Rent Of The Soul

I don't know how to act around people who only want to keep complaining, while not wanting help on said complaint.

Long time since I've last posted here. I hope to get back to this soon. I'll start with a rant first, because I have to get it out of my blood, and then I'll approach the matter with a more mature and cold thinking.

Rant, Mary doesn't want help, she just wants to be comforted

Today, Mary initiated a conversation with me. She was all like “uhg damm this thing, I have to copy it all manually because all the lines get smashed!” and like complained about work-related task. Now for me it looked like something really dumb to be stuck on, and I felt like there must be solutions to this problem. she mustn't be the first one to encounter this. Wanting to let her help herself and give her a chance to learn (instead of me taking the keyboard and doing it for her), I tried hinting at what a possible solution is, and then quite clearly (as she seemed to be ignorant about my attempt to help) tell her what a solution might look like.

Really, looking backward it didn't seem like she wanted any help at all. At some point I told her straight “try googling XY XZ, there must be a solution for this. you're not the only one doing it”, so she opened her phone (why not use your PC??), opened browser, but the second my eyes didn't look directly at her, she closed it and put her phone away. Bottom line for this part: she complains, I'm trying to help, she doesn't care.

Moving through the day, every single person that came to her, to talk or they needed something, she'd keep complaining about this problem she had! others tried to help aswell, but she somehow showed interest and ignored their help at the same time. I just don't fricking get it.

Why purposely do a sisyphean work, complain about it to everyone, and not want any help from anyone?

It's like I'm gonna cut myself, go wining to everyone that my vein is bleeding and hurting, and when suggested to put a bandage on it, I'll just rest it on my hand (instead of tying/sticking/pressing it) and be like “yeah I don't think this works, guess I'm just gonna bleed forever... oughhhh look I'm bleeding! this sucks so much!”

At some point I was like “aight, she doesn't want no help, she's a grown up woman, I'll stop suggesting solutions to this” to myself. But she kept complaining to me and bring this up on conversations! and, bro, I don't know any more than “yeah it sucks, I bet” comforting words to say. seriously, I have no idea how to comfort people. But I am a littttle smart in SOME areas, and I can offer some help to resolve the issue?? ok ig enough rant.

being reasonable and mature

Now, I get it. Some people don't want help. they just want someone to agree with them and tell them “it sucks, man”. And obviously that's totally fine. Myself I'm like that many times. I just need to know where are my strengths, and where my weaknesses are. I'm used to people coming to me for actual help with their problems. Seeing mostly just my family, they wouldn't come to me for comfort or anything, but just for things that I know and help they needed. So I'm used to it, but gotta realize that's not what everyone wants.

It is hard for me to recognize when someone wants just comfort, or just help. I'm getting better at this, but it's still not perfect.

I think next time I should be straight on honest and too open and come @ like: > “Listen, Mary, If you want help with this issue, I'd be glad to help you with > anything you need. If you just want comfort, honestly there's not much more I > can do than to say 'it suck' a couple of times. There are other people in the > office that can do it better than me. If there's something specific you need feel > welcome to ask”.

It does sound a bit pushing away, like I have no patience for her, I should improve this response. But honestly I don't know what else I can fucking do.

getting a bit ranti again

saying it sucks didn't help, offering help didn't help, honestly no idea. after a couple of failed attempts to get the comfort she wanted out of me, she just complained to literally everyone else she saw this day. no fucking clue what I'm supposed to do in this situation.

okay, fuck's sake. Should calm myself down now.

Conclusion?

No there's not a fucking conclusion. I didn't get any outside view that could actually help. some day I'll speak with my sister on this and she's gonna have her brilliant view on my life that I didn't see because I'm a fucking blind weirdo with no fucking social skills.

Okay maybe there's a conclution: don't try to help, and dare to explicitly ask if they need help or not.