My husband & I have a friend who seems to be chronically whining about how sucky his life, the universe, & everything is. He’s 42, college-educated, but chose not to pursue a career in anything resembling his major (English). He’s been working at low-paying jobs most of his life, lives with his mom, never married, no kids. He is very bright, and can be very witty when he chooses to remove the chip from his shoulder. But if you try to tell him that a lot of his problems may be due to bad choices he made…well, look out, because you just SUCK. He seems to be very angry that other people have more than he does, as if no one out there but him ever worked for anything.
Does anyone out there know anyone like this, and if you do, how do you deal with them? Is there a polite way to tell him to just quit whining? Some people honestly do get dealt a crappy hand in life, but this guy really did make some bad choices, and instead of trying to rectify his own personal situation, he just complains about it.
You could try leaving whenever he starts complaining. Make it really obvious. As soon as the second whiny sentence comes out of the guy’s mouth, check your watch and say, “Oh gee, look at the time. Sorry, must go, I have to go to, um, a Thing. Yeah.” Maybe he’ll eventually get the hint and realize that you don’t want to listen to his sob story.
Of course, you’ll have far more options if you don’t care about being polite. My suggestion is to slap him upside the head and bark, “Shut up, ya whiner! Quit bitching and go get a job!” If nothing else, it’s guaranteed to get his attention. =B^)
I’m not a warlock. I’m a witch with a Y chromosome.
This sounds trite and rather silly but it does work. Next time the whining starts just ask him, “Want some cheese with that?”
He’ll go, “What?”
“Some cheese with your wine.”
A little humor can get you on the topic and then you can tactfully mention that instead of complaining he should take action. Don’t like your job? Get another one. If he becomes a YeahBut (well yeah, but I can’t) I’d just stop responding at all.
But the above wine/whiner thing has worked for me and a friend of mine. It gets us to laugh at ourselves and address the problem rather than just whining about it.
The moon looks on many flowers, the flowers on but one moon.
I guess if he’s a good enough friend that you can be completely honest with him, the next time he starts, give him both guns. “look, you made stupid decisions and now you have to live with those results. If you can’t see that, then I’m sorry, but I don’t want to hear the stories about your sad life and how it sucks to be you. You got dealt your hand in life and you played some wrong cards. If you want help recitifying those mistakes, I’m here for you but either put up or shut up!” I think that kind of reaction from someone he considers a good friend will be a turning point. Be aware however that some people just don’t want help and we can’t make people open their eyes. Good luck!
I hope your friend has looked into the possibility that he’s got a problem with depression. My ex-husband did, and he behaved in a similar way. What I percieved to be apathy and laziness, whining and complaining- was actually a bad case of manic depression. He was behaving the same way your friend does…just a thought…I don’t know if you can get him to go see someone, but it couldn’t hurt.
An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; A pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.
Get a book called Don’t Shoot the Dog, by Karen Pryor. It’s about positive reinforcement techniques in training… whether you’re training a dog, a spouse, or a whiny friend. I’ve tried it, it really works.
The only trick is that you really must never, ever tell the “subject” that he’s being trained. Other than that, works wonders.
I think everyone has a friend like that. Why do we torture ourselves hanging out and associating with these people? Perhaps to boost our own egos with " At least I am not as screwed in the head as so and so…" or " My life sucks, but hanging around with X makes me realize things are going pretty damn good."
We have a friend who could be a brother of your friend. 35, highly intelligent, very funny and cynical and totally unmotivated. ( He gets these cake jobs and it just kills me.) Just plunked down $8,000 for film school and I know…I JUST KNOW that he will never ever do a damn thing with it because he really out there with his thoughts and thinks that everyone is just too straightlaced. ( A film idea: a guy works at a crucifix factory who takes all the defective crosses home with him to build a space ship. Yeah, that’ll sell tickets.) He calls my husband up at 11pm to go out for a beer. This is highly amusing because we are 40 minutes away from him and hubby had told him time and time again that even if he lived next door he wouldn’t go out at 11pm anymore because it’s just not that easy to wake up in the morning after a couple of rounds.
We hang out with him because he is funny and he knows he is whining and we can tell him to shut the bleep up when he is going off like a skip in the record. BUt now that someone mentioned it, I wonder if he is depressed…
Excellent suggestions, all. I was thinking about the depression thing, though, having gone through my own personal bout with it, and my husband’s as well (we’ve both been treated & released, as it were). Then I had a flashback to this past 4th of July. I asked my friend if he was doing anything, and he said that he planned to stay home & be depressed, because it was his father’s birthday. His father died almost 20 years ago. Sadness around the time of an anniversary such as that is perfectly normal, but after 20 years, one should no longer be planning to be bummed. It’s as if he’s not even trying to move on. Anyone out there ever read “How to Survive the Loss of a Love”? I think I’m going to buy my friend a copy…mine is too dog-eared to loan out anymore.
Thanks alot for your suggestions, folks. They are genuinely appreciated.
Yes, that sounds exactly like my ex-boyfriend! He graduated from NYU film school but refused to get one of the jobs that all NYU film grads get because “it would be depressing working on someone ELSE’s projects”…but of course had no money to make one of his own…his parents told him after he graduated not to worry about getting a job right away so he let them pay his rent (in the East Village) for a year, occasionally circling Help Wanted ads but never actually calling them, and complaining all the time about his life going nowhere. When I went out with my friends he insisted on coming along but refused to get involved in any conversation and instead just sat there and sulked…how I stayed with him for 2 1/2 years I will never know!!
I never would have mentioned the depression thing except that I really did write my husband off as a “waste of blood and hair” until I learned a little more about how the whole thing worked. I mean, he would have great ideas, but absolutely lacked the will/ambition/drive to make them anything but a dream. Or he blamed everyone else for a bad turn. He constantly carped and complained- it was unbearable to live with. When we went our separate ways, I BEGGED him to get some help and snap the hell out of it, but when someone is like that, they just can’t give a shit. They truely believe in thier plight. It’s a damned shame is what it is. Everyone knows someone like this because it happens a lot. Just my opinion.
On the other hand, he could just be a worthless piece of shit!
An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; A pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.
