4 ways to deal with awful people
The world can be broken up into two types of people; those who seem to go out of their way to be pleasant and make you feel good and those who just aren’t all that nice. They might not be rude or unkind but their general manner is brusque and no-nonsense. Small talk is probably minimal or non-existent and you wouldn’t go out of your way to spend any extra time with them.
The dilemma of how to deal with a less than lovely person while still maintaining your own sense of pleasantness is a tricky one. Psychology gives us some helpful pointers for the best way to manage. Extensive research has found that people who are nice get nicer when they have pleasant experiences with other people. You might have heard the saying that a “smile is contagious” and that is true to a certain extent. You’ll often be friendlier to someone who smiles and makes an effort. The same goes for someone who is grumpy or unpleasant in that you’ll make an effort to not be around them and mirror their personality to an extent. You may not be overtly horrible but you’re probably not going to be grinning and joking jovially. Niceness can feed on itself but so can nastiness.
So how can you improve your relationships with people who just aren’t that nice? These four tips can help.
- Don’t match their grumpiness – It’s easy to get sucked into a downward frame of mind but trying to maintain your usual personality is important.
- Ask whether your mood could be to blame – We can’t all be in a great mood all the time. Ask yourself whether your low mood may have impacted a prior meeting and if so, work on building back up towards a level of pleasantness.
- Don’t go overboard – Going all out with happiness and cheer will usually be greeted with suspicion and possibly even annoyance. Just be you!
- Accept the inevitable without taking it personally – It is very difficult to change a person’s personality. You can however change your own reaction to it. Try not to let yourself get brought down or caught up in another person’s negative demeanor. It does no one any good
Related links:
How to deal with feelings of jealousy
3 “bad” relationship traits that are actually healthy