Men listen up....Listen

Venting is normal for everyone. Sometimes we just have to let whoever is around us here a story that is driving us nuts, to help us feel more normal about it. Often to get someone else on 'our side', to share our story to see if another agrees, to help us believe we are not crazy. Sometimes we feel caught in a series of impossible events, dragging us downward, and each time we start to push back, to rise up and fight back, another blow knocks us back. Its times like these we all need to vent, to let it out and gain perspective from a friend or family member, gain our credibility back to ourselves.

This is normal behavior for everyone but its not what I am talking about. Some of us hold more inside than others, but still venting for stress relief is normal. But as a man, I see women who do this more, and women who do it less, but I always see women doing it more than men. So this poses a problem between the sexes doesn't it? Men have not grown up with the understanding of what a listening to a woman vent is all about. We don't get it. I have praised women time and time again and even gone so far as to call you the superior gender. But I have to say that this might be a point in our favor. Men understand, worse its all we understand, that if a problem is presented it needs to be fixed. And to take that to the next level, if a problem is presented it was presented to us because that person thought we would be able to fix their problem and therefore clearly want us to fix it. Duh, why else? If you tell us your tire is flat we know that means go fix it. If you tell us you have a problem "emotionally", we try to fix it. DUH!

I was just reading my friend Stephanie's blog and it was about listening and not doing anything. Not trying to fix it, and although it was very insightful, and I will work on using the information, I had to wonder; How are we supposed to know when to just listen, and when to try to help?

I remember during the years when I was married and I would be holding myself back when she was venting about something, trying not to offer help, which is very much like trying to keep your Labrador from chasing that squirrel which is taunting him. When sometime after she mentioned one of her female friends and how great their advise was. How they always knew to say the right thing and how helpful she was. And I got jealous. I wanted to be that person, the one whose ideas and thoughts were desired and complimented. So I found myself turning the dog loose the next time a venting session came out offering advice, trying to be helpful and I watched as I got sucked into an emotional chaos. Yikes! So here is the question; How can men be both?