When I hit my 30s it’s like my body just stopped being and to digest alcohol correctly. I wouldn’t even call it a hangover. Just a lingering uncomfortable feeling my stomach and a more than usual number of trips to the bathroom for 24 hours after. Even if I only have a few beers.
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.
Does Harry Potter really fit in that category? It’s not exactly about a dystopian civilization that can only be saved by a random edgy teen who gets side tracked by awkward romances…never mind it fits.
As fas as I know, Y.A. isn’t about dystopias but rather a book marketed at young adults in general and oftens contains some kind of coming of age storyline
I think that’s an important thing that seems to get overlooked when this topic comes up. It’s a two-way street- if you just want to vent, be sure to say so. Don’t get upset when your partner doesn’t just assume that’s what you want.
Of course, the “two-way street” thing really needs to be emphasized, since the person venting is likely frustrated and can’t always be expected to be clearheaded enough to remember to communicate it properly. Also, if all they ever want to do is vent, y’know…maybe that’s a pattern you should pick up on eventually (the hypothetical “you,” of course. Not the person I’m specifically replying to :P)
For anyone struggling with this, two hints that might help you frame your role better:
Listening is the solution. By trying to solve what your SO told you, you are actually trying to solve the wrong problem. Their real problem is that their brain needs to say things aloud to someone in order to correctly process it's own thoughts. Therapists make a frickin' living off of that quirk of our brains and it's the actual problem they come to you with. Even better: By listening you can not only advise on solutions, you can be the solution! Neat, huh?
Listening and solving aren't mutually exclusive. If you stick to listening first, your SO might actually come to a point where your advice is wanted. Pro tip: Once their thoughts slow down, ask if they want to hear what you think about the issue. From my experience, the answer will be "yes" very often. That way, your thoughts will actually reach your SO and not get blocked by frustration outright. Yet, as with everything else: No means no. So if you get a no, don't try again, shut the fuck up, alright?
Or yet another way to look at it is that when people are venting it’s not the actual problem that they’re venting about it’s the uncomfortable emotions that come about as a result of problem. Very usually, someone is doing something that makes their lives harder but it is within a very specific environment, e.g. work, school, some kind of committee, where there are rules against settling disputes by right of arms. So even though I might have a really elegant solution for ‘solving’ that particular dispute, what I tend to be listening to long term tends to be, 'Coworkers… can’t live with 'em, can’t kill ‘em’. To which the correct answer is obviously not ‘You could solve that problem with Piranha Solution - removes organic material from the substrate’, it’s ‘Yes, we do have to put up with annoying people for a long time sometimes.’
In case you were seriously asking, “lighter fluid” is just fuel/gas to quickly (an accelerant) start a fire. So the fuel you might find in a cigarette lighter. Typically when people say “lighter fluid”, in this case, they mean the giant squirt bottle that you use on a barbecue pit to get the coals to light faster.
If feel like us guys are at a disadvantage here. All our lives were are told not to complain unless we bring a solution, not to cry, get up, keep moving.
Then suddenly the thought pattern we have been trained on all our lives turns out to not be healthy for supporting others and it’s a hard transition to make when we want so desperately to help and are asked not to.
Yes, but there's a disconnect between helping directly and helping indirectly. Listening is indirect help, passive help. It's helping simply by existing, which is antithetical to the above commenters train of logic.
I'm not saying you're wrong, or that it's not something that people should learn to do... but it's not always something you can solve by making that connection.
Many people don’t want advice and that’s fine. I complain not because I want them to fix it but because it helps me organize my thoughts and verify that my complaints are valid so that I can see if it’s something I can fix myself, often though complaining about bad things that I cannot fix. I am perfectly capable of handling problems as an adult, but people need to vent so they can actually focus on a solution.
Listening is indirect help, passive help. It’s helping simply by existing
Not in my experience. The listener is helping the speaker organize their thoughts, work through their feelings, and (in some cases) decide on a course of action. The listener needs to ask questions, understand the speaker, and help them sort things out.
In a spouse or friend situation, the listener is probably also providing emotional support. Which can be immensely helpful, since it validates the speaker.
There’s also follow up. The listener should talk to the speaker and see how their feelings have evolved.
I think my problem is also we’re told to be empathetic and emotionally present. So what we’re being asked to do is suffer alongside without being able to alleviate the suffering.
I find this much more difficult than solving whatever the problem is, because, maybe I’m weird, but I feel pretty much all the suffering around me as if it’s happening to me, and especially when it’s my wife suffering.
I was way too old when I learned that you should ask if someone wants advice or just wants to vent. “Are we fixing or bitching?” is what I ask my best friend nowadays and it’s made us less likely to butt heads when one of us just wants to talk shit to get it out.
I know it’s not like this for everyone but I have a 3.5 year old and he is what provides me the energy to keep going and brings me so much joy. Sure, I boot up the Steam Deck about 3-5 hours a week but my multi-hours gaming sessions I don’t miss at all.
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