Use your words

Yesterday someone I talk to on a fairly regular basis told me that I'm "too negative". The person who told me this has always struck me as one of the biggest perpetrators of what I like to call "unrealistic self-image". He thinks he's upbeat and funny. He also thinks he's shy and doesn't talk a lot. I haven't known him very long but of all of the aforementioned characteristics, he only actually has one going for him... he can at times be funny. But it's not usually when he's trying to be -- usually it's when he's not aware of himself and accidentally says something that is so cute I can't help but giggle.

Anyway, I would never have guessed that I could ever been seen as an overly negative person. But it got me thinking. What if I am suffering from "unrealistic self-image", too? What if I think I am fun and funny (which I do... I crack myself up) but really I am Debbie Downer?

What provoked this person to tell me that I'm "negative" was when he said that the hotel I'm staying at with my friends in Vegas next week "should be fun" and I said, "No, not really but we can always go out to the other casinos nearby." Apparently, that was the straw that broke the camel's back and he just had to tell me how negative I "always" am. (By the way, huge pet peeve of mine -- when people say "never" and "always" to describe your characteristics as they are telling you how much you suck. No one in this world is "always" and "never" anything. Whenver someone pulls that shit with me, I'm tempted to turn into their mother -- "That's not accurate. Now use your words. What are you really trying to say to me?")

Anyway, it really bothered me. Made me kind of sad today, actually. I wish I didn't care what people in my life think about me. But anyone who is in my life is no doubt someone I care about (otherwise I wouldn't let them hang around) so of course what they think about me affects me. And this person in particular is someone I've listened to bitch and complain about his life since I met him so it was particularly hard to hear it from him. I've been the one to talk him down from a ledge a few times. How negative can I be?

So, in summation, if I've been a Negative Nancy in your presence, I hope you'll forgive me. But the Tropicana still kinda sucks.