Venting. Looking for empathy. I dunno. This is all like relationship 101 stuff, isn’t it? When my wife comes to me with a problem – and I hear this is typical – she’s usually not looking for solutions unless she specifically asks me for my help. This is one of those things I picked up on a long time ago that, unless specifically asked (or you know the person well enough to ascertain), just shut up and listen, and don’t offer advice or “solutions.” Same with me. If I want help solving a problem, I will ask for help. I’m usually just venting along about my day or whatnot.
I’ll just leave this here before someone else does!
I think it’s fair to say that part of the problem is that it’s just not always easy to accept unsolicited advice, but especially if it is perceived as critique.
Good post. It is also a truism about male/female discourse. Men typically don’t want to sit there and empathize, they want to fix the problem, and coincidentally get her to shut up about her emotions, which make them uncomfortable. She gets pissed because all she asked for was a sympathetic ear, not someone to tell her what to do.
“But all I’m trying to do is help!”
“I didn’t ask for you to take over and make it your job!”
Mutual incomprehension.
One of the things I finally learned is that when a (usually) female friend starts talking to me about a problem they’re having I will, given the chance, ask something along the lines of, “Do you want to talk to me about this while I listen sympathetically without offering suggestions, do you want me to offer opinions or suggestions about it, or is there something you would like me to do to help you?” Depending on my relationship or past experience with this person, sometimes I will know what they want without having to ask, but even then sometimes I might need clarification.
Is ever so slightly different from the title:
In your experience, how often does ‘Why don’t you just…’ actually mean ‘I have not fully grasped the problem’
But answering for myself, yes, I’d say about 80% or higher. But there’s a lot of different reasons for the “not fully understanding.” One of the most common (that I didn’t see mentioned in this thread) is that especially if it’s a complicated scenario, the listener just Stopped listening early on. Either didn’t care, weren’t interested, or the like. A very closely related scenario is that they stopped listening early on because they had decided on what was the “best solution” and are thinking about that solution, and how they’re going to explain it to YOU when it’s their turn to talk, which similarly leads them to only hearing part of the scenario.
It’s part and parcel of the whole (and fully valid) side discussion we’re having on the use of “just” in the response. It’s about the other person winning the “argument” for their fix, rather than actually listening fully.
Or they have problems with an easy solution that is right in front of them, but they won’t do it.
I don’t think so. Advice that fails to adequately address the situation is a common outcome of not fully grasping the problem (or indeed failing in the grasp so fully as to misunderstand that there even is a problem).
Both of the examples you gave were incomplete understanding of the problem (albeit for different causes, but ultimately, not grasping the fullness of it)
My parents are like this. When I say something, they already bite their lips, start nodding impatiently, waiting for me to end so they can finally blurt out what they were already intending to say all along - regardless of what I was actually telling them, and typically not hearing.
I have a good friend who does this. He used to be in sales, and seems to have a subconscious need to keep his persuasion skills sharp.
Example: I play music (acoustic guitar and singing). One day last year, I couldn’t sing due to a cold, so I had another musician fill in for me.
When I told my friend, he asked me, “Why don’t you just play instrumental?”
A reasonable question. I answered by explaining that while some very accomplished guitarists can play an entire show of instrumental music (Chet Atkins, John Fahey, classical guitarists, et all), it’s a very different (and IMO more difficult) skill than using the guitar to accompany one’s voice, as I do. Not something one can put together overnight. At least, not something I could do. Also, most audiences respond much better to an average singer accompanying themself on guitar than a really good guitar player playing instrumental.
I remembered that he had taken piano lessons when he was young. So I explained that the guitar is a less versatile instrument than the piano at playing multiple simultaneous parts. When I strum or pick accompaniment on guitar, I have many fewer places to play the melody. A piano player has two independent hands, and 88 keys.
His response: “Why don’t you just play instrumental?”
Sigh.
OK, suppose you go to a diner every day and get pie and coffee for five dollars. One day they bring you coffee, but no pie. You ask where the pie is. They tell you, ‘There’s no pie today. That’ll be five bucks’.
Would you be OK with that?
He admitted he would not.
I think he overestimated how much he knew about the details, and when he realized it, his persuasion instinct took over.
I once had a supervisor like this. Whenever I told him about a problem, he would look at me frustratingly and say, “Well why don’t you just do this? And why don’t you just do that?” He would never contemplate the problem and consider the complexities of the situation. It also allowed him to quickly assert that he’s wise and all-knowing, and that I’m an imbecile.
Also — what happens later?
Say I sit there and empathize, while (a) thinking of a possible solution but (b) striving to say nothing about how to fix the problem. Yay, me! They didn’t get pissed, because they asked for a sympathetic ear, and not someone to tell them what to do, and that happened!
And so they struggle for another day, or another week, or whatever, while I keep my mouth shut about solving the problem but, gosh, my eyes are so soulful, y’know? And then someone else points out what’s been obvious to me all along, and the problem is solved.
If it stops there, well, okay.
But: what happens if — heaven forbid — I then get asked about that? Do I lie, with a dishonest no, that hadn’t occurred to me? Or do I say yeah, I knew that all along, but I didn’t want to tell you and either look like I’m lying or look like I’m telling the truth?
Which of those is worse?
You sound like you think you are so much more capable than your partner that you can hardly bear not handling her life for her. I’d want to stab you in the eye with a fork.
Ever try, “I’m seeing a possible solution, are you interested in hearing it?” That’s not an introduction to barging in with your solution, it’s an actual question.
That’s AFTER reflecting the other person’s feelings, using sentences like “I am guessing that you are feeling x because y, is this accurate?” And AFTER you ask “do you think I’ve got a good understanding of what you’re going through?”
Please google: Nonviolent Communication. It sounds like you and your partner have a habitual pattern of resentment and misunderstanding. I’d work on fixing that if I were you. No, it isn’t up to her to change first.
I think one of the most important successes of modern software development, is that question “why don’t we just…?” is answered way early in the planning, and via commitee.
I know planning by committee gets a bad rap, but when I sit with my team brainstorming a problem, “why don’t we just…” gets a thorough interrogation. Sometimes the suggestion is right for the solution. Sometimes not.
“Why don’t we just…?” from someone not on the team also gets an evaluation, but probably gets a lower appraisal than suggestions from the actual team doing the the actual work.
This is comedy gold.
I don’t believe I said anything about it being my partner in that scenario. I also don’t believe I said anything about it being habitual; it could well be that I happen to have the solution to this one problem, even while they’ve quite possibly known the solution to two or three or more that I’d had a hard time with.
If it’d help for me to provide hypothetical specifics — and change up some stuff, to maybe avoid a ‘stab you in the eye with a fork’ communication from you — how about this?
Say I have a coworker who has repeatedly come up with solutions to problems that were giving me a real hard time, Say, too, that said coworker mentions that they’re coming up on their third strike for a problem at work: they’ve been given a couple of warnings, and if it happens again, they’ll be fired. And I sit there and empathize with a sympathetic ear, and a week later they get fired. And as I’m again sitting there and empathizing with a sympathetic ear at the bar, a mutual acquaintance of ours comes over and hears the story and his eyes go wide as saucers as he says (a) he was in the same kind of situation a month ago, but (b) I let him know how to solve the problem. What happens next? Does someone at the table now want to [checks notes] stab me in the eye with a fork?
So amazingly context matters!
Yeah, “why don’t you just” can be the advice of a mentor or respected co-worker going into collaborative brainstorming mode, it could be condescension or hubris, it could be honest engagement in learning, someone just not listening, and it can be crossed communication wires hearing a request for intellectual engagement of some sort when the point was a feelings interaction. I usually experience the honest engagement. YMMV.
Probably a good rule of thumb is not to offer advice unless it is clearly wanted. And to not be afraid to ask if it is wanted if we aren’t sure. Even when we are the relative experts.
Who asked you?
Agreed.
Also, one thing that is really hard to gauge is: how many people, before me, might have suggested this? Imagine you’re digging a hole next to a public footpath, and you’ve already figured out your tools and approach and you’ve dug a thousand holes in your lifetime and you’re pretty good at it. If everyone who walks by says “Why don’t you just use the pick and shovel instead of the post-holer?”, “Why don’t you just grip the spade like this instead of like that?”, “Why don’t you just get inside the hole and dig it from the bottom upwards?” etc. That’s going to become tiresome and unwelcome really fast.
Well played. 
Personally when digging a hole I don’t grip. I gripe.
Why don’t you just shut your yap and concentrate on digging? It’ll get done faster!