> 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.