I was sitting in the car with my friend (let's call her Cindy for blogging purposes. And while we're assigning pseudo identities, we'll call her boyfriend John) Cindy, and she was talking to me about the on-going problems with her boyfriend. He had just recently built a house and moved into it and gotten everything settled. Cindy is a family person and lives with her parents. John is not a family person, and built his house to get away from his parents.
John's got several problems of his own. He's been working the midnight shift a lot, and he can't sleep during the day, which makes him crabby as HELL. He lashes out at people for little or no reason, and makes people edgy when they're around. He doesn't get along with his family, so he wanted to get away from them. He doesn't understand people who WANT to be around their families. He's very friends-oriented, and wants to be around them all the time. This was never a problem as he was growing up, but as he reaches 30, his friends are getting married, having kids, and developing lives with their families. He feels he's losing touch with his friends, who don't always have time for single people who aren't family people, and that makes him even crabbier.
All these problems (and more, which i've omitted for brevity's sake) end up manifesting themselves as problems in his relationship with Cindy, and it's making her miserable. So as i was sitting in the car, listening to Cindy rant about how John's pissed off at her because she limits the time she spends at his house, i start to get a little emotional itch. I understand completely that she doesn't want to spend too much time at his house because he'll then develop (if he hasn't already) the expectation that she'll move in with him.
I could no longer contain the itch. "Did you tell him why you don't want to spend time there?" i asked. She gave me an odd look and said, "Kinda. I told him i'm not ready to move in with him, so he should know." She continued with the rant, expressing how needy and clingy he is. I then made another suggestion. And then another one. And then another one. She finally got frustrated with me, and said "You just don't understand." She's said this to me before, during other similar conversations about John.
Now, on one hand, i never know quite how seriously i need to take Cindy because she enjoys complaining. I won't go so far as to say she's one of those people that isn't happy unless she's got something to complain about, but every time i try to help, she clams up and changes the subject. Eventually she'll go back to complaining about John, or something else.
On the other hand, she isn't the first person to do this to me. Almost every friend i've ever had has done this to me. While it's tempting to throw my hands up in the air and think people'd rather be miserable in their problems than to solve them, i have to stop and look at the common denominator: It's me.
I've come to realize something about myself: I am not a sympathetic person. It isn't that i don't feel bad for a person's plight; quite the opposite: i feel so bad for a person's plight that i want to help them get through it so they can get on with the business of being happy. But what if what a person wants is just someone to sit and listen to them? Is there something wrong with listening and making clucking noises and little "That sucks", "Oh poor you!" exclamations? Probably not. But why can't i do it? I just can't help that my first instinct is to roll up my sleeves, get to the root of the problem and attack it like a weed that'll take over the lawn if left alone.
So i'll try it on the next time someone tells me a problem. I will make the effort to sit there and listen and be sympathetic and let them work out the problem for themselves unless specifically asked for advice. I don't know if it's something i'll be able to do, but i'll never know unless i try.
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