You speak as though sympathetic listening and problem solving are mutually exclusive. They are not. In fact, sympathetic listening is frequently the first step to effective problem solving.
Besides, do you honestly think that you only complain when you are looking for a solution to your problem? Do you want us to believe that you never just want to vent about your issues or seek a listening ear? 'Cuz frankly, I find that hard to believe. And even if you are that kind of person, most people are not.
I do appreciate your explanations. I understand listening could make life easier in many cases, but I do feel differently about this subject, as do apparently others, and I’m trying to better understand that difference. I try to listen when I can remember that’s what’s expected, but it doesn’t come to me naturally.
And since the topic comes up in this thread, I don’t complain much in a way that isn’t detectable as venting. I’m most likely to complain in a comical manner, because I don’t want to shift my burdens onto others or have them feel obligated to provide me sympathy if they don’t want to. I think others feel more of a need to complain than I do.
It’s true that empathetic listening doesn’t come naturally to some people. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. A wise adult knows how to take advantage of one’s strengths and seek to overcome the latter.
Ultimately, it’s a skill, just like any other. It will come more naturally to some, and others will have to work harder to develop it. When you understand why it’s important, then learning to develop that skill can become a bit easier.
If I have to rate which of those response is more awful than the other, I’d say the first one is. Saying “Well if it bothers you that much…” isn’t really showing that my unhappiness matters to you. Your phrasing even suggests there’s a possibility that I’m overreacting. Or maybe a lazy whiner because I haven’t done the “logical” thing and quit my job already.
I mean, think of it this way. If I sliced my finger open while making dinner and tearfully expressed to you how much it hurt while I’m frantically trying to stop the bleeding, and your response was “Well if it bothers you that much, just go to the ER” would you really be confused as to why that would send an uncaring impression? I’m looking for you to comfort me and provide a soothing presence, not to tell me where to go for the obvious.
“Let’s get you a better job” is a better response, especially since by saying “let’s” you’re affirming the idea that me and you are in this together. But sympathy is still lacking here. I just told you I’m sad about my situation, and when people are sad, it helps them to feel better when they know other people understand what they’re feeling and most importantly, care that they are feeling that way.
“Honey, I’m so sorry you’re going through this. That truly sucks. Now I understand why you don’t seem to like your job as much lately. If they are really snubbing you, it’s totally their loss. You don’t need 'em, and you need to look for a new job.”
If my ex had said this instead what he had said, we wouldn’t have fought that night.
You show a lack of empathy as well as sympathy. It’s not about boring you. Also, you don’t think everyone does work like you, but you seem to think because when you complain about something you are looking for solutions, therefore everyone should. Different people work best different.
I want to reiterate Heart of Dorkness’s point about problem solver’s lack of sympathetic listening can lead to trying to solve the wrong problem. You have to make sure you know what’s really bothering them by listening to their words, their nonverbal communications, and read between the lines.
I also want to reiterate brainstall’s point about not making people feel stupid. Often people already know the solutions to their problems. What they may not already know is if anyone else cares about them or their problems.
Careful listening is indeed important, but I’m not sure the sympathy is required. On the contrary, I often find that “outside” ideas–one from a party that has no direct experience in the problem at hand–are the best kind, since they’re less contaminated by bias.
Also, I am not generally expecting anyone to solve my problem. I am looking to gather a range of ideas which I can then mull over to find my own solution.
I am not always looking for a practical solution. But I am always looking for ideas. If I complain about something an idiot politician said, then obviously I’m not really looking for someone to tell me to turn off the TV. But if you offer a context in which the politician’s statement made sense, then you have given me something interesting to think about and respond to.
But no, I do not just vent. Even if I have just smashed my finger in a car door, I am not looking for someone to say “Yeah, I smashed my finger in a door once. Boy did that hurt!” Even if your offered solution is dumb, like saying that I should wear armored gloves, I would rather focus on that than the pain.
I want to say how much the sexism of this comment irritated me. Obviously, men and women have their tendencies, but sympathy-seekers and problem-solvers don’t fall on strict gender lines. This comment seemed condescending to me, especially the quotation marks around women. FTR, I am a man.
In other words, if I complain, it is my fault if I am bored, but if someone else complains, it is also my fault if I cause distress?
I never said that. I said that if I’m going to offer you sympathy because I respect you and your feelings, then you owe it to me to do the same in kind.
Did I say otherwise?
Yes. But this is bidirectional. As with all communication, both parties have a stake in ensuring clarity. Yes, I have a responsibility to listen as carefully as possible. But the speaker also has a responsibility in providing as much communication as possible.
I have a blind spot for nonverbal communication; I know this, but I’ll be damned if I accept full blame for a communications breakdown when it’s obvious to the speaker that I’m not getting something, and when a few extra words would have solved the breakdown.
I wouldn’t be so callous to suggest to a fat person that they try eating less. I offer solutions that, as much as possible, might not have occurred to the person and which do not make the person feel stupid/lazy/etc. And then only if the person is a “solver” in the first place.
And as I said, I do offer and acknowledge sympathy in the interests of social lubrication. I simply ask others to do the same in reverse.
I will say that I think most people vastly overestimate their capabilities for both sympathy and empathy. Doesn’t this entire thread demonstrate that the “sympathizers” have a massive blind spot for the feelings of “solvers”?
I want to re-emphasize that being a good listener does NOT mean that you have to put up with incessant whiners. You have the choice to listen or not to anyone you choose. It’s not a prison sentence. But it’s almost always a kindness that you can offer to anyone you care about. Freely, at your own will.
And I must say, that since I’ve worked on it, to me listening is not a burden, but a pleasure. Just to sit and absorb another person’s thoughts without needing to formulate a clever response is really joyful.
Dr. Strangelove, I’m not sure who you think is saying that talking and listening must always be unidirectional. I’m pretty sure it’s no one, though. Where did you come up with that?
It’s an overall vibe which I may be misreading, but it seems the focus here has been on the responsibility of the listener to pick up on the speaker’s cues. Fine, I accept that–but when I am wrong, the speaker must also accept responsibility if s/he is sending misleading cues.
In Blaster Master’s examples, the speaker needs to learn that when communicating with a solver type, that complaining about something that isn’t the real problem is liable to be misinterpreted. I do not deny that the listener should be looking for cues as well.
It is possible that we have slightly different working definitions here, but for a person like me, sympathy itself is useless, boring, and often condescending. I simply don’t need someone to give their mirror neurons a workout on my behalf.
Empathy is far more important for establishing a context, but even then I think it’s more useful in an intellectual sense than an emotional one.
If you are providing sympathy on my behalf, then you are most certainly *not * being empathetic, because you have not considered a mindset and emotional state different from your own.
And to repeat, I do provide and accept sympathy when required. I simply do not accept that it should be the “default” as Invisible Chimp stated.
Yes, of course. Communication is always a two way street. The speaker has a responsibilty to make himself understood, and the listener must make sure he understands and asks clarifying questions. Both parties bear responsiblity for the clarity of ideas.
You seem to believe that there are listener types and solver types. Is that correct? I don’t believe this to be true. I think that we are all solvers by nature, but listening is a learned skill. (And to reintroduce some good old sexism, I think that women, by nature or nurture, have a natural affinity for this that men do not.) But we can all learn it. I’m still in the process of learning.
High level skills in both listening and solving are important to all of us if we want to find happiness and succes, and serve the world to the best of our gifts. Would you agree with that?
I would say that there is a spectrum and the two endpoints are solving and sympathetic. Most people are probably somewhere in the middle, but there is nevertheless enough of a distribution that we can broadly categorize people in one of the two types.
Listening skill is a somewhat different thing, and important, but the OP was about the response to that listening. Yes, making the solver/sympathetic determination is a part of the listening, but that’s only one of several cues and so I don’t consider it the dominant factor here.
Of course. But again, the OP was about a woman upset that her husband tried to solve her problem instead of simply sympathizing. He didn’t fail at listening; he failed at detecting that his wife wanted sympathizing. And the wife failed at communicating that she wanted sympathy instead of solutions.
There would have been an equal but opposite communications failure if the husband had joined in with the traffic complaints when all she wanted was help in planning a new route.
Yes, of course. But once again we’re back to how the couple failed to communicate. And what should be the default mode.
Let’s try a little experiment. Something tonight upset me a little. I’d like to tell you about it. Or tell somebody. (In reality, it’s not a huge deal. But let’s pretend that it is.) As a solver, what should I do? Before you tell me, what do you need to do?
Having said that, I must say goodnight. I look forward to rejoining this thread tomorrow.
Therein lies the major flaw in your thinking. As others and I have emphasized, sympathy and problem solving are NOT mutually exclusive. They are not at polar opposites within the same spectrum. Quite the contrary; for reasons that various posters have discussed, effective problem solving often requires the use of empathy… both in terms of understanding the problem and making sure that your proposed solution is received well.
This is all a matter of emotional intelligence. Some peoples scoff at the notion of emotional intelligence, but I don’t. I’ve learned that this is a quality that many people lack.
Oddly enough, I got to test the validity of the claims from this thread tonight. My bf arrived home a couple minutes before me to find the hot water heater leaking big time. The floor was completely soaked (carpet squares) and the shut off valve was broken. To make it worse, he had a plumber out this morning for a separate issue.
Needless to say, he was upset and my first thought was to come up with solutions to resolve the issue. Instead, I let him vent about all of the issues and followed his lead waiting to see if he needed help or ideas.
How’d it turn out? Well, it was stressful on me at first not to start “working my magic” but at the same time, listening to him and letting him vent completely and the his frustration diffused much earlier. The plumber came and $500 later, it’s all fixed (except the floor which we have to replace).
We headed to Ikea to return a couple items and as we chatted about the situation over our lingonberry drinks, I confided that I was test driving this new type of listening thing. He replied that he liked that he thought it went better as sometimes he just needs to vent.
This has definitely been an eye opening experience for me and something I’m going to be working at going forward. So thanks to all!
I’m a little confused as to who is the solver in the hypothetical, but I’ll assume it’s me. And given that I know nothing about the situation and very little about you, I would just say: “That’s a shame. I hope it’s not too bad. Is it something that can be worked out, or do you just need an ear?”
In fact, I’ve used words to that effect several times when consoling an upset friend. Generally I know my friends well enough that I don’t really have to ask, but different situations call for different techniques and I don’t think I’ve ever offended anyone by asking.
I have a friend on the solver end of the spectrum, but when her father died I wasn’t sure how to react. I couldn’t *really *sympathize because I had never lost anyone that close, but it’s also not a problem with a “solution”. Well, I was there to listen when she needed and to suggest smaller solutions when they presented themselves. If I ever screwed up in going the wrong direction, she never let me know.
You are using empathy and sympathy interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. In fact I already pointed out that empathy is important. But at least with my understanding of the terms, empathy does not require absorption in the feelings of the other, just a deep understanding of them and their sources. Sympathy I associate more with the acceptance and sharing of the feelings themselves.
That said, there seems to be a range of definitions of the words so I’ll make up some more precisely defined terms:
X-pathy is the ability to put oneself in a similar emotional state as another and feel some of the same things; in an extreme case this may involve a person feeling physical pain on behalf of another via mirror neurons
Y-pathy is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes to the extent that one can make accurate predictions of their feelings, desires, etc. but without necessarily having those feelings.
I posit that Y-pathy is necessary for successful communication, but X-pathy is not. I am not even sure that “true” X-pathy exists outside of the simplest feelings, any more than I am convinced that I see green the same way that others do. The feelings are real but the reasons are not.
