I've stopped helping, or even started avoiding, some "friends" because of this.
Of course some tact is needed, and I've sometimes got that wrong. You have to properly listen before making suggestions, perhaps you need to ask questions first too to make sure you actually really understand, and definitely watch for signs (or explicit mentions) that advice/solutions are not wanted at this point (sometimes people just need to sound it out, to help get things in order in their own heads), and don't give definitive sounding advice when you aren't as sure as you sound, and sometimes great care needs to be given to your wording/intonation (lest advice be confused for judgement), but if after all that I make a suggestion and get my face bitten off, I am not the dick in that situation.
An actual quote, yelled before storming off: "oh, that is just like you, trying to solve everything". Damn right that is just like me, the me you know well. If someone I care about has a problem in front of me then yes I'll try help them solve it. If you don't like that, then making me not care is not particularly difficult - screaming "oh, that is just like you, trying to solve everything", storming off, and not offering any apology at all afterwards, is an effective step in that process.
Of course I need to be aware that how I react to problems may not be what other people want, and I'm not afraid to admit that empathy is a trait/skill I am sometimes not as strong in as I would like to be. But accepting that other people are different should work both ways.
What happens when people tell you about problems that require experts in a specific area to solve, and you are not an expert in that area? Do you still try to help?
Like I will tell my friends and family about problems I am having at work because they are my friends and family and I assume that they care about how my life is going. If they are able to provide solutions, I will not rule it out for them. But most likely they are not because they have different jobs. When people attempt to give advice on things they don't know about, I assume they are more interested in appearing smart than my well being.
> about problems that require experts in a specific area to solve, and you are not an expert in that area? Do you still try to help?
Depends on the situation. I would certainly make it clear (if I didn't think it was already abundantly so) that anything I said wasn't from a position of expertise.
If someone is simply wanting to sound out a problem, or is seeking to describe their frustration as in your example, that should be fairly obvious from their wording (this tends to fall apart a little when there is a bit of a language barrier, so take extra care in those situations).
They may be deliberately looking for an outsides view - sometimes even a wrong suggestion can jog the mind towards some wood that you've not seen for the trees. Here asking questions can help: if you try to formulate your problem in a way that an outsider understands it can actually help your own understanding, or make you spot the simply thing that you'd managed to miss while "thinking too hard".
Another way of helping rather than directly, particularly in technical matters, is to suggest other helpers ("have you asked [insert someone I think will be able to help for more than I, here]?"). Or even general problem solving help. They may just need a distraction (the old "fresh air / food / hydration / company - then hopefully hit the problem again with a fresher mind).
> When people attempt to give advice on things they don't know about, I assume they are more interested in appearing smart than my well being.
I would agree with that, but only after allowing for the above caveats. And I try to be polite when it happens: the Dunning-Kruger effect can lead people to innocently misunderstand both complexity and scale, through no malice nor desire for self promotion.
If so, maybe that was clear and I missed it. Or maybe it very much wasn't, and they should know me better than to expect different behaviour in that case.
I've stopped helping, or even started avoiding, some "friends" because of this.
Of course some tact is needed, and I've sometimes got that wrong. You have to properly listen before making suggestions, perhaps you need to ask questions first too to make sure you actually really understand, and definitely watch for signs (or explicit mentions) that advice/solutions are not wanted at this point (sometimes people just need to sound it out, to help get things in order in their own heads), and don't give definitive sounding advice when you aren't as sure as you sound, and sometimes great care needs to be given to your wording/intonation (lest advice be confused for judgement), but if after all that I make a suggestion and get my face bitten off, I am not the dick in that situation.
An actual quote, yelled before storming off: "oh, that is just like you, trying to solve everything". Damn right that is just like me, the me you know well. If someone I care about has a problem in front of me then yes I'll try help them solve it. If you don't like that, then making me not care is not particularly difficult - screaming "oh, that is just like you, trying to solve everything", storming off, and not offering any apology at all afterwards, is an effective step in that process.
Of course I need to be aware that how I react to problems may not be what other people want, and I'm not afraid to admit that empathy is a trait/skill I am sometimes not as strong in as I would like to be. But accepting that other people are different should work both ways.