But we probably all know people who complain about the same things incessantly, with no desire to change them. And at some point it's reasonable to decide if those are people who you really want to continue to invest time into.
Sure, nobody's saying "you're a bad person for offering advice".
In some contexts, though, offering advice can feel like you want to close the person down rather than listen to them, that you think their problems aren't serious enough because you'd solve them easily. I'm guessing you've had at least one occasion where you have a work issue, and your manager is casually dropping solutions that didn't work, and you were frustrated with them as a result.
As such, the consequence of offering solutions is that it can damage your relationships with people, or at least not use an opportunity to strengthen them.
To recenter the conversation - in a personal context idle complaints (ie. venting) are considered rude, and are often accompanied by an apology, for a reason. You're basically monopolizing a person's time, and expressing explicit disinterest in their perspective. Using complaint as a coping mechanism is a fundamentally selfish thing to do[1]. Therefore I don't think we should tolerate it idly. If you want to talk and only be listened to, talk at an inanimate object. If you want to be an equal party in a conversation, speak to a human being.
In a work context, it should (always) be about most efficiently solving the problem at hand. When I have a work issue, I preface my request for support with the steps I have taken to attempt to solve the problem. Anything else wastes the time of everyone involved. When this is done correctly, the first thing to come to the mind of the people I'm asking is often exactly what I'm looking for.
> your manager is casually dropping solutions that didn't work
Casual, useless, unsolicited advice is also a waste of time and energy (see "seagull management"). If my manager did this I would promptly tell them to either dig into the problem properly with me, figure it out themselves, or leave me to it.
> You're basically monopolizing a person's time, and expressing explicit disinterest in their perspective. Using complaint as a coping mechanism is a fundamentally selfish thing to do[1]
Yep, and allowing other person to do all this to you is definitely spoiling. At the same time, a possibility and ability to spoil someone you love - is one of the biggest pleasures in life.
(I’ve shown the video to my wife. She said: “See, you could have done much worse”)
> that you think their problems aren't serious enough because you'd solve them easily
That would be a rather strange reaction. A single brain gets easily stuck on a problem, so if involving the second brain helps that does not mean that the problem was easy. Or that the first brain was defective. (Frankly, I think it was evolutionary “cheaper” to implement the rule “if stuck - consult” than to implement an unstuckable brain).
