Dude Looks Like A Lady

Since we're (still) on the topic of men and women - have you ever noticed how men tend to want to solve things, and women just want to talk endlessly about stuff? I think somewhere along the line a stray Y chromosome made it into my body, because I want to talk endlessly about stuff but only if it comes to a solution.

I am terribly at endless talking and not reaching a resolution. This of course makes me either a great friend to have, or an extremely annoying friend to have, because I can be really helpful, but neither do I want to listen to your shit ad infinitum. I see a problem - my own or someone else's - and I have an immediate need to fix it, or at the least make some sort of decision about it.I just can't talk about it in circles (but to be clear, I can in fact talk the paint off the walls, just not when there is a specific problem which is crying out for a solution.)

At the moment, this 'fix it' part of my personality is causing me no end of grief - because along with it comes the unfortunate behaviour of choosing to ignore those things (or people) that I cannot fix. There are a few specific situations in my life which I can do nothing about - not because I haven't tried, but because the situations are either out of my control, or the people involved in them need to do their own fixing. I've been asked my opinion on how to solve these issues and gladly given them...but now I no longer can bear to hear about them. I just can't keep listening to the broken record of complaints, whining, sadness, anger, hurt and frustration - and so I basically just turn off my involvement in those situations. I walk away. I engage in a form of self protection and I distance myself entirely from the people and the situations. I'm choosing to do so because I just can't let that negativity into my space...much as I think letting it in is probably the right thing to do.

Just writing this down is actually making me feel horrible - because I like to believe I'm the sort of person who sticks with you when the chips are down. I feel as though letting that negative energy into my life would just...cripple me. I have a tendency to take on other people's issues and in these situations, I know that doing so would be the quickest way to the bottom of a bag or ten of cookies and I do NOT want to go there. So, I'm choosing to be selfish and walk away.  I hate that I'm doing it, but to do differently would just be...unfathomable to me right now.

(By the way, I hate to be all vague and whatnot (because how irritating is that?!) but it's unfair to the people who are involved to air dirty laundry which does not belong to me.)

Intellectually I know that the best thing one can do for a person in need is just to listen - really listen - and let them vent whatever they need to vent. Hell, there are many times when that's all I really want to do myself. "I don't want you to solve it, I just want you to hear it," is a sentence I've said to DH countless times and yet I'm finding it pretty close to impossible to be the listener I want and they need me to be.


Right now, I just can't 'be there' for the people who need me to be there, and the disappointment I feel in myself is painful as hell. I'm actually not sure which is worse - the pain of the situation itself, or the pain of knowing I'm behaving like a complete selfish jerk.

I want to solve things. I can't. It sucks.