Of course people who present you with an XY problem are often the same sorts of people who begin the conversation with my most hated trope of them all... "Aski

Of course people who present you with an XY problem are often the same sorts of people who begin the conversation with my most hated trope of them all... "Asking to ask" (Often coupled with diverting the conversation from a public forum, where it can be useful to others, into a private one-on-one conversation where you suddenly become on-the-hook for solving all of their issues.)