tinman411
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[This profile text last updated Thursday 28 December 2023]
Hi there! This profile text is me trying to explain what I want from a Listener. I have written a lot. But if you want a short version then here it is.
The (so-called) Problem is that I have never, in my entire life, had any interaction with anyone where I thought any kind of significant communication was happening. (It always feels like I’m talking a foreign language.) When I talk to other people it seems like they don’t communicate with me at all. Either they ignore me or they say things which show that they haven’t paid attention to what I have said at all. Currently I have no friends or worthwhile social contact with anybody.
The most significant manifestation of this Problem was during my education years where there was no communication at all between me and teachers. I got nothing from any teacher that I couldn’t have got from reading the material for myself. Not that this was very much; I didn’t really understand what I tried reading for myself either. (If I had to put a figure to it I’d say about 10%.) But note, I don’t think I’m stupid. (Although you might disagree with that!)
So what I want to know is: what is this all about? This is what I want from a Listener. I am baffled by my experience of things and I would like some other people’s ‘perspective’ on it.
OK, so that’s the short version. You can skip the rest and just reply now (see §8 below) “if you want” (RSVP!).
If you are still reading then let me ramble on.
§1 - Some more general remarks.
By the way, I am using the word ‘Problem’ (with a capital letter) as an easy way to refer to the thing I am talking about, but I don’t think the word ‘problem’ is entirely accurate. It’s just that I can’t think of a better one right now.
First, a little bit more about what I want. I say I want some perspective. What I mean by this is that I think it would be useful if I just talked to someone about the Problem as I have described it. I don’t want solutions or ‘emotional support’. I want someone simply to ask me questions about what I have described. (You know, like the way people are interested in each other and so ask questions.) Ask questions as if they were interviewing me to get to a more detailed understanding what I have described. I think that’s the best way although I’m happy for Listeners to talk to me any way they want. (More about exactly what I want in section §4 below.)
Previously my strategy has been to browse and select Listeners and then ask them to read this profile text and to respond to me to arrange a time when we can talk. But this didn’t work.
§2 - About me.
Before I continue, a few facts about me. I am single (f)unemployed male. I was born in 1970. I was in my last permanent job for 16 years before I got fired (year 2015) for “being a smart-arse”.
I live (and I use the word ‘live’ in the broadest sense) in a dull Northern English town. (England, UK.)
§3 - More about the Problem.
Here are some examples. (More detailed versions of what I said in §1 above.)
Descriptions of some of my experiences of life, on which I would like to get some perspective.
§3.1
About the fact that I don’t have any social contact with anybody. I often think that I have never in my entire life had a satisfactory conversation with anybody. By ‘satisfactory’ I mean a conversation about which I could afterwards say: “some significant communication happened here”. And then I also think that the reason for this is that nobody knows how to talk. (I don’t mean to be judgemental when I say that.)
Sitting down with someone and having a proper conversation with them is my favourite thing to do ever. (I would much rather sit and talk with people than read a novel or watch a movie.) But I never do this and I feel that it’s because I never meet people who really know how to talk. I find people to be aloof, evasive, disingenuous, disengaged, uninterested. (And then I think: am I just being over-critical here?)
I see a lot of interaction happening in the format of social media. By which I mean things like Twitter and internet discussion forums. But to me this is not communication, and I am surprised that anybody thinks it is. It’s like “dinner party conversation”. Where it’s more that you are talking ‘at’ or ‘to’ people rather than ‘with’ them. But real communication only happens when you talk ‘with’ other people.
Imagine you went somewhere and every time you tried to say anything even a little bit serious to any of the people there they just smiled and shrugged their shoulders and said: “well what can you do, eh? but hasn’t the weather been nice/awful recently” and that’s all they ever said. That was the full extent of their conversational repertoire.
I am reminded of that bit in the film ‘Brief Encounter’ where the emotionally troubled Laura finds herself sat opposite an acquaintance on the train who is just prattling and gossiping. And we hear Laura thinking to herself: “I wish I could trust you. I wish you were a wise, kind friend, instead of a gossiping acquaintance I've known casually for years and never particularly cared for. I wish. I wish.”
Other people seem to be quite happy communicating in the social media format. It’s very popular! Apparently people even meet others and make friends using it.
§3.2
Here’s more about the example I mentioned earlier. I went through many years of full time education but there was never any communication between me and any teacher. Which is pretty odd given that education is all about communication. About teachers communicating learning and understanding to the students. But there was nothing any teacher ever did to get me to a state of understanding that couldn’t have been done by me just reading about it for myself. There was never any time in the whole of the 16 years I was in full time education that any teacher ever showed the least bit interest in whether or not I understood anything. Which I found quite baffling.
But, and here’s the important point, everybody else seemed fine with exactly the same education that I was baffled by and which I found to be completely insane. How is that possible?
(I know it’s a bit lame to be whining about things that happened in your youth but this is a good example.)
§3.3
More generally I have never talked to anybody where I have got any kind of understanding of their experience of life. And by this I don’t necessarily experience of the big things in life. So I feel as if I am in the same position as someone who has never talked to anybody. Like someone who everyone has decided to ignore.
§4 - What I want from a Listener.
I feel like I need to be clearer about what I want. About what I mean when I say I want a different perspective.
In very general terms (and the rest of this profile text should clarify) what I want from a Listener is to get some (different, impartial) perspective on my (so-called) life and my experience of it. (Or maybe on Life in general.) Because a lot of this doesn’t make sense to me and leaves me feeling confused. (It’s like I want someone to look at my life and describe it to me as if it’s not my life.)
The 7cups FAQ page (HERE
https://www.7cups.com/about/faq.php
) says Listening is Active Listening where this is “a set of communication skills that demonstrate empathy, compassion, understanding, and respect”. It’s the ‘understanding’ part of this that I’m mostly interested in. But then I’d need some way of knowing that the Listener did really understand and weren’t just nodding their head saying “yes, I understand” when they didn’t really. It would be properly active if the Listener would demonstrate to me that they did really and truly understand (and that they were interested) by them asking me perceptive questions about what I was saying. (To sensitively interrogate me.) And then also, as mentioned above, I would want a Listener to understand me in a different way (from a different perspective) to the way I do. And to explain that to me.
I want somebody to ask me lots of perceptive questions about the Problem in the way that a therapist asks their client questions. Even though what I am talking about lacks the urgency of the issues that would prompt someone to go see a therapist. (See §6 for more about this.)
I am asking for a Listener to give me a different perspective on my experience of life. This means that first they will need to understand my experience of life. Maybe this is a major problem. Maybe the level of understanding of my experience of life that any Listener would need to have in order to give me some perspective is impossible to get. I will provide examples later (see §3). But really the Listener will need to ask me lots of questions to get to the level of understanding that they need.
When I say I want some perspective, this might include an answer to the question “what I’m doing wrong?”. Like if I was doing something and it wasn’t working and other people were doing the same thing and for them it was working. Then I would want somebody else to find out how I was doing it. Again, this would be through them asking me questions.
All this “asking me questions” thing makes it sound like I am presenting the Listeners with a puzzle. Some kind of guessing game. Where they get to the answer by asking me questions. I’m asking the question “what is this?” about the Problem as if it was some mysterious object that had appeared and I was curious about what it was.
I sometimes think that a good way for me to get perspective on my experience of some aspect of my life is for lots of other people to describe to me their experience of the same thing.
Another way of understanding the “getting some perspective” thing is that it’s like I describe my experiences and then someone says: “oh yeah I know what that is I’ve seen it before”. Because, up to now, I’ve never heard of anyone else’s experiences which bear any resemblance to mine.
Neither does it matter if the Listener fails to say anything useful. If they just try to do so, by asking the questions they need to, this will still be useful to me I think. It might cause me to realise something. In some sense a Listener just trying to help is enough. They don’t actually need to overtly succeed in any way. With this sort of subject matter any conversation is a kind of success. If I speak to someone and they fail to say anything useful then that is still useful in a way because I can learn something from the way in which they fail to say something useful.
Also: I don’t need a Listener to offer ‘solutions’ as in suggestions about to how to help with the Problem. That would be getting ahead of things. Right now the aim is to get a better understanding of the Problem. Possible solutions come afterwards. Or maybe what I mean here is that the main difficulty in solving a problem is often just being able to say what it is clearly. Maybe the ‘solution’ will just be for me to realise that there is no problem. That there isn’t anything that I’m “doing wrong”.
Maybe I’m “barking up the wrong tree” by trying to speak to Listeners here. In which case I’m sure they will tell me!
Maybe my Problem isn’t a problem at all. And everything I have described is ‘normal’ in the sense that everyone experiences life the way I do. I hope not!
§5 - Problem is not mainly emotional.
So the Problem I want to talk about (namely my confusion about life) is, broadly speaking, psychological. But I’m not here wanting to speak to someone for ‘emotional support’. Not all psychological problems are emotional. There are plenty of non-emotional psychological problems that people can have. For example: poor concentration, difficulties relating to other people. Or even more cognitive things like problems with reading.
Human psychology is more than emotions. You often hear people say, after someone has killed themselves: “he seemed fine, he wasn't at all depressed!”. But people kill themselves for all sorts of other reasons. Because they have lost their money in the financial crash. Because they are having a crisis of religious faith. Because they don’t know how to get out of an abusive relationship. Because their life is wrong in some ineffable way they can’t quite put their finger on. And sure, all these kinds of things can sometimes be manifest in emotional states of stress, anxiety and depression. But even when they are, these emotional states are often the symptoms of something else, something not emotional. (Sometimes I think that emotional states are ALWAYS the symptoms of something else not emotional.)
I have, in the past, been turned away by therapists saying that they only deal with emotional problems (by which they mean things like stress, depression, anxiety) and that if my problem is something else then they can’t really help. I was surprised by them saying this as I don’t believe that therapists don’t deal with a wider range of things than just emotional states. And if they don’t then there should be some other people who do. There should be some people who you can talk to about anything psychological (or maybe even just anything at all!) that you want to talk about. (As I understand it, that’s what Listeners here do.)
But I admit it must seem odd that I am here saying I don’t want “emotional support” when the 7 Cups FAQs say (at the very start) “7 Cups of Tea is an online emotional support service”. Maybe we can just say that I want to interpret the word ‘emotion’ in its broadest sense. After all confusion and frustration are emotions too, aren’t they? (For example you say that you ‘feel’ confused.)
I am a bit baffled by my experiences with therapists and by what the FAQs says. Sometimes it makes me unsure whether either of these things is relevant to what I want. But then I think: how can they not be? Surely therapists (and 7cups) DO deal with the problems that aren’t specifically emotional in nature. For example people go to therapists if they have relationship problems. About which you might respond that relationship problems ARE emotional in nature. Because people having relationship problems will feel upset. But if that was the case then being the victim of a crime is a problem that is emotional in nature. And so, instead of going to the police, you should go to a therapist! (Sorry this argument is a little clumsily expressed but I’m sure you know what I mean!)
§6 - Seriousness of the Problem.
So the Problem is psychological in nature but I doubt if it’s serious enough to count as ‘mental unwellness’ in any kind of medical sense. But, just because you aren’t suffering from such mental unwellness doesn’t mean you might not want to improve your mental life anyway.
It’s like if you were feeling sad, but not of a sufficient intensity for it to count as mental unwellness. But you still went to a therapist for help. Doing which would be a bit like a physically healthy person going to see a doctor for advice about how they can be even more healthy than they already are. And the doctor might suggest changes to diet or recommend exercises. Or they might, quite reasonably, say: “stop wasting my time I’ve got people who are really ill to deal with”.
I am thinking that these kind of non-serious psychological issues are what 7 cups is all about, isn’t it? If your problem was really serious you should consult a professional rather than Listeners here. The way I see it 7 cups is a bit like writing to an ‘agony aunt’!
My Problem isn’t so serious that, if someone asked me: “Is your life worth living?” I would say ‘no’. Instead I would hesitate and say: “Yes, but mostly only because I’m already living my life as it is and so have become rather attached to (used to) it! I wouldn’t recommend it to (or wish it on) anyone else.” Rather like if I was in prison and had been there for about 10 years. In that time I would have adjusted and maybe I would even be quite happy there. But I wouldn’t recommend this mode of life to anyone asking me for life ideas.
§7 - Things which I don’t find useful.
I don’t like it when people give the sort of generic advice (aka ‘empty platitudes’) of the sort which goes: “just be yourself” or “hang in there, don’t give up, there is light at the end of the tunnel” or “you can do anything if you just believe in yourself” or “you are great!”. I have to say that, on looking at 7cups in general, most of the Listeners think that this is an acceptable way of dealing with problems. I don’t.
Another thing is Listeners say that they can comfort people, as in be “a shoulder to cry on” and that sort of thing. I don’t deny that this is useful in alleviating a problem. But to me this solution is of about the same value as eating or drinking to help with your problem. It doesn’t deal with it in a sophisticated enough way. It doesn’t address the essence of the problem. (Whatever that is.)
For people with “low self-esteem”, I get the impression that therapy aims to rid people of them thinking badly about themselves, of them having no esteem for themselves. I don’t like this idea. Because surely at least SOME of the people who think they are rubbish at everything will be correct! In which case it seems wrong to persuade them otherwise. You can’t help someone with their problem by denying its existence.
Neither do I have any interest in the idea that some kind of ‘spirituality’ or ‘religiosity’ is helpful.
The kind of people I would prefer to talk with (although this isn’t something I am insisting on!) are hard-headed unsentimental people (but not any less caring for that) who like to dig around things in other people’s minds, just to see what it’s like if nothing else. (And who don’t mind others digging round in their minds!)
And whose responses demonstrate that they’ve been paying attention and have put some thought into their response. Sometimes I think: it’s not good enough if you are (only) kind and caring. Sure, there’s a certain value to “tea and sympathy”. But if you can’t also seriously think about the details of what another is saying then you can’t be of any help to them.
§8 - What next.
So if, after having read all the above, you want to talk with me for an hour or so then message me and we can arrange a date and time.
I would much prefer voice chat to text chat if that is doable somehow.
Although I have said a lot about what I want, this doesn’t mean I insist on speaking only to people who think they can be a Listener in the way I have described. Me saying what I want is also just so that people know where I am coming from on the question of what a Listener is. You might just want to talk to me about what I have said in general. You can just give me your opinion on what I have said. That would be great too!
If you’re not able to have a live chat with me, then you could also just leave some offline comments for me in response to what I have said above.
Thanks for reading!
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