And, still on the topic of “how men listen,” though women do it too, one of my hugest peeves is when I’m venting to a close friend or loved one about, say something involving people at work or a random annoying airline passenger, and without even expressing any kind of concern over my experience, they start to try to explain away the other person’s bad behavior. Like, “oh, he probably just meant it this way,” or, “she was probably just nervous and didn’t see you there and then was too embarrassed to apologize.”
Pisses me right off. Why would you jump in to defend a complete stranger when I’m right there in front of you?
That’s the worst form of the “pragmatic advice” from @milliefink’s comic, imo. It’s so easy to just say, “ach, that must’ve been so annoying.”
Ooh, yeah, that’s some nasty stuff right there.
It weirds me out when I didn’t think what I was saying solicited advice or sympathy and more than one person suggests things to fix my problem.
Like for example something was bothering my contact lens and I apologized as I went to get some eyedrops and two people in glasses told me they just wear glasses. Great. GFY.
I have tried for years to be a better listener - I’m pretty good, now.
But, if you encourage the baby daleks, you’re gonna get Daleks, just sayin’…
Pretty big fuckin’ /S, obvs.
I do think – if this is what you mean – that how boys are raised can be a big influence on whether they grow up to be good, sympathetic listeners.
Yep, that.
I’m not gonna go into my own childhood, not that it was toxic M or any shit like that.
Wasn’t until I was old enough to date that I learnt to listen - to anyone, not just the opposite sex.
But the vid that @DukeTrout posted, well, I couldn’t get the image of a dalek out of my head, so there you go…
Every engineering textbook should have a disclaimer that technical solutions for non-technical problems are usually a bad idea.
Some current engineering curricula start wwith an ethics and sociology in engineering class. I could see that being helpful!
Or have you tried not having vision problems to correct? I hear that works really well for some people.
/s of course
It certainly is helping to find and practice various ways of empathizing (rather than suggesting unwelcome solutions).
I say “various” because often when women talk to each other and one wants to vent, the other will not simply say “Oh, sorry” again and again. For example, they’ll nod, make sympathetic conversation sounds, register that rhey understand this and that with facial expressions, ask for a certain detail or something at some points, say things like “Right? My boss does that too,” and so on.
Men could practice such ways of showing that they’re listening and incorporate them into their conversational repertoire. Maybe go to a coffee shop and eavesdrop on women talking together. And maybe wait to offer pragmatic solutions until women are clearly asking for them.
@milliefink and @DukeTrout have inspired me to create this:
God, I hope you’re proud of yourselves, you two.
Exactly.
One of the best lessons I learned from my closest friend is just how nice it is to have someone empathize and validate feelings. I can describe something and she’ll respond with, “oh, that must have felt so harsh,” or whatever the emotion was. I don’t think I ever really did it myself before learning it from her.
Like a couple others have mentioned, I’m a gung-ho, “lets solve this problem” type by nature, so it’s been valuable to learn these lessons through example.
Would’ve been nice to learn them growing up, but just happy to have learned them at all.
And after validating the feels, my friend will often offer advice or have me think about something from a fresh perspective. But it means so much more when you know that other person has already tried to put themself in your position and understand, rather than swoop in as if they know better than you when you don’t even know if they were even really hearing you in the first place.
Discussion on boobs…
Just wow. Also, when will they tear one another down more than they tear down women and queer folk? I’m waiting impatiently.
I couldn’t read the whole thing. So bizarre. And not in a good way.
Same. This is what happens when you make your faith into a “my dick is longer” contest. What an incredibly fucked up state the world is in!!
It was a long piece full of discussions about terrible people.
