Which One are You?

Yesterday I just spent over two hours at a walk-in clinic waiting to see if one of my co-workers was going blind. She’s been fighting a migraine for four days now, and since her vision started crapping out I told her I would take her to the doctor, (It’s never a good sign when your vision goes – just ask Mary Ingalls.) Turns out her electrolytes were out of whack and they put her on a new medication; gave her a pretty intense shot of something and then I took her home so she could sleep it off.

While I was waiting not-so-patiently, I was observing the people in the waiting room. I was watching how the various people handled each other’s problems. Here is my theory: The way others deal with problems presented to them can be classified into three categories. Example situations could be if Person A tells Person B they don’t feel well, or that someone at work irritated them in the extreme, or maybe they have money problems. Person B will respond in one of three ways:

I. Agree with the Sucktitude
In this situation, Person B will commiserate with Person A. They’ll comment about how sorry they are that Person A feels this way. Or they’ll agree that the third party was a total jerk when she made that comment about Person A’s mother. Maybe they’ll just tell Person A, “I’m sorry, that sucks!” in a way that justifies Person A’s anger, frustration, or bitterness. This version is my favorite version and 9 times out of 10, exactly what I’m hoping for when I’m complaining about my health or my life.

II. Offer a similar story for comparison
In this version of events, Person B will take Person A’s statement of unhappiness and use it as an opportunity to discuss their own unhappiness. They may tell Person A that they, “Had a bad headache like that one time…” or that, “That’s like when my boss got mad at me for dressing casual…” They will direct any attention back to their own situation of suckiness. They have good intentions, as they are agreeing with you, but they aren’t offering much support. But, I’ll take this response over the third group:

III. Fix it.
This person is the most annoying. This person will tell you exactly what you need to do to fix the problem. Hate your job? Quit! Are you sick? See a doctor! Are you worn out? Sleep! Most of the time their solutions are obvious or at least solutions you could come to on your own. They rarely, if ever, aknowledge that Person A may just be complaining for the sake of complaining. They constantly have to give Person A advice and instruct them how to fix the issue, regardless of whether or not Person A even asked for advice.

This is my least favorite response, and usually the one that will trigger me to go home and complain to my hubby about. Of course my hubby usually responds to my complaining in this way most of the time, so complaining to him usually just fuels the fire. Nine times out of ten, when I’m complaining about life, work, health or money – I am just complaining for the heck of it. Is that so wrong?

(Keep in mind…the proper answer is, “No. That’s not so wrong. I hate that too. That sucks.”)