Negative People
[ 10 March 2007 ]
In my most recent Style Tips piece, one of the suggestions was “expunge one negative person from your life”. I have since had a couple of people ask me for help with doing this. It’s not my standard subject matter but it’s all about what you want, my darlings! Let me know if you enjoy this or want further information, okay?
The supremely negative are obvious — they have a puckered-up mouth from years of scowling, they whine a lot, they complain, they are blind to anything good happening in the world, & they want to take you down with them. However, sometimes negative people are hard to spot, until you step back from the situation. They talk smack about everyone, including you, under the pretense of “being your friend” & “honesty”. “I’m only saying this because I care about you!” they protest, after sticking a carving knife in your back. (Honesty is one thing, but when people use “I’m just being honest” as an excuse to be tactless & cruel, I’d like to just put them over my knee.)
It’s really easy to end up with a lot of negative friends, especially when you’re in your teens or early twenties. Everyone is so insecure & unsure of themselves, it is easy to accept anyone into your life, & especially a negative person, since if they’re “on your side”, you (theoretically) will never be the person they tear into. The problem with this concept is that negative people are on no one’s side but their own. Nobody is safe.
Misery loooooves company, baby, & sad people exist solely to pull you down to their level. If you have ambitions & actually want to make something of your life, having the sad patrol around you is only going to make it more difficult. You don’t need that.
It is important to remember is that everything around you influences you in one way or another. If all your friends have eating disorders, it is likely your eating will become disordered also. If your boyfriend gets angry in traffic, you will probably find yourself road raging along with him. If your best friend vocally hates on men, you will also learn disdain for them. The reason for this is that humans have what are called mirror neurons, the same as monkeys. What this means is that as a species, we learn from watching & imitating people. Mirror neurons have been an important part of our evolutionary survival, & because of this, they work unconsciously at all times.
You know where I’m going with this, right?
Though you may have no intention of becoming like the people around you, if your mother is miserable & your girlfriend is homicidal & your best friend is a misogynist, you will unconsciously begin to mimic & imitate all these behaviours. Unless you want to be miserable, the best thing you can do is extricate yourself from these types of people.
I used to be part of the misery brigade. I thought that happy people were stupid, dumb, annoying. I thought that being sad, not eating & having constant drama in my life made me a more interesting person. I didn’t want to be “normal”, I wanted to be different goddamnit, & I was willing to suffer to be that way. Well, I have learned the error of my ways. Being happy doesn’t make you normal — in fact, happy people are in the minority. It is easy to throw your hands up in frustration & be tragic & defeatist. It is also incredibly boring. People are probably really sick of your whining & criticism. It’s not clever, it’s dull — which is the ultimate crime.
So, how to deal with it?
Say your friend’s primary interest is gossiping & being awful about other people. A typical exchange between the two of you would be something like this:
Your friend: “Ugh, look at that girl! She looks like a gorilla, how can she stand to look at herself?! If I was her I would beg someone to shoot me to put me out of my misery!”
You: “I know! Super-gross-tastic! Seriously she should be locked inside the house & sterilised so she can’t breed.”
Keep in mind that you can’t change the way other people behave, the only thing you can change is how you react to them. If you stop encouraging them, they will stop being a turd. Instead of responding in kind, you could change the subject or you could just tell them that making remarks about other people is boring & a waste of time. They will soon learn that they can’t have the sort of conversation with you that they used to enjoy, & so they will drift away from you to other people who want to share in the hatred. It’s like having a child who throws tantrums — if you ignore it, they will stop, or try it on someone else.
Another thing you can do is establish strong boundaries. If you want to remain friends with whoever, keep in mind that they’re not going to change unless they want to. When they start being negative, tell them you’re not interested in putting up with their crap. Maybe they’ll respect the boundaries, maybe not. If they do, then that’s wonderful — if not, as above, they will move away from you. It’s a win-win situation.
You can also use the zipping up technique which I wrote about at the end of my article on Avoiding Creeps — it’s very effective. Or you could just cut contact entirely. Don’t read their emails, delete their telephone number, block them on any chat programs & stop checking their online journal. Cold turkey, baby!
For those of you who love to bitch about other people, or with friends who do, I know that some of you will be thinking, ‘Oh, but making fun of other people is great sport! It’s entertaining & mostly harmless, & it gives me an opportunity to demonstrate my sharp wit & cutting insights.’ Maybe so, but if you were actually happy with yourself, you would find something more interesting to do with your time. What’s that old saying about how no one ever carved a statue of a critic?
Maybe this sounds really cliched to you. That’s okay. You have the right to live your life however you want to, but here’s a secret tip which might make you change your mind: happiness is the best revenge!
Extra For Experts:
Angry/negative people can be bad for your brain. This article is brilliant, you should definitely read it.
Hyper-love & bunny kisses,
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I was in a quandary about a few negative friends of mine & what to do about them…but this solved it for me. The only problem: They are mutual friends with all of my friends, so they’ll still be there.
This solidified my resolve, however. Thank you :]
Great advice there, I had to get rid of a few negatives from my life a couple of years ago – a housemate and a best friend namely. Was hard and a bit devistating at the time, but in the long run it was the right choice. Bad habits die hard too, and I sometimes still can hear myself being critical of strangers in my head. Luckily, I don’t publically bitch nearly as much as I used to! Thanks for the great advice though, very useful for future events :)
Thank you for the positive words! While my negative nancy isn’t of the whiney bitchface variety, she is very much self-interested and manipulative. And I feel that ultimately hurting people via a somewhat sneaky predatory approach is a very negative thing. Surely this type of person does the world no favours. Your article has inspired me to stay on the expungement path. I’m trying cold turkey!
excellent article. there are a few “friends” in my life at the moment who are nothing but negative. i leave college (& thus them) in a few months time, & i plan on expunging them from my life entirely from that point on. i shall return to this article when the time comes for courage.
xoxo
thank you again gala, as i read this article i realized something…
although i might not need to expunge someone from my life, i realized that the “tragic is interesting” person you were describing was me…and how i thought it was epic and intriguing to be mopey and sad…and hungry.
but you’re right and being happy IS the minority, it’s what will make me stand out, and (quite obviously) it will make me happy!
thank you for not being afraid to say what everyone is thinking, it has made me expunge some of my OWN negative attributes.
I am SO GLAD this is helpful for all of you. If you apply it consistently it will improve your life hugely. Much love to all of you!
You smell and I hate you!
ONLY JOKING!
I’m just going to share my little story here.
I was friends with a girl who would constantly tell me all the bad things going on in her life, but when she’d ask for advice, she would ignore what ever I said. Then after a while, she said she didn’t like spending time with me, but she still wanted to be friends. Then, when she started talking smack about my sister, I had to make her go away.
Negative people blow.
That is so demented. Sigh. Best not to dwell on it, those people should just be left to their own devices!
the kinds of people you describe are what i call “psychic vampires”. oh, how very goth-ish of me…hehe.
but seriously, my mother is one. it pains me so…because i’m torn between wanting to delete her from my life, and feeling like an asshole because she’s my MOTHER!
i feel like the more time i spend talking to her, the more likely it will be that i will “become her”.
i don’t want to be this sad miserable person that blames the world for my issues. on the other hand, i really miss having a mom….
I used to feel guilty for dropping a friend of mine I had known for a few years. We originally got along in the beginning but a somewhere down the road it all fell apart. For me anyway. She started having problems at home and dumping them on people, always in a pissy mood when the rest of us we’re trying to have fun, becoming more immature and demanding.
So I took what I thought was a break from her, started talking to her less, when I realized about a month later that I was actually exempting her from my life and didn’t want to come back from my break to deal with all her BS.
She soon caught on,asked a couple of my friends what was up but from then on she hasn’t spoken a word to me and I have never been more relaxed.
I went thru this almost without realising. It was a best friend from high school, and in the 10 years of our friendship I have come to realise that she thrives on negative drama and only contacted me when upset etc.. don’t get me wrong I love being there to help out friends in pain/trouble (god knows I have been there calling on friends) but this was her ALL the time, never any contact when things were going good. I had a pretty dramatic painful time in my life not that long ago and never heard a word from her, even though she knew what was going on through mutual friends. This hurt and solidified my resolve to break away from her. I realised we were just friends because we had been for so long, not because we enjoyed or inspired each other.
Great article Gala and such important info.
Its cliche, but our lives are short and we only have one of them so should do all we can to fill it with great people who lift us up.
Hey Gala, I found your blog the other day & it is great to read when I need a break at work. I think you should write more serious pieces like this.. I bet you have some good political views, social comment etc. Although do love the fluffy stuff like scarf tying too. Cheers from AK, NZ.
I’m so pleased to hear that a lot of you are already self-aware enough to think about this stuff & take action, it’s awesome!
Sarah — Thanks :>
I have no problem with writing serious pieces but I’m not really interested in just putting down my opinion: everyone has one of those, & it’s not like mine is more valid than anyone else’s. The real thing I’m trying to do with each of my articles is provide inspiration & give assistance to people, so it is something they can actually apply to their life to make it better. Thank you for the suggestion though!
I had a boyfriend who was always negative. He would always comment on how people would dress and critize them about everything. From their weight, to their shoes, to their style, everything. He was always so negative. Nothing seemed to be positive with him. Bad things after bad things would always happen to him and he would always complain and bitch about them and when I’d try to help him and say it’ll be fine, just calm down he’ll be more mad and curse at me. It was just a vicious cycle with him. He thought he was better than everyone because he was 24 and making 90K a yr. So? You’re always miserable and no one likes you. Ha.
Thankfully I got out of that relationship lastyear and I’m so much happier now.
Ps.
I hate that myth of Happy People = Vacuous.
This is much-needed advice for me! I focus on negativity so much, in an effort to expunge it from my mind, that I can get lost in it! It seems everyone has a story about negative ppl.
My BFFs are a wide crowd, but the closest friend I have is also intensely negative & miserable with her life. I’ve tried to help her, but I realized that just “being there” for her is enough…I don’t need to stay in her company so much as let her know, if she lets go of destructive ideas, I’ll hang out with her more.
Anyway, I tried this, & it’s working so far. Fab advice. I love that you researched it, backing it up w/ actual science that proves angry ppl are bad for the brain. It just motivates me to keep positive company! :)
I’m glad it has helped you [a}! There are so many people who think that life is out of their control… it’s all about attitude. You choose your own! If you want to be miserable, go ahead, but it is just as easy to be happy, you just give it the same amount of energy as you did to being sad.
Great article! I could really relate to the whole cutting away from negative friends idea. All through high school I was pretty negative (and rather unhappy with my life) and attracted negative people in the process. Then a few years into college I realized, “Wow, I can be way better than this!” Since then I’ve worked on shedding the weight of lame friends, which I have to add is about as easy as quitting drinking…I was surrounded by enablers! I feel so much better and I’m smiling a lot more.
On the contrary, I am somewhat regretful that I’ve grown apart from my old friends. I get reminiscent of old times. Then again, I think of how blah I always felt. Regardless, the good friends always seem to find a way into my life :)
I really like this article, particularly the end piece! My best friend of several years can often be like this, and when she used to turn on me, it would crush me. As I went through high school and gained a ton of self-confidence and independence, she eventually stopped doing it, because I stopped letting her see how upset I was, and then I stopped being upset. Now when she gets angsty I just counter it with happiness, and she either cheers up or goes away.
Another friend is immature, negative, whiny, and so on and so on. He is a good guy at heart – he just hasn’t quite grown up yet. I’ve found that it’s great fun to be relentlessly cheerful around him when he’s angry at everything. For every negative comment he sends at me, I come back with a positive one, again until he gives up or leaves!
All this nastiness from my friends is, however, made up by the boy I love. He is all positive all the time, and together he and I wage a crusade of happiness against our unhappy friends :)
Wow. Seriously, just wow. I applied your hint-happiness is the best revenge-to my life, and it has really helped me out.
I typically surround myself with “wounded birds” (something I never realized until I read this article), and it affected me very badly. I get easily overwhelmed in emotional situations, and I had been having panic attacks for some inexplicable reason. But-luckily-I happened across your article, took the negative people out of my life (after realizing there were quite a few of them), and have been perfectly fine since.
So, I just wanted to say ‘bravo’ and thanks!
your a cutie!!!!!!
omg, after reading what ‘TEA’ explained – it sounded just like my best friend of 20+ years from childhood. over the past few years, she has gotten so dramatic, negative, always telling me of the problems she has with other people and problems with her boyfriend, with her parents… that’s all i would hear.
then when things in her life were at a “good” point, i would not hear from her for weeks at a time. she wouldn’t spend time with me and our mutual group of girlfriends for get-togethers because she was so into her own world. but low-and-behold, i would get a call when something went wrong again.
saddest thing was, i had recently chosen her to be my maid of honor as i’m getting married this year. i only chose her since she was my longest friendship and thought it would help bring us closer if she was my MOH. WRONG!!!! everything turned into everything being about her — when it’s my wedding and not hers. she always complained how she was already so busy and had to take days off or re-arrange her schedule when i would ask her to help with little things like going to my gown-fitting etc.
so then, after months of misery with her, i finally had the courage to REMOVE her as my MOH and it came down to disassociating herslef from my life completely. because when i asked for her to step down from being a MOH and be a bridesmaid, she flipped and said she wouldn’ve have any part of the wedding and wouldn’t attend my wedding at all because she “couldn’t be sincerely happy for me just being a bridesmaid”. so now she has decided to remove me and all our girlfriends from her life. she’s 26 and acts like 14.
after reading this article, it made me feel a lot better about my decision to remove my childhood best friend from my life to rid myself of that negativity.
Kudos to the rest of you that have been able to do the same!!! :)