Miserable People: Part 1

Today my roommate and I went to the grocery store. We were walking back to our cars, bags in hand, and were approaching the street. Yes, we were about to jaywalk, but we were going to stand and wait until it was clear and safe to do so. When we were about 10 feet from the curb, a car slowed down, and the driver started honking and swearing at us to get out of the road. Hmmm...don't we have to be IN the road to be able to get out of it? We didn't even come close to stepping in the street or getting in his way. And yet he was very, very angry. Clearly we did not make him angry. He is just a miserable person.

Miserable people come in many shapes and sizes. They are the women who scream at you to slow down because there are children in the neighborhood, even though you are going the speed limit and there are no children in sight. They are the people who spend their vacation with a permanent scowl complaining about how overpriced the food is, how long the lines are, how hot the sun is. They are the servers at restaurants who make you feel guilty for sitting at their table and making them wait on you. They are impossible to please and walk around with an aura of negativity that infects most who come into contact with them. These people are not just in a bad mood temporarily...it is their permanent state of being.

It is important to note a few things about miserable people. First, it is not your fault that they are miserable. They choose to be perpetually miserable, and thus you should not in any way take it personally. Second, you cannot save miserable people. Don't think that if you are extra nice or super patient or ridiculously generous that you will free them from their self-imposed prison. You will fail, which will only make you feel worse, and you will become a codependent enabler. Then YOU will not be enjoyable to be around, either. Lastly, you need not get sucked into the misery vortex. If you can identify a miserable person, you can put up your deflective shield and go about your life unaffected.

So how do you identify a miserable person? There are a few telltale signs. These include (but are not limited to): they have a permanent scowl, they have a furrowed brow, they are angry or unhappy but you can't think of any rational reason why, they yelled or swore at you but you did nothing to provoke it, you feel generally uncomfortable when in their presence, and the temperature drops when they enter a room.

I'm sure you know or have come into contact with a miserable person. My advice is to minimize contact with these people as much as possible. If that's not feasible, then develop a strong anti-negativity force field and bust it out as soon as you smell misery in the air. There's no justification for these people to dump all over you, and no need for you to take it. You are a lovely person. You deserve better.