>>16984442

99% of the time when a chick tells you her problems she doesn't want a cute response, she doesn't want advice, she doesn't want help, she just wants you to shut up and listen.

>>16984471
How do I respond then when she talks about her problems?
Do I try and continue the conversation?

>>16984511
Occasionally interject that you are sympathetic. "Wow...that's rough" or "Has that been going on for a while?"

>>16984521

It's definitely a new skill I have to learn, Active Listening. I'm getting better at it, as well as choosing what to say and actually trying to think before I speak. It's all getting better.

Do you think it would be a good idea to let her know that I'm slowly weening off the sarcasm in hopes for a better friendship? Or should I just do it without letting her know.

Probably thinking way too much about this, but I've had falling outs too many times because of this and I want to make a change.

>>16984442
I've always been sarcastic and jokey like you mention and over 8 years of it has ruined my relationship. Now my partner thinks everything is an attack regardless of what I'm saying. Everything becomes a fight because of it. 8 years of it and 30 looming and I don't know who I am anymore. I don't like myself. My never ending temper is now 8mm long and I love in prep perpetual frustration. I miss myself and at the same time don't know what I'm missing.

>being the beta that listen to her problems

>>16984442
Stop being an overly sarcastic asshole to her and making her feel like she is insignificant to you. That's all.

>>16984790
The OP made it seem worse than it actually is in reality...but yeah, alright I'll do this.

>>16984442
Hey man, I used to have this problem, maybe i can share a little bit of how i realized how to stop this behavior. wall of text inc

When I was in school, pre-teen, I was a typical lowkey kid. I had a group of close friends from my school, but because my parents were both immigrants to my country of birth I didnt have family / cousins, and my only friends were these 5 kids in my class. They had friends of their own / family / people in other schools etc.
I think that as a means of self-defens or finding a place with kids in my school i started becoming the kind of person you're describing. I always found a way to make people laugh, which i thought was cool because they liked me, but i think i did it so much that it was the only thing that i did: be funny. I wasn't sociable outside of class beyond my close friends, so when the parties started happening they grew closer together without me although we were still friends.
Then I moved to another country (aged 13/14) where I knew aboslutely no-one, so it was the same thing all over again but much worse. I was a smartass in class and I always found ways to get a laugh out of people, but knowing abosuletly no-one it was very hard for me to make friends.
It kind of became the only way for me to interact with people, and at the time i thought it was the only thing i had going for me as a means of fitting in or making friends in my teen years.
In retrospect I started realizing that being funny was the absolutely only thing that i did and it was probably why i always stood out, never went to parties etc. I was holding on to it so much that i realized that having this was what made me never develop in other aspects that most kids develop during these years, eg talking to girls, actually making friends (not just making people laugh), developing an interesting personality, etc.

>>16985097
continuation

when i was 18 and i finished high school i didnt go to college right away, but i took a year to think things over, whether i wanted to go to college, what i wanted to do with my life, so i traveled for a couple of months and worked for the rest of this time. Because I was no longer in school and the only two close friends i made in my new country had left for college, I was in a standstill again. I didnt have any people to hang out with, and i was self-entitled and a little arrogant, i just couldn't figure out why my social life was dead again.

Being this naked, with no friends and stuck with an annoying personality where I think i should be cool and have a very active social life, where in reality people only hung out with me because i was funny-ish and i was kind-of a-cool-guy (never really went full beta/robot/whatever its called), forced me to realize that i had little going for me in this department.
I had the fortune of having a cousin who invited me to stay with him for a few months (he lived in the us at the time), and he was very supportive of me. I never really spent time with him before this, but he took me in and he introduced me to a bunch of his friends, and in this envoronment i realized that I had been investing so much time and energy into the wrong things, instead of going out of my comfort zone and actually learning how to be social (which is an uncomfortable process which forces you to realize your faults in this aspect). I relaized i didnt have shit clue of how to talk to girls, so i started forcing myself to do so. i realized i didnt have a clue of how to approach strangers, so i forced myself to do so.

>>16985103
cont

I feel that sarcasm or mockery is a very dangerous thing because it can get a laugh from people around you once in a while, but it can really become overbearing or simply annoy people around you (i don't know dude I dont feel like inviting X, he's kind of an asshole and a little weird) without you realizing it.

I had a similar problem, where I had this really close friend and we hung out from time to time, but this attitude annoyed her and we had differences / friction from time to time because of the same reasons you're describing in the OP.

My only advice is to try to become more conscious about what you say, not as in become introverted and shy, but as in becoming aware of the toxic behaviors that one can adopt without realizing it. It's much easier to spot in others because it hurts to see it in yourself, the kind of people who naturally come off as assholes because being sarcastic / witty / hurtful is the only way they know how to be around others.
Honesty is the best policy to take, perhaps even apologize and tell her exactly what you're saying right now, that you realize that your attitude is hurting your friendship and that you want to change that. Perhaps she will understand.
end.

>>16985097
>>16985103
>>16985125
Thank you for sharing your story.
And yes I do agree, I tend to just say whatever comes to mind without thinking of repercussions in the long run. Maybe because I'm subconsciously trying to get my say in before anyone else.

I guess I need to just listen more.
I dunno, I find it hard since I've used this way of talking more of a crutch to keep conversation and once I stop using it the conversation gets slow because I'm struggling at finding the right words to say.

Thanks a lot guys, I'm kind of going through this revelation phase into becoming a better person atm, so any advice is well worth it.

>>16984511
use something that will make her continue talking desu