Selling the Drama

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[color=#9933ff][font=lucida calligraphy]I have this 'friend' who is quite possibly one of the most annoying people I know. She has to complain about everything that's going on in her life, like her boyfriend who everyone knew didn't care about her not telling her things. And then how she thinks that he and another one of my friends have been carrying on around her back. It gets so annoying that people just ignore her (No, this isn't one of those psyche things where the 'friend is really me. This is someone that I know)

So I'm wondering if anyone else knows people like that. Either on a personal or purely casual relationship level. And if you do, how do you put up with the person without trying to commit yourself to a psyche ward?[/color][/font]

[James]

[color=#606060]I think this personality type is pretty common. I even see it on OB at times, lol.

I have some people that I work with who are very much like this - everything is doom and gloom and nothing is ever positive.

It can be annoying because by nature I'm a pretty calm person. I usually don't worry too much about things which are outside my control. And I'm not really interested in gossping about things. Yet I have some coworkers who are incredibly negative all the time...sometimes it can get frustrating.

All you can really do is ingore that, I think. Or just tell people you aren't interested in all the bad news. The more you hear, the more you start to get dragged down by it I think.[/color]

[Sandy]

It could be a paranoid personality disorder, or just jealousy, or just the fact that she's a *****. You really don't have to be friends with a person of her ilk.

I know I wouldn't be, even though I love to have some extra drama in my life. On the long run, it would just get intolerable.

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Bah. I avoid these people as much as possible. And often argue with them or maake cynical comments on everything they say within earshot of me >_> I know of one girl who I was an aquantance of in 9th grade who always complained about something or other. So the next year I end up becoming friends with a girl who was (once) that girl's best friend and talked bout how much the firs girl was a total fake and a liar who wines about **** and stabs people in the back. I wonder if girl 2 realized she was also complaining and talking ****, but oh well. I don't talk to either now, lol.[/COLOR]

[Aaryanna]

[COLOR="goldenrod"][FONT="Comic Sans MS"]Some of my mom's relatives are like that. All doom and gloom and constantly complaining about how everything in their life is going so wrong. XP It's the main reason I tie myself to Beth's sofa when my mom goes to visit them. I hate going. All one woman, who by the way is my aunt, does is tell you why you couldn't possibly suffer more than her or hurt more than her, etc. But what she doesn't get is I don't care! It's hard to feel sorry for her when one day she'll be saying her back gave out and she can barely move and yet then the next day she'll say it's her knees.

It's hard to believe anything she says since it's always changing and yet never interferes with her doing something she really wants to do, just with things she'd rather not do. Like cooking and cleaning and taking care of her kids. It's pretty sad actually and the other reason I hate going to visit is she spends the whole time trying to make me do all the work since I'm so blessed to have better health as she puts it. I'm not her little slave thank you very much. But yeah, people like that are annoying.

Personally, the best way to deal with them is to have nothing to do with them if possible. Which is why I always insist on staying with Beth when my mom goes. Though lately she doesn't visit her very much. [/FONT][/COLOR]

[Fasteriskhead]

As a rule, people who do these kinds of small but annoying things can be classed into two groups: the ones that can take a hint, and the ones that cannot. The former can be rehabilitated, and may actually curb their habits over time; the latter should be escaped from as discretely (but quickly) as possible.

Here's a test. Imagine you're sitting somewhere by yourself, maybe eating your lunch and reading a book. Suddenly, Chatty McLoudpants comes over, says hi, and decides that she's going to tell you all about the problems she's had trying to get a guy in to fix her phone line ("they never show up when they're supposed to!"). At this point you can make subtle indications that you aren't interested in hearing this - for example, refuse to look at her directly, continue to eat your lunch, occasionally take wistful glances at that last paragraph you were on, etc. - basically you're trying to radiate an aura of [i]LOOK LADY, BUSY HERE (SORRY)[/i]. Did she get the hint and find a polite way to end the discussion and excuse herself? Then there's still hope for her! If not, it's time to be more direct. Here, you can try making a [i]strong indication[/i] at any halfway decent gap in Chatty's speech - for example, "You know, I need to finish my lunch and get going pretty soon" OR "Have you read this before? It's actually pretty good, I'm really getting into it." Hopefully that'll work, but as a last resort you can move up to Defcon 2: "Hey, I'm trying to read here." NOW does she get it? If yes, then again there's still hope. Otherwise, you're going to get a minute of lecturing about how selfish you are for not listening to Chatty's problems (bonus points if she mentions how her family does the same thing) before she neatly spins right back into complaining about her life. In this case it seems that you really are, in fact, dealing with a total ***hole, and should find a good excuse to get out of there asap and avoid contact in the future. Get a buddy system in place, assign someone to lookout duty, wear a disguise, whatever.

I've found that the worst case isn't that common, though. Never assume malice or other inherent bad qualities when ignorance or thickheadedness could also be an explanation. Most people do this kind of annoying stuff because they haven't caught on that it bothers the folks around them - only the supreme d***s know and don't care.

[Rachmaninoff]

I think your description really fits it Fasteriskhead. Fortunately I don't deal with people like that very often. Probably the worst that I run into is students who take the drama approach to attempting to get out of their homework. Once or twice I could see, but the entire semester? At that point, no sob story is going to keep you from getting a failing grade from me.

I've run into a few others, but they were more of a mild case who upon subtle hints that you didn't want to hear their sob story, did in fact shut up. Most of the time I don't mind hearing it once, but the ones that will, if given a chance, tell you the same story every single day, are quite annoying.

[ChibiHorsewoman]

[color=#9933ff][font=lucida calligraphy]Oh I avoid her alright. I've done some really normally rude un=CHW-esq things to get rid of her. I've told her that maybe she needs medication. I've decided that my daughter was awake and then never fixed my away message- the last time I did that she started asking other people where I was.

The best part is when she was complaining about moving from Nova Scotia to Quebec and was blaming me and another friend for telling her to do it. Honestly if I was to tell her to do anything it would be to buy better shoes. :animesigh


Anyways, thanks for the stories and advice. Keep it coming, it's good to know that I'm not alone[/color][/font]

[Andy]

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="2"]I, personally, don't know too many people like that(fortunately), but I do have a few friend's that are like that. And what do I do? Basically what Fasteriskhead suggested, I usually try to hint that i'm busy doing something else. Or sometime's, when I'm in a room with more people that are standing kinda close to me, i'll start talking to them even while my friend continues to chatter on and on. And this usually work's for me, [I]usually[/I]. And, in which case it doesn't, I just get direct. Something along the line's of "Hey, your starting to annoy me. Piss off, thanks." Notice how I add the thank's, this way I can insure proper kindness while telling them to leave me the **** alone.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[SunfallE]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]As much as I'd love to say I don't run into people like that... I do. Unfortunately. And though I no longer see her, one of the biggest annoying ones was a former co-worker: she was the poor me attention getter type. No matter what happened, she had to be a part of it. If someone was sick, she would have stories about how she was sicker. If someone had a relative die, her's died in a much more sadder or horrible manner.

If something bad was happening in the news, like someone getting shot, she knew one of the people involved. :rolleyes: When 9/11 happened, naturally she lost loved ones. There wasn't anything out there that she wasn't supposedly connected to. It was rather sickening to listen to her go on and on.

And then the woman wondered why no one ever wanted to be near her or share the same table during lunch time. No one liked little miss poor me. Especially since after awhile, she couldn't keep her stories straight so she'd contradict herself on a regular basis. I mean it doesn't take much to realize that last week it was a woman who died and next week she had somehow turned into a guy.

I've got some relatives and sibs like that too. One that annoys me the most is one of my older brothers. He did this huge drama fest about how much it hurt when our brother was killed by a drunk driver, and though that was over ten years ago, to this day he still acts like it was so tragic and is still so painful. To listen to him talk, you'd think he was the only one who cared about our brother. The only good thing about this is he lives in another state so I rarely have to put up with his BS on this subject. [/FONT][/COLOR]