My mother is a steel woman, rational and calm, no bitching, no crying, there is a problem? fix it. You need something? say it, don’t expect others to guess. Words are empty, you care? See what that person needs and help them. Not a fan of corny things, you want love? There is this delicious food, and a hug, now grow up and keep going.
Aaand everything she taught me, has put me at odds with every women I have dated.
love languages. Even an action can be relatively empty, in the short term. For some people, physical action takes less effort than emotional, empathetic work due to the potential emotional discomfort involved and/or the vulnerability required. Different people need different things, this is often due to our experiences as children.
They key is to do both. Listen intentently, respond with something like “wow that sucks, would you like a hug?” And then while hugging say something like “is there anything I can do to help you with this?”
That’s what will give you your answer. If she says “no” then just let it be. If she says “I don’t know” help to guide her to the solution. Ask “what do you think could be done to make it better?” And let the pieces fall in place.
Even if you know the answer, it’s better to let people come up with it on their own. They’ll feel understood and empowered, and you won’t get shit on for being calous. Everyone wins
I let you in on a secret: these type of people exist in every gender. So do people who are sensitive and emotional. Stereotypes and sexism about that is dumb. Believing anecdotal evidence speaks for a whole group of people is dumb as well.
What works if someone has a preference is to look early into how a person ticks. Instead of focusing on stereotypes and other superficial assumptions (for example).
Since you are a rational person and not just emotionally reacting, I bet you have a credible source for these blanket statements. Can you name one, please? Because I can’t find even one.
Are you getting triggered or something? Yes my mother is that way, but in contrast my father is pretty much a manchild, can’t keep control of his emotions.
All the women I have dated doesn’t include you, so stop proyecting yourself on that statement. Maybe I feel attracted to those kind of people in virtue of my own emotional simplicity, just like her. It’s all anecdotal evidence, never claimed that’s the way the world works nor I believe it is. If people read my statement and starts believing that is the way the world works, not my problem.
More anecdotal evidence: when you don’t know what are you going to eat today you don’t have time for bitching and moaning, not first world poverty, but abject third world poverty.
I forgot who, but someone told me i should ask; “do you need an ear or a solution” whenever people come rant about anything. Best tips i heard in a while.
Yes, I started doing this as well with my GF. If she is describing a problem at work or whatever I ask “Do you want me to tell you how I would fix this, or do you just want me to listen?” and like 75% of the time she already knows what to do and just wants me to listen to the problem and then when she is done she feels better because she got to vent, but sometimes she really does want an answer. It works out good for both of us.
Rubber ducking, not just for programmers. Listen, acknowledge what you're hearing, ask open ended questions (not leading), and learn from and about their experience. You'll grow closer and both people can gain a lot from it.
I don’t think it’s fair to expect your significant other to act as an inanimate object and receive your frustrations without reacting like they normally would. It’s great if you have that kind of relationship, but forcing it is not ok.
You are not supposed to be an inanimate object. You’re supposed to listen, acknowledge, talk about the topic at hands. Empathize, ask questions to better understand the problem. Show interest in your significant other, show them you care about what is upsetting them.
Sometimes people get stuck on the “have you tried the most basic and simplest answer?” questions and it’s frustrating as hell. You can just ask “wanna brainstorm about it?”, at least you’re setting the mood in the right direction.
If you are asking what rubber ducking is, it’s the practice of explaining your issues to a toy as if it were a coworker. Explaining your issues to a coworker forces you to organise your thoughts and problems so that wherever you tell makes sense, and a lot of times the act of organising pushes you to vetch the fault in your logic, or the issue that needs fixing, the missing part…
I feel bad for my rubber ducky. It still helps though! The number of support/bug report emails that never get sent because I figured it out from the same thought process is not 0. I read this once, but talking/thinking about the problem, just the problem, for 5+ minutes before trying to come up with solutions can be really helpful.
Not really, I just info dump my partner on my coffee break and since she’s not a dev, the process of simplifying the issue so she somewhat understands and shortening it so she doesn’t get too bored is helpful enough.
I didn’t realize that I do this to machine operators at work when their machine is broken, thanks for this!
Explaining something as complicated as “Why Your Machine is Fucked and Now You Have to Sweep” to someone lacking the decade of training and experience I have is like a compulsion sometimes.
Also known as being a good listener. Ideally it goes back and forth, too. But there’s a time and a place for everyone to take on the listener/encourager role.
What do you mean? That’s what the comment ‘boomer meme/humour’ is referring to for example, that this meme appeals primarily to people born during the post WWII baby boom.
Everybody is different - you haven’t figured out the one simple trick to avoid hangovers. Drinking lots of water is like, the most common thing to do and 99% of people still get bad hangovers
Truthfully, I have mixed results when it comes to drinking these days. Sometimes, it’s fine. I drink a few beer, get a nice buzz and wake up totally fine. It’s really only once or twice I had the situation I mentioned above where I hardly drank anything and woke up hungover anyway. In those cases, I didn’t chug a bunch of water because I assumed since I wasn’t feeling the effects at all, I’d be fine. If I am buzzed or verging on drunk, then I will chug a liter or something. Though for me, it’s 50/50 on whether that prevents a hangover. I don’t like those odds. It just seems more and more like the short buzz and euphoria it brings more and more often isn’t worth the chance of ruining the next day. Especially given how much shittier your system gets at handling this stuff as you get older.
As I’ve gotten older I realized that, even though I like the occasional drink, it’s just not worth it to me any more. I find myself drinking less and less. Almost never at this point.
I’ve also noticed my friends and family are a lot more fun to hang out with when they are not drinking than when they are. People get so loud and obnoxious when they drink. They think they are fun and funny but they’re really just annoying.
Dang! Bill Westlake no less! Me and Bill Westlake fist-fought each other in junior high school and again shortly after we’d both graduated from highschool in our shitty northern California ag-town.
We hated each other back then, but I feel nothing but brotherly feels for him now, 30 years later.
I hope you are thriving Bill Westlake. I hope you have done well in life and I feel no animosity toward you whatsoever.
I don’t think asking questions can ever be a bad thing, really, especially if you’re not cutting anyone off. That’s not in counter to the post, or anything, I just think it’s generally a very good idea. You can honestly listen to someone with questions, and it shows that you’re thinking about their problems in a way that’s more real than just like, making eye contact, saying garbage platitudes, and then kind of being like the human equivalent of a teddy bear or some sort of comfort object for someone. A well directed question can often get more to the root of the problem more than anything else, I think. You can also direct people around with questions, but that’s maybe best left for your good faith actual listeners, rather than people who just want to abuse their question-asking so they can direct someone towards what they think the solution is.
I dunno. people are just like. Not good listeners, at all. I’m not, most of the time, I like to think that I’m decent at it when there’s something that matters, but then I also have a pretty big brainfog whenever this shit happens, and I forget to ask questions sometimes, which really, really, impairs your ability to comprehend the whole situation. The biggest thing is just trying to piece everything together, right, that’s a good use of your conscious thought. A bad use of your conscious thought is thinking about what you’re gonna say next, or remembering whatever like. scripted response you’ve come up with for this scenario, slotting this scenario into a specific “problem” set that you’re gonna pretend that you’ve already solved.
On the flip-side, I do find it kind of annoying when you ask someone some question like “well have you tried talking to them?”, and they interpret that as “what do you think I’m STUPID do you think I haven’t TRIED THAT!”, when usually the purpose of a question like that is more like “what was the result when you talked to them?”. It’s to spurn on more context, it’s a platform to vent more, basically. The language of the question could be more precise, yes, but oftentimes people are so used to not being talked to and engaged with as human beings, that they kind of default to taking every question as a bad faith attack on their intelligence as a sort of defense mechanism, or something. It’s kind of annoying, and when that happens you have to deliberately be more precise and be more careful to get across explicitly that you’re invested in their life, but it’s just like. It’s just a thing I’ve noticed that people do sometimes, I guess, what I’m saying is, be on the lookout for that more. Don’t get mad when/if that happens, just be like, oh, my bad, sorry, that’s not really what I meant to say, I meant to say (insert more precise and carefully worded question here).
That’s it, that’s all I got.
edit: Actually it wasn’t. Most of the time, the solutions you’re proposing are garbage, and your partner (usually, unfortunately, could be whoever you’re talking to) is elevating the conversation to a more top down view of why all your solutions suck. The reason it’s important to ask questions is because the problems everyone is having are usually more complex than the solution you can come up with in five seconds. People aren’t like, “how do I fix my toilet”, and then you just tell them to turn off the water. The problems people have are way more complicated than that. At least give it five minutes of listening, you will be impressed by the results.
Because you are making an assumption that they did talk to them. Most people avoid confrontation whenever possible(in my experience).
People often need to vent when they are overfrustrated by not being able to resolve a problematic scenario, or are not able to remove themselves from being around the situation that is causing them the stress(like when co workers are being toxic af at each other and keep.dragging you into it and you are stuck working next to it all day because your desk is in the same area etc)
comicstrips
Active
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.