ZombieKitten said:

Awww. I'm really glad you like your grubbeltomte.

As you've been able to read in my original post, I totally sympathize with your feelings on this matter, and I think it's really too bad that you don't feel like you have anyone who understands how to handle you. Despite my male tendencies, I'd be willing to try to be that person though, you know that.

ZombieKitten said:

I guess I won't post my mulit tiered program to finding appropriate female support

retina said:

Perfect! Exactly the right thing!

NDRU said:

i'm for it!

NDRU said:

no sometimes a big is all that is needed

I usually don't say anything at first.
I just let 'em talk, cry, yell,
whatever they need to do to get it off their chest.

Then after a brief pause,
I'll say "It's okay, hun...we've all been there".

That way she get's a sympathetic ear,
and I get a thoroughly satisfying blowjob.

Everybody wins.

ZombieKitten said:

no tools? no problem solving? I don't see the ...oh that's nice!

Illustrator said:

Aha, a spin on the regular male approach; you do try to solve a problem and reach a goal, it just happens to not be yours and not theirs.

retina said:

what's the difference - you're not gonna like my answer no matter how i reply.

retina said:

Yeah, I guess...
but I just regard it as a win/win type of situation.
She gets to get her stuff off her chest,
& I get to put some my stuff on it.

Anx said:

Listen Anx, you've got it backwards. I don't dislike you. I was just making fun of how Carrie always follows you around, that's all.

Now answer the question. I do want to hear what you have to say on the matter.

retina said:

i don't know. i'm a little of both. i'm pragmatic about helping people solve problems - i don't like feeling like someone is just mired in something bad when i can help them out of it somehow - but when someone's upset, i also like to create a comforting environment for them. i like to listen, i like to offer creature comforts, companionability, a space where they can loosen up a little. those things are important too.

Anx said:

Your answer sucks monkey balls!!!

retina said:

Anx said:

Anx said:

Alrite retina. Wtf.

Whats with all the questions?

Is something wrong? Do ya wanna talka bout it?

SureThing said:

Will you try to give me advice?

SureThing said:

retina is like the lucy van pelt to my charlie brown, and like a moron, i always run kicking at that damn football.

Anx said:

Anx said:

I liked your answer, and I think it's wonderful if you actually practice what you preach too. It's a difficult thing to be pragmatic when it comes to emotions (since you have to "read" the other person really well), but some people can do it and you might well be one of them.

Anx said:

that bit sounds good to me!
come and bake me a cake!

ZombieKitten said:

Anx said:

come on! that is the kind of support I REALLY need! especially today

ZombieKitten said:

Ouch, he didn't read that one too well, did he?












I kid, I kid.

retina said:

I know, I am going to go make it myself

ZombieKitten said:

no, what happened?

i need a little pocket sized retina to carry around with me so he can point out all my various foibles and shortcomings. i wouldn't even have to feed him - knowing that i feel like an ass would surely be nourishment enough for him.

Anx said:

Oh stop it now! I don't take pleasure in other people's pain, and certainly not if I have nothing against them. Besides, you have earned the love and lust of Imago and Carrie who both have good taste (except in interior decorating in Imago's case), you have a red and black circular avatar, you make an author's marathon into performance art by writing a small book at record speed and then destroying it, and much like me you hate morons. What's not to love?

Anx said:

I have a bag of plums and a bag of apricots
woe is me

retina said:

Well, didn't I just write there, "no, you don't want to"?

This is why the "female way" you described up there is the better one, because most males do not have the slightest clue what they are attempting to rationalize (I would also say that the "male way" of handling things is what causes most problems in the world anyway, but let's not get into that). If you're not getting to the structures themselves any practical solution given by another person to you is just futile and ultimately leads to more discomfort. This is because the solutions really are always analogous to the problems themselves (i.e. "you need to find a position for yourself at your workplace that suits you better" or "forget about her, there are a million other women in the world who are better-looking and more intelligent than her"), they are exactly the same things under a different name than what caused the emotional stress. And in simpler terms, that is because those solutions are always forced and do not cover half of what either person participating in the discussion is really thinking inside their heads.

Language doesn't exist merely for communication, it also exists for the sake of a gap in communication. And we cannot say out loud what really bothers us, it's an impossibility. This is because the problem exists in a junction of our minds that is not articulatable by normal use of language (which is exactly why many people recognize the "healing power" of poetry).

The "female way" is anyway basically the way of the psychoanalytical therapy, where the analyser doesn't really speak half that much and let's the analysand to attempt to understand why he is experiencing the problems. Women are great therapeutists, even just ordinary women, if only on the grounds that they do exactly what our mothers used to do back in our childhoods. My mother had never read Jacques Lacan but she was a far better therapeutist than anyone at the public health care center, who are merely interested in providing ants that are "functional enough" for the society's needs. That's basically the male way at its purest form.

JustErin said:

You know how when people have been first trying to speak about their problems to someone else finally tend to say something like, "words really can't describe how I feel"? Well, they are right. Words can't describe how they feel. Yet they keep on talking anyway - and they should. No matter how much time it takes, hopefully in the process they will come to understand how little what you are attempting to say really means and how little it has to do with what we really want in our lives. Only then you are allowing yourself to continue with your life to any satisfying degree.

Another alternative is what some of my good friends used to tell me back in the day when I was wallowing in my never-ending misery - "Jari, you just need a good fuck to get over it". Well, they were right. Cause you know, that's just what I really wanted no matter how hard I was trying to rationalize the problems in my head. It's not the perfect cure, but then again it's pretty outdated to believe in a cure anyway. I'll leave that to the religious people.