Are Social Support Systems Dying Out?
A social support system is a group of people that you can count on when times are tough.
Are social support systems dying out in 2024?
Yes, I believe so.
I think the main reason for this is because of poor listening skills.
Without listening, no one feels heard.
Have you ever met someone who listened, but didn’t really listen?
That’s a difficult predicament to be in.
For example, let’s say I got a flat tire.
I’m sad.
I try to talk to my buddy about the flat tire.
As soon as I try to talk about my experience, he goes on a long spiel about the time he got a flat tire.
He never asks me how I got the issue resolved, how I felt, how long it took to resolve etc.
He just immediately began talking about himself.
Did he listen?
Technically, yes.
He was able to spot the content of the story about a flat tire.
But did he really listen?
Not really.
Rather than following up, he just made the talk about himself.
Due to being caught in the limbo of listening, but not REALLY listening, social support systems are fading before our very eyes.
How it Used to Be
I used to hear that it’s harder for a guy going through a breakup than a girl.
The reason why is because most men don’t talk about their feelings.
Let’s say a guy named Tim is going through a bad breakup.
He’s heartbroken.
If he goes to his boys and says he’s heartbroken, a lot of them will:
- Make fun of him.
- Marginalize the experience.
- Listen quickly, give a solution, and then go back to their lives.
Women, on the other hand, had supreme support systems.
As soon as one of them went through a breakup, the sisterhood was there.
The sisterhood:
- Listened.
- Badmouthed the ex.
- Gave suggestions.
- Listened more.
This allowed the woman to overcome the breakup faster than the man.
It’s because she took the time to process her inner world, while the man buried the pain.
Buried emotions never go away.
They just go to the gym and come back 10x stronger.
Why Social Support Systems Are Fading
Where before, women had their systems in place…
Nowadays, it’s different.
I’ve seen a lot of women complain that their sisterhood is listening but not really listening.
Most of them are just listening to respond.
‘Why do you think support systems are fading, Armani?’
Because of poor listening skills.
Poor listening skills are due to a lot of reasons.
- Too much content out there.
- Listening skills need to be constantly practiced.
- Poor concentration.
Plus, a lot of people have too much ego.
It’s impossible to be a great listener with too much ego.
Mainly because the ego causes us to distort the speaker’s message and personalize it.
When someone is talking about a pet peeve of theirs…
The ego automatically assumes they are subtly dissing us.
Due to too much ego, poor listening skills, and plummeting concentration, social support systems are fading.
Is There a Replacement?
All hope is not lost.
I believe in the future; the new social support system will be…
- Content creation.
There have been times I have been trying to say something to someone else.
All I got was a lecture.
I recall one time; I went to Pollo Tropical and ordered a tropichop.
The lady said it was 14 dollars.
14 dollars??
I thought it was 8.
When I went to the window and asked her about the price, she said I ordered the 14-dollar tropichop.
I asked her to switch the order.
Then she began rolling her eyes and all that.
I was trying to tell her in the intercom that I wasn’t trying to spend 14 bucks!
Pollo Tropical has this strange strategy where they will only show you the picture of the new item but not the price.
I assumed the price of the new tropichop was the same as the other ones.
When I asked her to make the change, she began sighing.
Showing irritated body language.
And being short.
Afterward, I told the driver:
‘Damn man. What’s up with the workers nowadays?’
He began lecturing me.
‘They have tough jobs, you know. Blah blah blah.’
Screw that!
I used to work in fast food and the customer was always right.
And even if they were wrong, don’t act like a child while on the job.
There was no point in debating with this guy.
He wouldn’t get it.
The only person who’d get it was me.
I made sense of the experience while writing about the experience in my newsletter.
I stumbled on an insight too…
What does it mean to be a professional?
Most people think it’s about wearing a tie and dressing up.
That day, I learned that being a professional is when others cannot detect your inner turmoil even if you are feeling it.
If a neurosurgeon just got a divorce, I don’t want him to perform surgery like he just got a divorce.
I want him to be as cool as a cucumber.
If he’s performing the surgery like he just got divorced (jagged, mean, and unhinged), then he’s not a professional.
If the outside world has no clue what his inner state is like, then he’s a professional.
That rude worker was far from a professional.
Make Sense of Your Experiences
With content creation, there are no rules.
You can replace “content creation” with journaling too.
There is free-flow journaling.
Where you write about whatever is on your mind.
I like the public content creation strategy because it allows me to make sense of my experiences, allows others to possibly relate to issues that I’ve faced, and I get to build a business too.
3 birds with 1 stone.
Before, we used the external world to help us introspect better.
Nowadays, we use the internal to mold the internal.
For more tips on emotional intelligence, check out the Armani Archives: EQ Edition
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