Hmm well where to start…
It is my nature to try to help people- I don’t like to see people upset and
will often try to comfort them or make them feel a little better in some
way or another. Often that is by giving advise/suggestions/ideas if I
can. These suggestions are just that- suggestions. I’m not saying they’re
right or wrong, I’m mostly just trying to provide support and show that I
understand and care how you feel.
It’s never my intention to tell people what to do, only to provide other
perspectives that they may not have thought of because they are too close
to the situation. If you don’t feel like advise at the time, just say that
it’s not the right time- I can understand that.
Please don’t get miffed, I won’t be hurt if you’re not in the mood to hear
suggestions…
Normally when I offer advise, I put a disclaimer on it stating that if you
don’t want advise just ignore me (paraphrased). Sorry I didn’t ask you
beforehand if you want advise, in the future I’ll abstain unless you ask for it.
So other than that… Glad you’re feelin better today! What’d you do today?
ttyl, ShaeAt 07:05 PM 3/27/02 -0800, you wrote:
>Hmmm… what to write? There is so much swirling around in my head
>right now, I’m almost afraid to give free rein to it! (thus my
>insanity, y’know) But this is not helping… gotta think… blah blah
>blah… freaking preambles that make no sense whatsoever… and which
>he will not even read, nor pay attention to…>
>Yeah, so why am I writing this at all? I know I have something to
>say, otherwise I wouldn’t be emailing you. (and yes, what I have to
>say is directed at you, and not someone else)>
>Oh yes, now I remember. It might have seemed like I was taking my
>anger and various other assorted emotions out on you yeaterday, and
>indeed that might have been the case, but only for a little bit. I
>gave you the link with no idea of how you’d react, or even if you’d
>react at all. However, I was not in the mood for advice, which you
>gave me. I realize that I did not communicate this to you at all
>prior to giving you the link, and for that, I apologize. If you
>detected that I was maybe a little miffed at you, that supposition
>would have been correct at the time. Now, I am not… mainly because I
>talked to someone else about this.>
>As for the advice that you said you were going to give me, had I been
>willing to hear it, I’m not going to say “lay it on me, dude!” Not
>because I don’t want to hear advice from you at all… just that I
>still don’t think I’d be able to apply it straight away. Besides,
>there might be still one tiny corner of my mind that wants to block
>all helpful advice from you. (yes, I’m trying to kill that off :P)>
>Now, to get to the core issue here: yesterday, I was NOT in the mood
>for advice, and today was a slightly different mattter. I went back
>to my rant, read peoples’ replies (a mix of advice, support, flames,
>etc.), and did what I thought was appropriate: replied to what they
>put. If I felt better after posting the rant yesterday, I definitely
>feel much better now. I posted it up on the board, talked to a friend
>about it this afternoon, posted more stuff up on the board, etc. So
>right now I am NOT going to bite your head off if you reply to this
>email and ask how I am. (or at least, I don’t think so)>
>That said, I am probably still more receptive to support. sympathy,
>empathy, etc. than I am to advice, but I’m feeling more “rational”
>about it today. My abject apologies if I somehow offended you last
>night. I just wanted to make sure you knew my feelings on this. Maybe
>I’ll talk to you later if you get this… if not, there’s always some
>other time!>>P.S. I did mean what I said yesterday… but this is just a “toning
>down” of it. And I meant the character description, too.>
>P.P.S. This is a hard issue for me, so yes… sometimes I do need
>space! (oh, and please respect that… and don’t bring it up out of
>the blue!) I’m just sending this now before I change my mind.
Yeah. It’s what we do. Sorry.
We’re trained from an early age to “take charge”. If there’s a problem, fix it. And fix it now!
Oh yeah, and emotions and empathy and crap like that are all sissy things. We don’t need 'em.
(And it’s really hard to beat all the early training.)
But we can squish bugs and open jars. It’s all a trade-off.
-Rue.
Hi Flamsterette,
If you want to offer advice, always test the temperature of the water before you jump in.
Could I make a simple request from you? when you are composing a post, remember that the “Your Reply” window is not the same width as the comment window. you dont have to press “return” at the end of every line. It would help with the scan and the readability of your posts.
Yep, it’s just what men do. My husband and I argue about it all the time, when I have something to get off my chest, he tries to fix everything, it bothers me because, I don’t want a solution, I just want to talk about it.
Okay, so I should really have clicked “preview” before going to bed! I didn’t realize that the whole top part and bottom part of my original message was deleted! (and it was well within the character limit, too!) As it happens, I still can’t sleep for nothing! So maybe I can do it again… sigh!
Sorry about that, as I didn’t know that the window or computer software would delete most things off my post… it had a LOT more quoted material than this, and I believe it was even formatted correctly! The reason it looks like that is that I was originally copying and pasting from an email, and I tried to get rid of the arrows and everything else! Seriously, I did! So I’m sorry for any reading problems you may have had; it was probably partly my fault for not hitting the preview button.
Now, to do this all again… 
I have been trying to practice Not Giving Advice, but rather listening and giving the ol “uh huh” type of support. It is difficult, but seems to be working.
There are certian differences in how men and women (In General, note: this does not apply to all men or women) deal with problems.
When men present a problem, aggrivation etc… we are generaly looking for a solution, so, when we are presented with a problem by someone else we start to offer possible solutions.
When women present a problem (in general), they often want sympathy, not a solution (perhaps because they are smart enough to come up with a solution on their own?).
I have run into the same problem before and have used the above as a fairly good guide as to how to react.
Just my 2 cents.
This is what the original post was supposed to look like: (with editing and everything else)
Is it generally typical of men to just offer solutions and advice as comfort? I swear I read something like this in “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” a few years back. The reason I ask this is that I don’t know if I’m overreacting or not… I gave one of my ICQ “friends” (who I’d say I trust fairly well) the link to my family rant, and he said he’d look at it. The next thing I see on my screen is this:
Since I was decidedly NOT in the mood for advice at the time, I replied with this:
After that, he replied with:
I processed that for a while before responding that I wasn’t really in the mood for advice in regards to a rant right then (damn well not in the mood for it), and that while he could give me a ramble on techniques and such, I’d probably just ignore it… considering the frame of mind I was in!
He responded by saying that he knew and understood that I needed some space, and he respected that; I needn’t worry about his pressing any further. I told him that he was perspicacious (insightful); a while later, he bid me good night. Since I wasn’t MAD at him per se, I also bid him good night.
I spent the next day just thinking about things, and being grateful for the space that I had given myself. Later on, I decided to email him for clarification purposes:
Later on, I saw that he had replied to my email:
So what I want to know is whether it is generally typical for men to offer comfort under the guise of advice and solutions. Not that I’m not in the mood for advice… if I wasn’t, I highly doubt I’d be posting this. As it happens, I went back to my rant, and discovered some good advice there (which, by that time, I was at least ready to process and internalize).
P.S. Before anyone asks… yes, I know that if I want to get a further handle on how my “friend” would react, I’d have to ask him to provide more details! All I really want to know is if there are more men who react like this, so maybe the men (and women) of the board can help me on this. Not that I don’t like helpful people (I myself like to think that I try my best to be helpful, most times), but sometimes people just want sympathy and support, not advice and solutions! (and that was my mood at the time)
P.P.S. I know that there will be some people who don’t react according to a predetermined stereotype; I want to hear from you too, if possible! Thanks! 
End of original post
Addendum to post:
It’s a good thing my preview button seems to be working this morning (I used it several times without incident), and that my connection isn’t timing out on me yet! I apologize for the slipshod look of the OP, but as I said earlier, I had NO idea it would do something like THAT!
Oh, and I did almost accidentally post the rant up in MPSIMS, but I checked to see which forum I was posting in first… thank goodness for copy/paste! (this whole thing, with the exception of what was obviously taken from the OP and edited, is NOT copy/paste… I had to reconstruct it as best I could)
Thanks for the advice and insight you’ve given me so far. I’ll definitely keep it in mind when dealing with men! 
Yes. Men offer solutions. It’s what we do.
Try saying " Don’t offer a solution to this-- I just need to talk to you about it and get it off my chest," before you unload. Might work, or might require more training. 
Flamsterette, That makes ALOT more sense
Doesn’t it, though? Damn crazy computers, eating up more than an hour’s worth of work… FTR, it took me one and a half hours to reconstruct/edit it! It was worth it, though!
The Man’s mindset: Task/goal orientation, status, rank, emotional
solitude.
The Woman’s mindset: people orientation, emotional intimacy.
Women tend to use conversation to achieve emotional connection
whereas men ten do use it to reinforce social rank…often by
showing off their superior intelect or skill level by providing
solutions for other people’s problems.
Men also tend to clam up about emotional problems…thats why
its so hard for us to share sympathy to each other…it makes us
look and feel weak.
#1 Complaint about men by women?
“He never talks/listens to me.”
BTW…Yes, we do have a selective listening thing going on here.
Men’s brains are hard-wired to tune out extraneous information
which could distract us from the task at hand. Not only what we
hear, but also what we see.
Say you have a Bargain-Basement table with 80% off sale items
on it. Full of dresses, make-up, jewellery, perfume, pocketbooks…
and a cordless reciprocating saw.
Guess which item is the ONLY THING on the table we see?
I am personally unaware of how to deal with another person explaining problems without feeling obligated to suggest some sort of resolution. I cannot simply “sit there and sympathize.” It doesn’t feel right.
I always know the situations where advice isn’t really being asked for, but I cannot help myself. I remember some time ago there was a thread about women’s self-esteem and the media, and there were a bunch of guys in there trying to stick up for women, and then we got pissed on for trying to be supportive (well, it was a little more complicated than that, but whatever).
Point it, many of us are simply helpless unless we are helping. There is no middle ground. In my head I say, “If she didn’t want my help, then why the hell is she telling me this?” LOL, I try to not offer advice, but truth be told, I have no idea how to appear that I care about the situation without actually trying to rectify it. And all I want to do is show her that I am interested, and I do care, but unless I am proactive it all feels so flimsy and trite…
:shrug:
Cliche as it is, I will recommend reading Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus for similar insights and observations of male/female behavior patterns (and how one group often inadvertently pisses off the other as a result). 's a good book.
Yes, it confirms what I already sort of knew. It definitely made me leery of men and how they deal with things, LOL! Just kidding, but seriously thanks for what you’ve said so far. I feel much better now! 
Hey R.J., you may have missed the line in my edited original post where it said:
However, that’s a good suggestion if you mean that I chould reread the book! I definitely should one of these days!
After getting into regular arguments with girlfriends about how I’d offer solutions and advice instead of a sympathetic shoulder, I trained myself a few years back to just listen and nod and say “that sounds awful, no wonder you feel bad” even though, inside, I was screaming, “why don’t you do such-and-so?”
As a result, things go much more smoothly now in my intergender relationships. My wife tells me how supportive and wonderful I am, even though from my perspective I’m not actually doing anything. I sort of got used to it eventually, but it did take time.
XY’ers:
When dealing with a complaining XX’er:
Dis-engage frontal lobes, and make soothing noises:
‘you poor thing’
‘Yes, dear’ - Universal gold!!!
‘that’s horrible’
Not only do you get through their whining session with minimum of effort, but you are even likely to rate higher on the XX’ers NOOKIERATER[sup]TM[/sup]
(am bolding and italicizing my own words for emphasis)
Yes, I am quoting myself, even though that’s probably an uncool thing to do. However, I must do it in order to correct any misunderstandings that you all might have. What I meant to say in that sentence was “… if you mean that I SHOULD reread the book”! (not could reread the book!"")
I just wanted to say that while the male advice/women sypathy dicotomy may exisit in very, very general terms, in my experience there are so very many exceptions to this that making assumptions about any given individual is pointless.
I, myself, am female and I tend to react to complaints/bitching with advice: I automatically assume that that is what people are looking for. I know many, many other women like this. Furthermore, I know many men who are “good listeners” and know how to hold hands and make sympathetic noises and then go away quietly: something I am almost incapable of doing. The idea that men give advice, women give comfort has become so ingrained in our society that I think confirmation bias kicks in.