[WARNING: The paragraphs below are evolutionary psychological speculation so read them with a grain of salt.]
When you present it this way, it makes much more sense why we are “wired” to (in some circumstances) expect the other person not to offer any help or advice but just pay attention and listen. Something important happened. So important, actually, that I want (or maybe “I’m adapted”) to tell another person about it and I want them to understand as precisely as possible both the content (what I’m saying) and the intention (why I want them to know about that).
Only once we minimized the inferential distance between us and each of us can assume that the other has all the relevant knowledge, we can start thinking “OK, so what do we do now?”
Another (maybe more obvious) explanation of this phenomenon is that we just want to reassure ourselves that we are not alone with our problems and/or try strengthening our relationships in times when we may especially need them. This however leaves out many situations when we want to “just talk” while nothing we value is in any particular danger–these can be explained by your interpretation.
And… yes, this sounds a lot of like Hold Off On Proposing Solutions. Maybe we already discovered it at some point in our evolutionary past.
Thanks, that’s a very valuable insight for me!
[WARNING: The paragraphs below are evolutionary psychological speculation so read them with a grain of salt.]
When you present it this way, it makes much more sense why we are “wired” to (in some circumstances) expect the other person not to offer any help or advice but just pay attention and listen. Something important happened. So important, actually, that I want (or maybe “I’m adapted”) to tell another person about it and I want them to understand as precisely as possible both the content (what I’m saying) and the intention (why I want them to know about that).
Only once we minimized the inferential distance between us and each of us can assume that the other has all the relevant knowledge, we can start thinking “OK, so what do we do now?”
Another (maybe more obvious) explanation of this phenomenon is that we just want to reassure ourselves that we are not alone with our problems and/or try strengthening our relationships in times when we may especially need them. This however leaves out many situations when we want to “just talk” while nothing we value is in any particular danger–these can be explained by your interpretation.
And… yes, this sounds a lot of like Hold Off On Proposing Solutions. Maybe we already discovered it at some point in our evolutionary past.
[/WARNING]