So this is really interesting to me, because it feels it's a great example of one of the most basic misconceptions I've experienced in my life.
tl;dr: Maybe they're just venting. Maybe they just want sympathy. Maybe they just want validation that their assessment of their situation being bad is accurate or objective.
In more detail: I'm a fixer. I like fixing things. If you come to me and share a problem, I will try my best to fix it. I will offer solutions and I will try to brainstorm a way to offer support. That's how I show I care. It's wired into my brain. If someone I care about is suffering or in pain, and they communicate that to me, my instinctive reaction is to figure out how to help.
But it turns out that's not always what people want.
One of my dearest, closest friends vents a lot. She knows what the problem is, and she knows how to fix it, but in the, idk, step-by-step process of her brain to function, there's a clear step labeled "venting". She needs to communicate her problem verbally to someone, before she can actually do anything about it. She needs to explain what she's seeing and how and where. Plenty of times, she already KNOWS how to fix it, but she can't start the "fixing" subroutine until she completes the "venting" subroutine. She has to vent.
And she's made it very clear to me, how utterly infuriating and condescending it was to have her attempts to vent met with calls for action.
"My washer machine is broken," my friend would say, preparing to share the story of how it broke and how it made her feel, because she needs to verbalize the situation to be able to process it.
And then I would immediately jump in and go:
"Oh, we can buy a second hand cheap one in this bazaar."
"I can find the name of the guy who fixed my mom's washing machine for you."
"Did you get the extended warranty? If you did, you can just call and they'll take care of it."
And all of those would result in my friend's "venting" subroutine getting hung while she replied - awkward, thoughtless, deflecting answers, because she hadn't PROCESSED yet, so she couldn't really say anything for certain yet. And in turn I would continue to rattle out solutions every step of the way, because I took her objections to be aimed at my solutions specifically, not at my behavior over all.
We had a lot of fights, this friend and I. But one day we sort of... we clicked. One day she said "I'm not an idiot and you don't need to treat me like one, maybe I just wanted some sympathy from a friend, not to be made feel like an incompetent child over every thing that upsets me! It's very hurtful that you dismiss me that way."
I was floored. Completely flabbergasted. At no point had I considered that my attempts to help were harmful. This is a person I care about deeply and that I wanted to support, and I realized it was my self-centeredness that was not letting me see what she actually needed was diametrically opposed to what I was trying to give her.
And like, that's the thing, you know? I ask now. "Is this venting or is this asking for advice?" And if it's venting, I offer a sympathetic ear and we'll bitch together about the great evils of the world. And if it's advice, I'll let loose and scramble my brain to figure out how to fix it.
The thing is, there was nothing wrong with my friend. There still isn't. She's not wrong or broken or selfish or lazy or any of the unkind things people assume, when they encounter this particular misunderstanding. Her brain is wired differently from mine. That's all. It's not even that hard to accommodate for it, either. And she accommodates for me too.
the REAL tl;dr sometimes if you keep not getting the expected reaction, from your interactions with people, it's entirely possible you're misinterpreting the entire thing. And that's not necessarily anyone's fault, but if you can notice it and you see it happen over and over again... maybe speak up and try to clear things up?
Different people need different things, and there's nothing wrong with that.
