanding of what's necessary?

Surely it's obvious that I'm not ideal for this kind of 'work'.

So why does it keep happening to me?

Comments

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

Probably because you listen to people, and offer them a point of view that they wouldn't otherwise have. I suspect that the first is more important than the second.

At least, that's my theory for why I keep being emotional support, as I have a tendency to be bluntly, baldly honest, and I won't put up with people feeding me bullshit and seeking sympathy. They don't get sympathy; they get answers. "Why don't people seem to like me?" is a very dangerous question to ask me.

But yeah: I know that of which you speak. :)

Are you sure?

[andrewducker]

You give solutions rather than emotional support?

Are you sure you're female?

I wish more people wanted answers rather than emotional support. I vastly prefer giving the former over the latter. I've gotten better at offering support thoughh, as I realised what people wanted.

Re: Are you sure?

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

I promise; I'm a chick. Sweartagod.

I just don't have any sympathy for people who just want pity without working on getting out of the situation that makes them need pity. Because dammit, I crawled out of a lot of bad situations in my time, completely on my own, you should be able to do it too.

Which means that 'emotional support' for me consists of a lot of nodding, a lot of smiling, a lot of physical or metaphorical patting on the hand, and after about 20 minutes, the zinger of the question that just puts it all into perspective. At least that's what I aim for. And no, people don't want the answers, but they by God get them anyway.