Knowing What You Want

[rowyn]

haikujaguar wrote a post about different kinds of listening a couple of days ago. One of the things that struck me about it was that she contrasted "listening to feelings" with "listening to ideas", and I've seen more often a similar-but-different dichotomy, between "offering validation/sympathy" and "offering advice/solutions".

To some degree, this is the stuff of social anxiety --"ZOMG I am LISTENING WRONG I didn't even know you could screw that up. D:" But it's particularly interesting to be conscious of the different response styles when you're the speaker: "when I am saying something, why am I saying it? What sort of response do I want?"

Frequently, I write about things where I don't have a strong need to receive or avoid a particular kind of engagement. If I write about what I did on my staycation or post a book review or my exercise routine, my purpose is to chronicle my life for my future reference and to share bits of me for the entertainment of my friends. Any response to these that's well-intended will be fine. I am not going to be upset if someone disagrees with my review or offers cleaning advice or suggests an alteration to my biking habits. I may not agree or accept the suggestions, and I wasn't looking for them, but I am perfectly happy to have them offered.

But sometimes I write something specifically to get advice: "why can't I get this database to do X?" and in those cases I'll stipulate I want advice: "Suggestions welcome!"

But when advice isn't welcome, like if I'm whinging about going to my day job or because I got poison ivy, and all I want is sympathy and not suggestions on how to save more money or poison-ivy-avoidance strategies (step 1: stay inside and avoid all greenery), I don't usually put up a disclaimer "not looking for advice".

... actually, a lot of the things I don't want to hear advice about, I just don't *write* about. Many of the things that I'd like my ideas to be heard about, I don't write, either. Religion. Politics. Finance, even, to a lesser degree. Topics so fraught that it's very easy to trigger defensive reactions in the listener, or to have a response trigger the same in me. Sometimes it's not even that I mind listening to contrary responses, but that I often don't have anything to add in reply. I don't start the conversation because I don't know how to end it. "Agree to disagree" doesn't seem to work as well as I might hope.

Anyway, I am wondering now if it's feasible for the person who introduces a topic also to define what they hope to gain from talking about it. Explicitly, instead of implicitly, via the dozens of social rules and cues we imperfectly share across our culture. This seems, perhaps, more achievable in blogging -- "my journal, my guidelines" -- than in normal conversation. It does seem a bit awkward, but maybe less so than 'I'm never going to talk about this at all.'

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the first thing that always leaps to mind for me is 'give advice' when someone is talking about a problem. It wasn't until I read about it in a book that I realized sometimes what people are looking for is sympathy when they expound about a problem.

Some things really are game-changers when you read about them.

Clearly saying what you want to hear from people seems pretty reasonable, but also a very Miss Vasilver thing to do. <_< I think it ought to be implicit in the way one talks about something, i.e. 'My car broke down, I hear sputtering noises from the hood' implies mechanical advice is requested versus 'My car broke down and I spent half an hour walking in the heat and humidity to get to the mall and a phone' where sympathy might be called for, but people aren't always at their best in communicating.

[rowyn]

When I see someone talking about a problem online, my first thought is do not offer advice unless they explicitly ask for it. Never. In person, I am less good about this, and sometimes I fail at it online too, but for the most part I think people talking about their problems do not want to hear my suggestions unless they say, explicitly, "Please help me." There are exceptions, but not nearly as many as there are impulses-to-offer-unsolicited-advice. And occasionally, I'll talk about my experiences with something, without saying "try doing this! it worked for me!" which might still be construed as advice-like but is at least a little less presumptuous. c_c

I thought Micah's "I don't want advice or sympathy, I want this idea to be given consideration by others" was an interesting different angle.

I think it's often implicit, or cued, but by being conscious of the fact that you require a specific kind of response -- that, eg, hearing about Atkins for the Nth time in response to your weight-loss woes will in fact drive you into a killing rage -- you can also just signal that explicitly, instead of hoping people pick up on it. :)

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Engineer training! When you're surrounded by fellow students or co-workers, the general conversation revolves around what problems and challenges you've faced lately, and how to address them. So, that is how I am trained to respond to problems.

If I ran into a lot of 'omg stop giving me advice', I'd probably get trained out of giving advice... Eventually.

I do agree that it's probably very wise to cover the most obvious responses that you do NOT want to get to a statement of some kind...

[rowyn]

I don't think it's really an engineer thing; I think it's a human thing. Everybody does it. Even online I have to remind myself not to do it, and I'm no engineer or trained problem-solver. In person I am far more likely to do it without realizing it, even knowing how annoying I can find other people doing it to me. I'm pretty sure we all get trained from a very early age to try to solve problems when we here about them. Maybe it's in emulation of our parents working to solve our problems when we're little. :)

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Heehee! That's an awesome analogy and so true, really, the 'parents teaching us to work through our problems'.

<3

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

I'd probably get trained out of giving advice... Eventually.

Ah, I see your obliviousness is as big as mine... :)

[level-head.livejournal.com]

You've offered a window to your feelings. And I feel your pane. ];-)

===|===========/ Keith DeHavelle

[rowyn]

Don't make me close these shutters, sir. ;)

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I don't think I seriously put much into thought about what I *want* in terms of response. Sometimes I think I post because I've got this mindset of making lists and feeling accomplished if I can check something off, and it feels like it's more official if I can get a witness on it. ;) For art, it's usually a matter of "posting on the fridge door." I can see a hundred things wrong with my own picture, but I post it anyway because somehow "it doesn't count" unless it's posted where someone else could see it.

When I'm writing things out and I could really use a response, I think at least 75% of the time, I write a small essay in a comment or a post, and then delete it before ever submitting it. When I plot things for adventures, I often WRITE OUT outlines that only I will ever read ... and quite possibly never again after actually writing it (or else what I actually print will be a very abbreviated form of it -- a sort of mnemonic, slightly more sophisticated than a string tied around my finger to remind me of something). Often it's just the process of thinking it through solidly enough to put into words that is a large part of my working-it-out process.

Re: Politics, religion, finance/economics; I think I avoid talking about either a great deal with anyone. Gwendel might disagree; at home, when I'm parked in front of the computer going through one of my time-wasting browsing loops, I have a very bad habit of reading news sites and then making some groan or laugh or whatever and she asks what's up. Either I say "Oh, it's nothing," which only makes her curious, or else I tell her, and I really should have learned by now that she's probably NOT interested in my take on these things. (She has drifted leftward on most issues compared to me.) At least on the internet, emoticons take a CONSCIOUS effort to include, and I usually have the sense not to post commentary on political issues when most folks reading/responding to my posts would take offense at my position. (Whatever world it is in which friends engage in "friendly political arguments," it's not mine.)

[rowyn]

I do that "thinking out on paper" with problems a lot. It's just much easier to figure things out if I write them down than in my head.

I relate to the way you feel, here. I enjoy discussing politics less and less as I get older. :/ Even with people I agree with, I often feel alienated by their thought processes, by the tendency to think those who disagree are stupid, ignorant, or malicious. *sigh*

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Re: Writing Things Out:
Exactly! I am very bad with conversations about complicated topics, whenever I have to do a lot of "setup" to explain whatever it is I have to say. I run the risk of losing track of what in the world I was trying to say in the first place, or being tempted off onto some wild tangent and never coming to the "point." If I write something down, I can do a far better job of editing it, splitting things off, and coming up with a path from point A to point B ... if, that is, I put my mind to it. ;)

Re: Politics, etc.
I know many people who disagree with me on very important points (things that are a far cry from "vanilla vs. chocolate") and yet I think of them as being very smart, knowledgeable and moral. I understand that they have very different personal experiences, very different assumptions about the nature of the world, and of the way the world should be. I sincerely doubt I'm going to effect any sort of positive change in the world by SHUNNNNNNING anyone who disagrees (as if the loss of my occasional comment on their social posts or refusing to do gaming stuff with them is going to be some great tragedy).

I still get upset, and get defensive and take things personally. My ideal is not quite the same as my practice, I'm sad to say. I just try to remember to take a breath, take a step back, and turn the table around, and look at how my statement of MY beliefs might provoke the same responses in someone else. It's too easy to get overly focused on the idea that if I believe A, and someone else believes B, if he says, "B is correct!" then it means that "A is incorrect!" and I take OFFENSE at that. Also, I have to remember that I haven't held the viewpoints I have today for my entire life. I might hear something that compels me to rethink my position -- or at least not to be so certain and feisty about it.

Also, I don't want to contribute to the trend of walling off people who think differently than me and just picking and choosing what media I'll listen to (where everyone agrees with me), what circles I'll frequent (where everyone agrees with me), etc. I try to check out multiple news sources for different angles on a topic, rather than the one I think aligns with my worldview the most. Surrounding oneself with virtual "yes men" just means that I'll end up with a worldview that's likely to come crumbling down messily if someone else comes along with a "No!" that's the least bit thought-out.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

You could disable comments? Then it's not a conversation in the first place.

[rowyn]

It's very rare that I want to say something and prefer not to hear any response at all -- usually it's just certain things I'd rather not deal with. Posting without comments off feels like not posting at all, except that it takes more work. ;)

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

Topics so fraught that it's very easy to trigger defensive reactions in the listener, or to have a response trigger the same in me.

I think one of my problems (and there's so many to choose from!) is that when someone I know (in most cases it has to be someone I know) has an opinion that's different from mine, I like to talk about it. Religion is a particular interest, but other complex, generally hot-button issues (most of which I figure are hot-button issues because they are so complex and distilling them down the way we tend to loses all the subtleties of the issues). I ask questions, I present alternate points of view to see what they think about them, that kind of thing.

It's awesome when it works! My opinions tend to be somewhat malleable, I'm always looking at things from different perspectives and tweaking my worldview and, well, I guess you could call it growing as a person, maybe? The problem is, I think I frequently come off as trying to debate the topic, which is... somewhat the same thing, but the point of a debate is generally to win it, which isn't why I have the discussions. Seldom is it my desire to change anyone's opinions, and never my intention to make them feel that they aren't entitled to them. But, I guess it frequently comes off that way. I'm not sure if that's something that's just inherent to this kind of discussion, or something I'm actually doing wrong.

I realize this is actually kind of ironic, you don't put up things that you want your opinion heard about, probably partially because of people like me who want to talk about them, even if I want to hear them. :)

And incidentally, I think "my journal, my rules" is a perfectly reasonable policy!

[rowyn]

I am pretty good with "here's my view" being followed by "here's your view", but at that point I am basically done. Going back-and-forth just feels like arguing. Anyone not convinced by the initial presentation is probably not going to be enlightened later, either. I am sure there are other people for whom this is fun and productive, but for me, once I've said my piece, going on feels like re-explaining in different words, or being asked to provide 'proof' that does not exist for any side in the real world. It's a joyless and unrewarding task.

[telnar.livejournal.com]

The problem is that it's not always clear what feedback one actually wants.

I would always be happy for someone to accurately tell me "You fool! Why are you turning a simple problem into a difficult one. Just make this minor change with no adverse consequences and your problem will disappear." Admittedly, people who offer advice think that they have an easily implemented solution more often than they actually have one.

Still, I see there as being a big difference between not wanting ineffective advice and not wanting advice. My rule of thumb for trying to make that distinction is to discourage people from repeating advice, but encourage them to offer it. That way, I don't need to try to come up with a way to estimate the quality of advice I haven't heard yet.