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Comment by laputan_machine | Hacker News Reader

It depends. If you're complaining to me about your chronic condition then I will feel compelled to give you advice on things that I think might help you.

That's the crux. It turns out people just want to be free to whinge about their issues without doing anything about it.

That's fine, but don't talk to me about it, then. At the very least, tell me that you just want to whinge.

Edit: Obviously this is to my friends and family. If I got talking to a stranger at a bus stop and they told me about how their arthiritis was giving them gyp this morning I would be sympathetic, I wouldn't tell them to do more stretches and eat more fish. Assume my comment is with good intentions, please.

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I have a chronic condition that comes up lot because it dominates my life. It touches everything I do, so bringing it up is unavoidable.

Early on I liked people trying to help. But after years of working on the issue, I've learned how specialized my situation is and how useless most advice is for me.

But friends & family don't have anything to offer besides the usual armchair advice. When I open up to someone new I always have to go through the phase of defending why I can't "just" do X, and that gets very tiring.

I'll get someone to understand that neither they nor I know how to improve my situation, but people eventually forget why X is off the table and I have to defend my decisions all over again.

I don't want to whine about it - I don't need to vent, and I've looked into everything anyone's thought of. It's just that this is an inextricable part of what's going on with me. If I can't talk about this with a person, I can't really talk about my life at all.

I think there's a misunderstanding in what I'm saying, or perhaps people aren't understanding that listening is actually quite a skill to practice and is really quite draining. It isn't free to ask people to listen to you, there is a cost associated with it.

Asking people to listen but then they can't input is something I find incredibly arrogant, egotistical, selfish, basically it's a terrible human trait and I'm surprised there are so many apologists in this thread that defend this kind of behaviour.

Again, I'm not talking about off the cuff "how was your day" "oh my angina is playing up again" "WELL THEN YOU SHOULD DO THIS AND THAT" kinds of conversations... I think that is obvious.

I mean the 30 minute ones where someone is sounding off to you about their problems. Yeah, I am going to give you "advice" (as in, this is a problem lets figure out how to solve it). I'm genuinely surprised this is seen as A Bad Thing. Especially given our community is one of hackers and yanno, people who get hired to solve problems...

Yeah, there could be a communication gap here. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're talking about truly excessive situations.

The mild versions of the patterns you're objecting to don't seem problematic.

As someone who's problem might be unfixable, sometimes I just need a sounding board and don't expect actionable advice. And sometimes people just want to vent, but I try to save that for my therapist.

> If you're complaining to me about your chronic condition then I will feel compelled to give you advice on things that I think might help you.

Heh, I have to admit I chuckled at that one. To be honest, I felt somewhat similarly earlier in my life. In all seriousness, I highly recommend group therapy. You will discover that no matter how much you feel "compelled" to give advice in moments when people are looking for support and connection, that nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to hear it.

You're sort of changing the subject to an easier situation.

There is a big difference between a group gathering for therapy, and having someone engage you in 'conversation' where they're cornering you to complain about their ailment.

Still, even in real life, giving unsolicited advice never works in my opinion. It's basically as useless as complaining about something and thinking it will magically change without doing anything different.

Note I have seen the following be useful:

1. Is the person really just saying "I want a hug" with their complaining? If so, and you care about this person, just give them a hug.

2. Depending on your relationship with the person, and if you can accept any blowback, it's also fine to say "I'm sorry, I don't want to be a receptacle for your complaining today."

3. Ask the person if they want help fixing the problem.

I think you misunderstand group therapy.

You can’t tell if someone is looking for advice or support and connection. If you assume, like you suggest, you’re going to get it wrong sometimes. I’d personally never waste someone’s time with my problem if I didn’t genuinely respect and value their perspective. I’d also consider advice to be support though. Not everyone is looking for silent head nodding.

> You can’t tell if someone is looking for advice or support and connection.

You can always ask. Seriously! Some communications books literally recommend you ask whether they want support/connection/advice.

And you will rarely go wrong if you commiserate. So: Commiserate first, and then say "I have some ideas on what may help, ... " and what follows is context dependent.

If it's a chronic health issue that you have not dealt with: "but you probably know more about this than I do and probably don't want to hear yet another idea."

If it's a chronic health issue that you have dealt with: "and they solved a similar problem I had, but I'm not sure your situation is the same as mine."

Trust me - if they want to hear your solution, they will then ask.

If it's very generic advice that people commonly treat as a panacea (e.g. diet, exercise, supplements, meditation, mindfulness), better to commiserate and keep your advice to yourself.

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