Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with negativity

Drop her like she's hot?

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:51:37 -0800

What do I say to my friend about her bad attitude? I have this friend, I'll call her Sandy. Sandy and I met in my city a few years ago, through a specific local arts community. Sandy is avidly interested in this art form, and while she occasionally takes lessons in the subject, she mostly resides within the community as a sort of enthusiast. Sandy can be a very thoughtful, interesting person when she wants to be. The problem comes when Sandy's bad attitude turns up, as it inevitably does.

Sandy will be oddly antisocial when we go to functions, only interacting with the very short list of people she likes. She openly criticizes many artists in the community, their work/philosophies, etc. When debating the merits of one school of thought or another, Sandy has a terrible habit of throwing out "names" she knows and being quite arrogant about it. She is sycophantic to those who are known on a national level and has made some good connections doing so. She makes the point often that our local community is a "joke" compared with [other city] where many of her successful friends work. She will claim that some perfectly nice people have tried to "burn her" because they are jealous of her connections. She also gets great deal of pleasure in one-upping people on her knowledge of the art form, especially in a public space.

Certainly insecurity is an issue here. I am aware that she is nervous to spread her own wings artistically and have been very encouraging of her pursuing it further. I believe she falls back on her years as a semi-insider within the community as a way to earn her props. As I mentioned, she does have genuinely redeeming qualities, but overall l am frustrated.

I feel for her on many levels, as she is the perfect example of someone who is artistically blocked/fearful. I haven't said anything to her about it yet, but it's coming. She occasionally gets mad at me due to some small perceived slight (ie: not returning a call right away), or we might argue over her often irrational views of peoples' character/motivations. I don't want to pick friends based off public perception, but I think that going out with her socially may hinder my ability to make and keep relationships within the community.

Is there a way to give someone feedback about this behavior, in productive manner? Is it a waste to even try? I do value the parts of the friendship when we are bonding over our shared passion and I think that she does deserve a good friend, particularly if it helps her grow out of her bitterness. I don't shy away from ending relationships if there are no redeeming parts left, but I am hoping there might be some way to salvage this. Thoughts?

Shining Happy People, Where Art Thou?

mannequito — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:30:31 -0800

Looking for advice, suggestions and/or resources on being a more positive person. I'm trying to encourage my gf to be a more positive person. She's always been more of a glass-is-half-empty type, which is fine, but recently her work has had her more stressed than usual, and it's really showing in her outside-work life. I've made the point that work is work, and the worst she can do is let it seep into her free time and ruin that - all of this she agrees with, so I'm wondering what other people do to brighten up their bad days.

So far I've just generally tried to keep her laughing and happy, and offer gentle suggestions such as trying to keep negative words out of her vocabulary and thoughts. What else is out there? Any useful online resources (I'd prefer to avoid cheesy motivational speaker videos but I'll check out anything recommended)? Most importantly, what do you do?

ps - I already read this thread, but it is more from a perspective of how do I deal with being around this negative person, which isn't really my concern here.

Management 101: How do I communicate with a difficult person?

trunk muffins — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:03:00 -0800

What are some tactics or tips to help me communicate effectively with an aggressive, negative person? I am in a leadership position in a club to which I belong (it's more or less a creative writing group, but the specifics aren't too important, I don't think). Right now, it's mostly me running things, due to a number of other long-standing members dropping out for one reason or another. I mostly enjoy it, and it brings a lot of value to my life, but one stumbling block that keeps cropping up for me is managing difficult people.

Right now, I've got a member who is relentlessly, aggressively negative. She's very talented and, in public at least, has garnered a lot of praise for her efforts; she puts on a very sweet face and people seem to like her a lot. But in private, she's done nothing but criticize the organization (and me personally). She's quick to point out shortcomings or areas where we could be doing better, but she doesn't have any constructive suggestions to make, and she hasn't offered to take responsibility for stepping up and taking charge of these things herself (though I have encouraged her to, emphatically, on a number of occasions).

I had a particularly nasty conversation with her last night which involved some aspects of a project she's working on that she didn't understand. Rather than come to me and ask for clarification, she jumped to conclusions and used it as a pretext to once again rip into the group and me personally, hurled a lot of childish accusations, and generally catastrophized the whole thing. (If it's relevant, what we're talking about here would amount to maybe an extra hour of effort for her that she hadn't anticipated doing -- and I offered to assist her with it.)

I have thus far not addressed her accusatory tone in any direct way. In talking to her, I've done my best to stick to facts and disregard her insults, since they're not relevant to working out whatever the problem du jour is. The way she speaks to me seems calculated to put me on the defensive, and I refuse to be drawn into it -- I dig for the misunderstanding or confusion at the heart of her tirade, identify it back to her, and focus on addressing that.

I talked to mr. muffins about this last night, and he suggested to me that behaving as if her negativity doesn't exist really isn't productive in the long run -- by doing so, he says, I'm encouraging her to continue talking to me in this way. I realize that I can't change her attitude or way of thinking... and that is where I feel stuck, because I don't know where to go from there.

The larger problem is that she's really just the current manifestation of a certain type of person that we find among our ranks periodically, and I need to get a handle on how to assert myself with them. Generally they do get bored and move on eventually... but not before infecting other members of the group with their nastiness and causing a lot of collateral damage. With very few long-standing leadership types around to consult, I'm largely on my own for the time being. Assume that unless someone goes into major meltdown mode and begins screaming obscenities or threatening physical violence, I can't "fire" them (but I can gently encourage them to go elsewhere if they're not finding satisfaction through their participation with us, and I'm pretty confident about my ability to do this in a mature, reasonable way).

If you know of some tactics to defuse negative people -- or encourage them to refocus their energies -- or something -- I'd be grateful to hear them.

I'm all doom and gloom

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:48:46 -0800

Help me with my negativity! I came to the US several years ago from a different country. Where I grew up it is culturally accepted to complain about pretty much anything. A lot of conversations revolve around complaining about your job, taxes, or anything else. The more I think about it, it seems that this is a way which allows people to connect immediately. Anybody has something to complain about and misery loves company! It's actually "known" in my country that people in the US are always overly positive and it's viewed as being superficial.

However, I live in the US now and from my observations it seems as if negativity and complaining is frowned upon. Is this correct? I'm just not sure how strongly many Americans feel about this.

I think I have trouble adjusting to this and it's hurting my social life. I meet people and we start of great but eventually they start avoiding me. Maybe avoiding is too extreme, they just don't seek out my company anymore. I have tried to change different behaviors that I think might put people off and I now think that it is due to my negativity. How can I be more positive? I sometimes consciously try to be more upbeat and positive in a conversation but the temptation is great and eventually I start complaining about something. It has been so ingrained in me in my home country that it's something hard to change, even though I really would like to. Any advice on improving my American social skills?

Stopz yer b3lly4ch1ng

sully75 — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:40:47 -0800

Should I try to stop complaining about thing? I'd say I'm your garden variety non-optomist, non-pessimist. I'm not particularly depressed all the time but I wouldn't classify myself as a particularly happy person either. I pretty much do my thing, have a fair amount of anxiety but also have a good social circle, good friendships, some really good people in my life who I love. Very close to my parents, feel blessed for them.

But I feel like I complain a lot and have a fairly big pool of negativity in me. I often wonder if I should really try to be more positive and complain less, and make an effort to see things positively, but on the other hand sort of respect myself and others for seeing things the way they are and not being namby-pamby about things. And percieve, rightly or wrongly, a kind of cultural amnesia in this country, where people can never admit that something sucks without it being some sort of learning experience.

Sometimes I feel this is as much biological as anything else, that for whatever reason I'm more or less programmed to be overly serious and a bit negative, and that I should just accept that about myself. Other times I feel like it's something that I developed over time and that I should make every effort to get past it. I do know that it stops me from enjoying things sometimes, mostly when I'm really anxious about things.

So I'm torn. Should I make an effort to be more positive, to always see the best side of things? Is that possible? Or should I accept that I see things for what they are, and that when things are positive I'll know they are, and work on just being able to see the good things for good things when they are, and being thankful when they are, and when they suck, just being open to feeling sucky about them?

Thanks

Out with the old, in with the new

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:42:17 -0800

Shortly after we moved to a new town, my partner fell into a deep depression. She shot me down every time I suggested that we go out and do something fun, or made amorous advances. That precipitated my own, milder depression. We're both better now, and love each other very much, but we're still in a rut, and I'm gun-shy. How can we get over this hump? We go out together very occasionally, but only to a few tried-and-true places. We have sex more often, and we're usually receptive to the others' advances, but it's always the very mechanical, fast-track-to-orgasm sort. That sort of sex is awesome, and one of the benefits of long-term relationships, but there's more to life than a quick, reliable orgasm.

Even when we were first dating, my partner was a conservative creature of habit, but for a while, she was able to overcome her knee-jerk reaction of "No" to any new idea. I got her to get her to try new foods, listen to new music and explore parts of her sexuality that she was embarrassed about.

She tells me that now that she's feeling better, she's willing to do stuff together, and be more adventurous sexually, but my confidence is shot. I've been told "no" or "ick" or "weird" or "dumb" so many times that I just don't want to suggest new things unless I'm 100% sure that she'll love them. I don't feel comfortable asking her to do things that might or might not be awesome.

I used to be so creative and spontaneous and polymorphously perverse, and my joie de vivre was one of the things that made her fall in love with me. Now I feel crushed and broken, and she doesn't acknowledge her part in that. I want to be that person again, and she wants me to be that person again, too.

But I can't just magically forget the past few years. Please no DTMFAs. We love each other, and have loved each other for a long, long time. We just need to clear the cobwebs.

Dealing with a negative parent

sixcolors — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:36:08 -0800

My father's paranoia and controlling behavior is driving me up the wall. What I can do to calm him down? My father used to be somewhat laidback, but around 10 years ago he started changing into a very uptight person. It gets worse and worse, year after year.

He nags, complains, and criticizes ALL THE TIME. I seem to be his favorite target. He blows up over the smallest things. For example, when I come home, sometimes I absent-mindedly drop my keys and purse on the sofa. For some reason, it really drives him crazy. I understand it is uncool to have clutter in the living room. But, I don't see what the big deal is. When he tells me to move my stuff, I just go down and move it. But, that's not good enough for him. When I did it Friday, he blurted out "What is WRONG with you? Why can't you act like a civilized person? You are SO disrespectful to me. NO one would EVER want to live with you in the future!"

Ninety-five percent of our major arguments are over very minor issues like what I mentioned above. One of the biggest arguments we had was over me leaving the dishwasher door open around last Christmas. He was being so vile that my mother threatened to leave him. And, that wasn't the first time and the last time, that my mother threatened to divorce my father because of the way he treated me.

As for the controlling part...he believes that he should dictate my every move. Sometimes when we go to the store or visit other people, he makes me change my clothing or hairstyle. It's not like I wear dirty or unflattering clothing. Or, dress inappropriately for the occasion, I don't wear jeans to weddings or whatever. I do wear jeans and t-shirts when I'm not going anywhere formal. He's embarrassed that I don't dress "feminine" enough for him. He constantly try to talk me into wearing skirts and heavier make-up. He didn't let me get a haircut until I started college. At my age, I don't believe that he should have any say, unless I wear something outrageous.

As for the paranoia part...he claims that I just don't respect him, whenever I don't do things like dress the way he wants me to or if I leave a cup on the counter and don't put it away immediately. He claims that people period don't respect him. Again, over little stuff, whenever he sees litter in his yard, he believes that people do it on purpose because they are jealous of his car (just a mustang), wife, and house. We live around a lot of teenagers, they litter EVERYWHERE, I see it all the time. And there's always the wind, which can blow anything in our yard. Another example, he recently flipped out because I didn't notice a spare pair of shoes that belonged to one of my friends, in my car. He claimed that they could've left drugs in them, and possibly did it to frame me.

I know I can't change his nature (very perfectionistic and pessimistic), but I want to know how I can handle him. Moving out is NOT an option, right now. And, speaking of moving out, the strange thing is that he does not want me to move out until I get married.

How to deal with relentlessly negative carpoolers?

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:53:25 -0800

How to deal with relentlessly negative carpoolers? I carpool with four other people. We all work at the same place (a small liberal arts college). It's convenient for me and them, reduces our transportation costs and the group is stable membership-wise. All great.

The only real problem is that the rides to and from routinely turn into marathon-length gripefests that everyone but me participates in, almost always centered around intra-/inter-office politics, remarkably petty interpersonal conflicts, campus gossip or their kids. Every so often it's about the shitty pay and benefits -- which is even more ridiculous. I loathe discussions like this and remain as quiet as possible during them. If asked about something, I'll give as positive (or at least non-committal) an answer as possible. But it never seems to shift the conversation in a more positive direction. And, after two years, it's gotten really old.

Is there anything I can do to change this? Conversational techniques? Just sit back and think of England?

(Finding another carpool or a different transit solution are, unfortunately, not options. Also, an iPod would be considered incredibly rude.)

Being happy in spite of negative personalities...

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:54:43 -0800

How do you ignore someone's attitude instead of letting it bring you down? How do you handle living with someone who can be really negative a lot of the time? I love my SO dearly, but he is an extremely negative person - often complaining about things, getting angry about things, and often just walking around grumbling. Just grumbling, sighing, huffing, yelling, etc. Most often to himself, not me.

I find that I take this very personally, even though he has often explained that he is just in a bad mood and it has nothing to do with me. I have tried to work with him to see how I could help -- he blames a lot of his bad mood on lack of exercise and sleep, so I've offered to do things like have him workout with me or go for walks with me, or to remind him when it's getting late so he can wrap things up and get ready for bed. But instead of even trying, he just complains about how useless it is to even try because he won't do it and he doesn't have enough time or energy. (And I've tried to explain how it's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy that he won't have energy if he doesn't try to get sleep or exercise, but it's been useless.)

I also realize that he might be so negative and tired/cranky due to depression or something else he needs to talk to someone about, and I have gently suggested this a few times - but he won't. Neither by himself or as a couple.

So, I feel badly that he feels so grumpy all the time, and I can definitely sympathize as I have fought my own battles with depression (and still do), but he won't accept help, from me or from others. When he complains, yells, grumbles, etc, I take it to heart. Since childhood, I have taken other people's bad moods as something that is somehow my fault and something that I need to fix. I either become very doting and apologetic, or very defensive, even when the target of his annoyance/anger has nothing to do with me, and he isn't even talking to me or expecting me to react.

I have things I want to accomplish that I haven't accomplished because I can't focus when I hear someone stomping or grumbling or yelling at themselves/a game/the tv. I can't get done the things I want to get done when I realize I have once again let it get very late at work because I don't even want to go home, because listening to him bitch about stupid things is more stressful than just being in the office. And I have blamed him for it and resented him for it. Like it's his fault that I am not doing what I want to do.

I am at the point where I have realized that this is not about me, and that there is nothing I can do to help him solve his problems anymore - not unless he wants help and asks for it. I can be there when he wants me to be, but I can no longer let the complaining, grumbling, and sometimes yelling upset me. I am not going to be driven out of my home or away from my passions in life because he is angry about something that happened at work and is stomping around and grumbling.

I want to ignore him, or at least to not let his moods get under my skin. I want to be happy and do the things I love, instead of always feeling like I need to be apologizing or defensive. But how do I do that? How do I stop letting it bother me? Is it even possible??

I really, sincerely hope someone out there has some suggestions for me on how to do this. (Or any other advice on dealing with living with a negative person but remaining happy).

If you want to contact me, I have set up an email account at anonygrumpy@yahoo.com.

To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable. -Goldwater

Liosliath — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:35:03 -0800

Help me stop hurting someone close to me... I looked through the other AskMes, and got some good suggestions on dealing with depression etc..., which I think may be part of my problem. However, I'm hoping that I can get some specific suggestions on curbing a destructive impulse.

In a nutshell (I hope) - I say mean/spiteful things to those close to me, particularly to my boyfriend. I apologize later, but the damage has already been done. A brief example : we were having a discussion about an art project I wanted to do. He tried to offer some constructive criticism, namely, that my efforts could be better used elsewhere, but I should do it if it was something I really believed in. He said it just wasn't the type of art he was interested in, so he couldn't give an opinion. I felt like he wasn't being supportive, and ended up telling him that even though I "hated" Gary Baseman (one of his favorite artists), I still made an effort to look at his work with him and talk about it. I also said that I looked at his "dumb Dada" stuff even though I really didn't like it.

As I'm writing this out, I'm actually wincing a little bit, because I sound like a royal bitch. Logically, I can think all this out and KNOW that the people closest to me are the last people who should bear the brunt of my irrational behavior. When I get defensive/angry, though, it just comes out.

A few notes about my situation - my husband and I separated last October, and I filed divorce papers Tuesday. I have also gone back to school to get a 2nd bachelor's, so that and work keep me occupied. My health is good, and I have a couple of friends I can talk to. I'm seeing a counselor on an occasional basis, and feel like I'm making progress in a lot of areas - but if I can't nip this in the bud, I'm going to lose someone who's very important to me, and jeopardize future relationships. My boyfriend is at the end of his rope, and I can't blame him.

How to be impervious to the suck of people. Suggestions?

iamkimiam — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:27:29 -0800

How to be impervious to the suck of people. Suggestions? I find myself to be a pretty joyful person. I get down like the best of 'em, and I'm not perfect, but I think overall I'm pretty optimistic, realistic, and happy. I'm finding it harder and harder to stay that way. I'm looking for suggestions on how to maintain and cultivate more of a silly, joyful attitude...especially in the face of so many people around me who tend to want to bring others down, unintentionally or not. It's getting really hard to stay realistic about the facts of life, and not become jaded.

One thing that has contributed to this increasingly cautious outlook lately are lots of stories and information I've learned about men who are unfaithful. I know women cheat too, but that doesn't necessarily effect me directly. I don't want to start a war here—I'm not attempting to make any claims about whether men cheat more than women, blah, blah, blah! I love men, and would like to eventually find one that is as awesome and joyful as I think I am. How do I keep up my trust (and not blindly so), when it turns out that ~95% of the men I know cheat? These are otherwise fantastic men (IMO). While this is bothersome, I am using this as one type of example that chips away at my happy, go-lucky attitude.

I'm getting a bit discouraged here. I'd like to hear suggestions and stories of how the hive stays happy and peaceful. How do you all just let it roll off? How do you disregard negative examples and bad behavior, and focus on/find the positive ones?

Disclaimers: I have had a lot of hardships and hurts, just like you all. IANADoctor/Lawyer. I have a healthy social network (small, but meaningful). I attend a lot of social events. I exercise regularly and eat well.I am not depressed. I'd like to keep it that way. :-)

Nah, just skip this question.

koenie — Thu, 04 May 2006 02:41:45 -0800

Help me cope with my parents all-pervasive negativity. I've recently become aware of the deep-seated negative thought patterns of my parents. No matter what I -or anyone else in our household for that matter- do, they always find a way to drive it into the ground. I only started noticing all that negativity while researching what could be the cause of my low self-esteem.

An example: I like eating tasty food and had decided to attend a couple of cooking classes. When I mentioned this to my parents, they first started to ridicule the concept of me being able to cook in any way whatsoever, then they told me those classes would not be worth their price and finally they said I might as well learn to cook at home.

Before I was sufficiently aware of this depressing behaviour I just abandoned my plans I happened to have at the time and stayed at home. You can imagine this passivity has not made me the most charismatic guy in town. Now I try to give rational responses as to why I want to do the things I want to do. Still, I find it very exhausting to put up with all the putdowns. Any advice on how to handle this situation?

Why are people so negative?

arrowhead — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:10:40 -0800

Why are people so negative? I know that it's impossible to please everybody - but why do people always identify the flaws first and start criticising and being negative everytime they encounter something?

My Coworker Poisons the Office.

Medieval Maven — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:09:55 -0800

What do you do when someone hates her job and tries to make everyone else hate theirs, too? What do you do with someone who almost literally seeps anger and discontent into the air around themselves? This woman who works with me, she's really knowledgeable, but she does not want to be there anymore. We have to talk to people, day in, day out. Some of them are remarkably slow, very frustrating, and given what we do, hard of hearing. We sit with other people who do similar, but not the same, job functions, some of which are new to the company. I don't want them to get an icky feeling about our company. To make things more difficult, management thinks we are "self-sufficent," which we mostly are, but it also means they don't really notice the uh, HR problem. I've brought this up with them before, which caused us to have a little conference, and cleared the air for about ten minutes. Sometimes, it's literally noxious, and to make things even better I may be in a position to be her supervisor soon. She's not a bad person when she's not in a mood, and I would hate to lose her knowledge, but I really just wish she would quit. Another point: I am trying to make my life better while also avoiding wrath. Help? Comfort? Padded desk edges?