Mr. Fixit fixes things, so when a female friend tells him her problems don’t need fixing he has no idea what to do next.
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Mr. Fixit works with computers, everyday his job is to fix other people’s problems. On a slow day he will fix only a few problems, complex problems may take as much as a week and on a busy day he may fix as many as 20 problems. When he gets home from work his family and friends have computers which need fixing and he cheerfully obliges. His neighbor, a young kid, is starting his own business but doesn’t know how, not a problem, it’s something Mr. Fixit can fix. Drains blocked, roof leak, car is out of oil … Check, Check and Check, Mr. Fixit has it covered.
But Mr. Fixit has a problem. A friend of his, a female friend, has told him more than a few times to shut up and listen, her problems don’t need fixing. She is right of course, firstly they aren’t Mr. Fixit’s problems to fix, and secondly she isn’t asking him for advice, just to listen.
This puts Mr. Fixit in a bit of a quandary. His whole professional life has been built around fixing other people’s problems. Every time his phone rings at work there is someone on the other end wanting a problem fixed. He is a male so according to gender generalizations he is predisposed to fixing things. If he gets presented with a problem his first instinct every time is to try and find a solution to it. He can’t help it. It’s like putting a bowl of candy in front of a kid and telling them not to eat any then walking out of the room. Mr. Fixit is even aware that he is doing it, he isn’t a silly or stupid man, yet he still can’t help himself.
So Mr. Fixit approaches this like any other problem to be fixed, what is it that Mr. Fixit needs to do in order not to fix something. Of course to almost any female out there the answer is quite simple. Empathize with the speaker and just let them talk. Mr. Fixit of course is left stuck spinning in a circle going “But how do I not fix something.” You see it’s a foreign concept to Mr. Fixit, he just can’t quite get around that some problems don’t need answers. To Mr. Fixit it’s the same as traveling on a train but you don’t know the destination. It doesn’t compute. How can you travel on a train without knowing the destination? What if you don’t get to where you want to go? The females in the audience can quite rightly point out that this is a sightseeing train; it doesn’t matter where it stops.
So Mr. Fixit has a problem. He now knows the answer to 1+1 is “That sounds horrible, what did you do?” But he lacks the mental facilities to work out that bit of WTF. So if anyone has some advice for Mr. Fixit on jumping the mental hurdle on how not to fix things he would appreciate it. He has even found a YouTube video which summarizes his problem quite well.
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Photo: kennymatic/Flickr
I feel you. I am totally someone who always want to help people through their problems. One thing that has helped me a lot is using what David Rock has called “facilitating feedback.” Instead of telling people what to do (how to help themselves) you keep asking questions that in a way point out the obvious until they get to the answer themselves. It’s definitely harder than just telling them what you see, and it requires a lot more patience, but it’s usually a path of least resistance. Instead of offering statements, keep asking about the issue in a way… Read more »
Good advice.
I feel my friend has well and truly clued on to me and would probably spot that but handy to know for other people. I will have to try it.
That advice reminds me of a kids story, maybe Aesops Fable or a golden book about a little owl who wanted to be wise, basically after asking everyone his father said “I don’t know, I just sit here and go Who Who and everyone calls me wise.”
I love it but you do realise you have just implied
D: Whenever she has a problem because of C he emotionally distances himself and she accuses him of not listening (aka not caring).
Yes, we are set up to a lose-lose situation.
But then again, we already knew that, didn’t we?
A man partial to certain theories might also observe that a woman telling him about her problems presents an opportunity for him to display A. high social status by not caring enough to contribute more than the bare minimum and B. political skill by continuing to contribute that bare minimum so that the woman perceives him to be engaged in the interaction. In the context of the video, the guy needs to realize *and change his behavior based on* the conclusions he draws that A. she’s not going to realize that there’s an actual problem she should solve, B. that… Read more »