> I am a professional problem solver, you described a problem, yet you do not want it solved?

This will be hard for you to believe, but I will easily wager good money that at times you yourself behave this way. You only become aware of it after both below are satisfied:

1. You've encountered someone as annoying as yourself :-)

2. You learn a bit more about the dynamics of conversations.

If there's any time someone got mad at you and said "You just want to complain and not fix the problem!" chances are this dynamic was in play. Or "I've given you so many suggestions but you don't want to fix the problem and just complain!"

Everyone acts that way to some extent. Some more than others.

Here's a typical scenario (common amongst spouses, but even amongst friends). You're annoyed/down due to problem X. Your friend sees you that way and inquires why you're down. You tell them, and they spend all their time giving you suggestions. But you never asked for suggestions!

It's not a big leap to go from there to someone simply telling you their problem because they want to get it out of their system.

Some books I've read that made it easier to understand all of this:

- Difficult Conversations

- Nonviolent Communication[1]

- Crucial Conversations

All of these will emphasize the role emotions play in dialogue. And when you read them, chances are very high you'll find yourself in them (i.e. they will give examples that you can relate to - on both sides of the conversation).

Once I read these, many, many "poor" conversations from my life earlier suddenly made sense to me. One nice outcome was learning that even though at times people were upset at me, it wasn't always "my fault". I had always taken for granted that because I didn't spend much time playing social games, that my social skills were poor and likely I did something wrong. Reading these made it clear how often the dysfunction was on the other side, and having good/poor conversations is not well correlated with "social skills".

[1] HN has as strong knee jerk reaction when this book is mentioned, but in my experience, everyone who complained had not read the book, and almost all the complaints were semi-strawmen.

In what way are you a professional problem solver such that it applies to random problems in peoples' lives?

The thing that drives me nuts is when people start throwing out immediate ideas, sometimes before I've even given a full account of the problem. But even if they do wait, I don't feel like explaining why all your immediate ideas don't work - most of the time, I've also already thought of those things. Try asking questions instead.

The way I approach these situations is by reminding myself that the speaker is implicitly making a request - a request for empathy or understanding. While it's tempting to try to solve their problems, what they really want is for their feelings to be heard.

"Oh, that must have been frustrating."

> I do not know how to respond to such situations.

>I am a professional problem solver.

As it so happens, you can probably apply the latter to solve your knowledge gap re/ the former.

Unless you don't actually consider it a problem, but a facet of your personality or something. Valid. But, if you are capable of applying that thinking to yourself, why are you not able to extend the same grace to others, and wait until you're asked for a solution?

You may enjoy, It's not about the nail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

What I was doing is very common. Trying to engage logically with what logic can engage with, while failing to recognize that the emotional challenge is what has to be dealt with first. And that once feelings are out of the way, the logical problem will be massively easier to solve.

It's important to remember there's no "right" or "wrong," it's all about connection.

If a stranger says, "my bike tire is flat," in most western cultures, they might very well be asking for your help to reinflate their tire.

If your loved one says the same, well you have a lot more context to fill in their subtext with. If they're displeased with your reasonable attempts to help them—like you'd help a stranger—it might mean that they were asking for something else. Finding out what that "something else" is, and adapting to each other's differences in "what was said" vs "what was heard," is part of what it means to build a connection with someone.

Yeah it's insulting. It would be very long and boring to list all the things I thought of and discarded, just to ward off such attempts at help. If someone doesn't ask your advice, don't give it.

I feel you, I totally do. I get wanting to vent and wanting to be heard but solutions should come first. Honestly, when I hear people annoyed about offering solutions I get their need to engage with them differently but I also kind of believe they have a dysfunction about how they relate to the world.

> I am a professional problem solver

The question is, do you want to be anything more than that?

Even as a problem solver you might ask yourself, what should I do in any given interaction to not become the additional secondary problem myself.

It’s just like in programming interviews—sometimes you need to clarify your understanding before diving into potential solutions

My prompt for that is, When did I last dramatically fail Kate at decision support?

Recalling the scene and the details is part of the exercise.

I do the visualization while journaling about it. Here is an example of what that written record looks like.

Aug 19, 2025. She was stressed because she thought that Phoenix’ dentist was ripping her off. A couple of quick suggestions later, and her meltdown was not about how bad I am at decision support!

Kate is able to come to the right decision. She wants someone to listen to her, be there emotionally, and not offer suggestions unless they have a lot of context. But first, second, and third, make her feel listened to.

Note. This is tied to a visualization that causes me to connect to the right emotion at the right time. So I not only won't do the wrong thing, but I'll also be doing the right thing.

Definitely want to talk about this too. I've been thinking of my own daily learning through tools like Anki and trying to devise a sort of "life stack" where I'm adding stuff and refreshing myself on it and this top comment from OP just sort of crystalizes that.

Did you know there is a limit on how many highlights you can record? It is a setting in the DRM of Kindle books.

If you are reading a book with DRM, marking things and planning to load them into SRS later, take care as it silently stops saving the highlights as text.

The dental work that was needed, negotiated in advance, and paid for, happened.

The dentist's exorbitant rate on nitrous oxide (which we were not informed of in advance) was successfully renegotiated.

Unsurprisingly, my initial suggestions were in no way helpful to discovering this solution to the problem.

Looks really healthy to me. It’s unhealthy when a partner can’t recognize that they actually were at fault and try to change, but instead needs every fight to resolve with “we were both wrong”.

Yes; well, I might not get "mad" at my wife, but I might emotionally disengage or feel like I lack closure were I to explain a situation to my wife and she responded with solutions before I even had the chance to finish.

It took me a long time to realize this. Actually, I've just now realized it clearly. Our emotional expression and the scenario may be a bit different, but it's fundamentally the same concept.

Part of the reason offering suggestions is 'wrong' is because it implies that they haven't tried to think of solutions to their problem. You are unwittingly implying that you are smarter than they are, even if that is not your intention.

What’s the point of this? One only can control one’s self. Who cares if the other person was in the wrong too.

So what? She isn't replying, and he* isn't talking about her faults. The story is about his introspection and self-correction.

*Assuming poster's gender.