You Just Don't Understand

                My sophomore year of college, I took a class in Gender and Communication.  It was the mid-nineties; this was groundbreaking stuff.  Our Bible was Deborah Tannen’s You Just Don’t Understand.  There I learned something that has stayed with me all these years later.  Women like to talk.  Men like to solve problems.  This causes stress because when women are talking about a problem, they just want someone to listen.  Men try to solve the problem.

                As the years passed, I’ve realized that the assumption that “men do this, while women do this,” is a generalization.  I’ve encountered women who are also problem solvers.  How they somehow missed out on the whole brutal female socialization ritual and ended up this way is a mystery.  But my late mother was like this, and it made conversations maddening. 

                I would start telling her about my bad day and she’d say, “I don’t know what you want me to do about it.  What do you want me to do?”

                Nothing.  I never wanted her to do anything except listen.  When I explained that, she would say, “Okay, I’m listening.”

                Um, that still wasn’t quite it.  Her prior statement implied that she didn’t want to listen, and then the rest of the conversation was me talking while she started doing other things.  When I stopped, she’d change the subject. 

                Let me tell you, listening isn’t someone standing there saying nothing, thinking about what they’d do once you shut up.  It’s giving feedback.  If I tell you about my bad day, you say, “that sucks.”  If I tell you my boss is a jerk, you agree.  “I can’t believe he did that to you.  What a jerk.”  If I just broke up with someone, you tell me he’s a loser and I deserve better.

                When someone is telling you about the preceding problems, no one wants to hear the following responses:

1.       Maybe you need to see a therapist and get on medication.

2.       Then look for another job.

3.       Big deal.  Go on a dating site and find someone else.

                The most maddening, unsatisfying conversations are the ones where someone tries to handle the problem.  Why?  It feels like you’re being controlled.  Because nine times out of ten, them telling you what to do then turns into nagging.  You have a boyfriend giving you problems.  You’re trying to work things out.  You’re not quite ready to throw in the towel, but whenever you try to talk about it with your friend, she tells you to break up with him. That turns into her huffing and puffing whenever you call to talk about him and saying, “I don’t want to hear about it because I told you to break up with him.”

                Wow, way to be a great friend, especially since, in many cases, you’ve listened to her problems with men and kept your thoughts to yourself.  The way I see it, you shouldn’t tell someone what to do unless they ask you for advice.  If the person says, “What should I do?” that’s when you can try to solve the problem.  Bitching about it may not seem productive, but it’s how a lot of people relieve stress.  Before I talked to my friend about the problem, it was weighing on me like a boulder.  Once I talk it out, I feel much better.  But not if they want to dismiss my feelings and instead tell me what to do.  That makes me feel worse.

                Being a good friend means sending the message, “I’m here for you no matter what you decide,” vs. “I’m only here if you do what I say.”

                You may be reading this and saying, “Well, then, you only want to hear what you want to hear.”

                No shit, Sherlock.  Gee, if you wanted to hear something you didn’t want to hear, you would call up your biggest enemy and get a list of all your shortcomings.  I’m sure he (or she) would be happy to tell you to go on a diet, you need therapy,  you act like you’re brain dead sometimes, and you do everything wrong.  You don’t want to hear that shit when you call your friends.

                Friends are supposed to accept you no matter what.  They’re supposed to listen. They’re supposed to cheer you up.  You should feel the world is a brighter place when you hang up the phone with them.  You shouldn’t feel ten times worse.

                You may be a toxic friend if you:

1.       Are often accused of nagging.  Nagging isn’t a sign of caring.  It demonstrates a need for control.  Parents nag their kid when they won’t do what they’re told, because they have control over the child and they know better.  Nagging a partner or a friend is a toxic behavior.  You shouldn’t be telling another adult what to do unless they ask for your advice, and you shouldn’t nag them if they don’t take it.  Adults have the right to make their own decisions.  They don’t have to do what you say.  You are not in control.

2.       Take Everything They Say to be about You.  Your lonely and depressed friend who just broke up with their boyfriend calls and tells you they feel alone.  You snap, “Well, how is that supposed to make me feel, I’m here!  What am I, chopped liver?”  Seriously?  Your friend is mourning the loss of their partner.  That’s what they’re expressing.  They know you’re there, and trust me, they’re grateful.  PS:  There is huge difference between the preceding statement and “you’ll never be alone, I’ll always be there for you.” One statement is accusatory; the other is supportive.

3.       They’ve Experienced A Tragedy, and Your First Thought is You Can’t Deal with this Right Now. Wonderful.  I mean, you have so much going on right now.  Your own relationship is going great, your new diet is working, you’re up for a promotion, and you’ve just booked your trip to Cabo.  The last thing you want to deal with is your friend crying because her fiancée called off their wedding.  That’s going to put a damper on your mood.  Why can’t she just get over it?

4.       You Repeat What You Said to Your Friend to Someone, and Their Eyes Widen and They Say, “Wow.”  If you’re getting feedback from others that you’re a crappy friend, maybe you should take heed. 

5.       You Send Their Calls to Voicemail and Don’t Call Them Back.  If for one second you think they don’t know you’re doing this, guess again. There is nothing more demoralizing than having a crisis and your friend won’t even give you ten minutes of their time.  Being a friend means sticking by someone’s side during the rough periods.

6.       You Drop Your Friends Whenever You Have a Boyfriend/Girlfriend.  This is the shittiest thing a friend can do, and we all know people who are like this.  When they’re single, they’re practically living in your colon.  Then they meet someone and vanish.  They won’t even return texts.  If they break up, not only are they back, they’re whining that you’re not spending time with them because of all the hobbies you developed in their absence.  You adjust your life to include them again, just in time for them to get back with their partner and drop you.  Annoying.

7.       You Tell Your Friends How They Should Feel About Something You’ve Never Experienced.  Those of us in our forties know there are some experiences that you cannot understand unless you’ve gone through it yourself.  Death of a parent is one.  Losing a job is another.  Unless you’ve walked in those shoes, DO NOT ever tell your friend how they should feel about it.  It’s bad enough to be enduring a tragedy, it becomes worse when a friend who has no idea what you’re going through tells you to snap out of it, or get over it, or it’s not the end of the world.  Don’t tell me “this is business,” when I lose my job.  Are you fucking kidding me?  Or “breakups happen,” when my boyfriend breaks up with me.  Do you think you’re telling me something I don’t know?  Give it a rest. 

8.       You Only Bother with Your Friend When You Want Something.  You need them to pet sit while you’re in Cabo, so for the weeks leading up to your trip you suffer through their whiny phone calls.  Or, now you’ve got a crisis, so you call them immediately, because they always make you feel better.  Wow, would be nice if you could reciprocate.

                Let’s face it, everyone is different.  People have different communication styles.  But the desire to have someone listen to your problems is universal.  And contrary to what you might believe, listening skills do not come naturally to everyone.  They can be developed, and they’re worth learning.  Returning to my college RA training, I can share this important point: human beings were given two ears and only one tongue because listening is twice as hard as talking. 

                It’s not always easy to be a supportive friend.  But friendships entail give and take.  If you vanish during your friend’s take phase, then you need to re-evaluate your approach.  Like we were told in grade school, to have a friend you need to be a friend.  The ability to listen is one of the fundamental building blocks of friendship.  Maybe we were born with different conversational skills, but that doesn’t mean we’re stuck and that’s it.  We can all learn to be better friends.