Books read in March 2026

 Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb

"Women don't want you to solve their problems, they just want you to listen"

This post is based on a common gender-based conventional wisdom, but I've been thinking about it and I think it applies to everyone of all genders.

 

Conventional wisdom is that women don't want men to solve their problem, we just want them to listen.

 

Although this conventional wisdom leads to the desired behaviour, I think it's imprecise.

 

I think the actual reality of the situation is people don't want to have to do all the emotional labour of being patient and polite (and sometimes even performing gratitude) with someone who thinks they're solving our problem when they're actually restating the obvious as though we never thought of it while contributing nothing new to the conversation.

 

This is especially true since a subset of the people who go around restating the obvious don't seem to believe you that the single most obvious potential solution didn't work.

 

Examples:

 

Me: All the youtube videos said it should just pop back in, but it doesn't.

Him: Did you try?

Me: Yes, and it didn't work. That's why it's a problem.

 

Me: They won't honour my warranty

Him: Did you tell them you have a warranty?  

Me: Yes, and they wouldn't honour it

Him: Did you show them the warranty confirmation you got when you bought it?

Me: Yes, and they said they couldn't honour it. 

Him: They should be honouring it! It's a warranty!

Me: Yes, that's why this is a problem.

 

 

An actual, real-life solution to the problem that will actually work in real life is always welcome! 

 

However, putting extensive time, energy and emotional labour into not solving the problem and not getting any further (and, possibly, not being believed) is not welcome, and makes for frustrating, unwanted conversation.

 

One aspect of this that might in fact be gendered is that people sometimes react differently to men and women doing the same thing, as demonstrated by that twitter thread where a man and a woman switched email signatures. 

So your male interlocutor doesn't see the potential negative outcomes of his suggestions because he's never experienced someone reacting negatively, whereas you have a lifetime of experience with how people might react negatively or see you as a difficult person.

Which actually might have a multiplier effect - your male interlocutor unconsciously sees you as less credible as part of this established societal gendered pattern, and the fact that you don't see why his idea would be as flawless as he thinks it is reinforces this perceived lower credibility, which makes him even likely to believe you about the push-back that you'd receive but he won't. Which leads to him complaining to his buddies that women don't want you to solve their problems, which reinforces them seeing women as less credible. Which means that next time a woman has a problem where their proposed solution won't work, they won't believe her. And the vicious cycle begins again.

 

 

When, in reality, all anyone wants is to not have to deal with the frustration of someone who thinks they're solving your problem while contributing nothing new. And this frustration, ironically, would be reduced if they'd actually listen.