If a discussion isn't to find a solution, what is the point?

For me, a discussion has one purpose: to find a solution, or at least to move something forward. If it is not for that, I honestly do not quite understand what it is for.

But I often meet people who discuss without that goal. The conversation goes in circles, this and that, and at the end nothing is decided, nothing gets clearer. Just words that fill the room and then leave it empty.

What is heavier, some people bring emotion into it. The moment you offer a different view, they take it as an attack, as if the discussion is a judgment on them and not on the problem. And it gets worse when the person across from them is younger, as if being right has to follow age.

Honestly, that kind of conversation drains me. If a discussion has no direction and no willingness to be objective, what is it for? Why meet at all, if meeting only tires both sides and settles nothing?

And this is not about closeness. I used to think the people closest to me would be different, but it can turn out the same, even with siblings. This habit also does not seem to come from where someone was raised. I have seen many parents whose character is a world apart from their children. So this is not about family, it is about the individual.

I am not saying every conversation has to end in a decision. Some talks are just to share, to be present, and those have their own value. What tires me is the discussion that pretends to look for an answer while it was never willing to find one.

So I have made peace with a simple choice. If a discussion will only end empty, it is better not to start it, or not to meet at all. Not out of arrogance, but because time and energy are limited, and I would rather save them for the conversations that actually go somewhere.