Friday, May 04, 2007

You Might Be A Pessimist If...

It's full - but it's mostly air.




GUY
: How did she do?
OTHER GUY: Not that good. She got a very soft hit right back to the pitcher who threw her out.
GUY: Well, at least she made contact. That's what counts.


Okay - we'll just stop it right there. That's plenty enough to go on.

What's going through GUY's head?

"I'll make him feel better by putting a positive spin on this news" ?
"Anything that isn't obviously good news is upsetting to me, so I'll say something positive to put myself at ease" ?

Actually, it turns out to be a combination of both. GUY might have a problem in that he really can't deal with anything that might considered bad news so he kind of sticks his head in the sand about it. GUY could probably use some real optimism; bad news isn't always that bad and doesn't always connote crisis. Still, that's his own issue. It's that first option that OTHER GUY just might have a problem with here, too.

As far as OTHER GUY is concerned, a simple question was posed and a pretty straightforward answer was given. OTHER GUY has an expectation somewhere along the lines of, "Oh ,that's too bad" or "Not so good, huh? Oh well." Instead, he gets a pretty lame attempt at optimism. It's pablum at best.

What's the problem with that? Well, doesn't it sort of imply that OTHER GUY isn't capable of seeing the positive side unless it's pointed out? Doesn't it kind of say, "Well, it's not so bad. You just need to look at it this way" as if people need your awesome help?

Maybe OTHER GUY just answered a question, and isn't all that broken up about it anyway. Maybe the whole thing isn't such a big deal that it even warrants much reaction at all, much less the trite optimism born of your insecurity.

OTHER GUY could probably take it a step further and take offense to the implication that he must be a pessimist. He could even overreact and say some things that he probably should best just lay off, but he's had this same conversation like, forever, and I guess tonight he just thought of a new way to react right there on the spot. Someone might even end up spending the night on the couch or something. I don't know. I'm just saying this could all seriously deteriorate.

Maybe OTHER GUY didn't overreact. Not even later, when someone was feeding GUY's kid your daughter's dinner. I mean, GUY ain't exactly on food stamps if you know what I'm sayin'.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"It's pablum that you're giving me... Now what the hell you feeding me?"
- Chris Bailey