We all have good days and bad days. Sometimes on those bad days we just need to complain.
Complaining can be therapeutic. Everyone likes to feel that their thoughts and feelings matter and are being acknowledged. Voicing these thoughts and feelings in the form of a complaint allows people to put everything behind them.
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This seems to be the standard way to go about complaining, but we all know that one person who complains all the time. Every word out of their mouth is negative and dealing with them is a pain in the butt.
It’s like they feel as if everything is terrible and you cannot convince them otherwise, no matter how hard you try.
I find this to be super frustrating, especially when you have to deal with this person on a somewhat regular basis.
As someone who loves to get a good complaint in every once in a while, I’m almost always willing to listen to someone let it all out. I often encourage it if I know someone is having a bad day. I’m like, “Go ahead, complain for a few minutes. I’ll listen.”
But there’s such a difference when the complaints are unsolicited, never-ending and are the only words coming out of a person’s mouth.
It’s a shame that no matter how good things might actually be, these people choose to see the bad. And it is a choice.
I’m not saying you have to be an optimist in life, because that sounds exhausting, but is it really that hard to just let things go? Your life can’t be that terrible.
At least in my experience, the complaints I hear always seem to be inconsequential, or I have something much worse going on and that makes it even more difficult to deal with this person.
I see the irony here as I complain about people who always complain, but I’ve only very recently developed this attitude towards constant complainers. After dealing with this one person for weeks on end, I began to realize they were really affecting my mood. I could feel my whole attitude shift after spending just a few moments listening to them complain.
After trial and error (and I had a lot of practice because this person never let up on their whining), I learned the trick to dealing with these chronic complainers: stop feeding into it.
Attempts to cheer these people up never work, trying to be the optimist for them also always seems to be ineffective, and acknowledging that their complaint is valid just encourages them to complain some more, so I stopped giving them more fuel to complain. I basically stopped giving any response at all.
Now I don’t mean I completely ignore the person. As good as that would feel, I do have some manners and I would strongly advise against that, but there are other ways to gently shut down the conversation.
Here’s what my tip looks like in action:
For example, if a person constantly complains about physical pain, give them a sympathetic face and a few good head nods. Maybe you can make a small noise in the back of your throat that comes across as reassuring, but don’t utter any words.
If someone is complaining about how long/tiring/horrible/etc their day has been, give them a good surprised face, a sigh, and a head shake and you should be in the clear.
If you’re someone who feels compelled to speak, a good drawn out “Ohhhhhh,” might work for just about any complaint, but I’m not entirely sure it would get the person to stop complaining.
This trick might not be for everyone, and it might not work for every constant complainer in your life, but I think it’s worth a shot. I can’t tell you how many times I went and googled “how to deal with someone who always complains.” It never seemed to be successful, but now I’m wondering if it had to do with the word count of my search inquiry.
Anyhow, if this tip doesn’t work for you, then my best advice is to avoid the person at all costs and be mindful of their toxic attitude. Just because they’re having a bad day doesn’t mean they have to bring you down with them.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
