Helping people who look for reasons to get mad, looking for the bad in others?
 

Have you ever lived or worked with someone who seems to look for reasons to get mad?
For some people it seems that whenever they have any significant they most often
find some reason that the other person is "asshole" or "a bitch" or "lying".
Looking at it from the outside somewhat objectively, you see that the "asshole"
is just trying to get some problem solved. Maybe they are a little frustrated or
maybe a little confused, but not lying or being a jerk.

So our friend start getting a little unpleasant with them, they perhaps respond the
same way and our friend puts the worst possible spin on everything they say.
The person who does this isn't trying to be a jerk, I don't think. They really do
believe that the other person is being hyper critical, being a real jerk, or telling lies.
That's the way they actually see it, but it simply isn't so.

How do you help that type of person to see others as they really are, or least in a
little bit more positive light? I'm frustrated dealing with someone like that who
has great skills in a variety of areas, but every day it seems they are pissed off
about someone being a jerk to them. When the "jerk" is a business associate of
some type it creates real problems.

Any ideas? I would sure appreciate any suggestions on how to help this person
see others differently.

i just look for poo... :2 cents:

same here

Telling the person in question what you told us in the OP, would be where I'd start off. Sometimes people just aren't aware of how they're coming across.

tell them to stop that shit and then tell them why they should not do it... unless they want to die alone.

straight up.

Understand too that they may not always be wrong. Sometimes people really are assholes/bitches/douchebags/cunts.

I had a boss a long time ago who said that I thought everyone was an asshole. The truth was that we had only three customers who I didn't like. Two of them were in our shop every day or two. The other called a couple of times a week.

The thing was, these people really were pricks. I was always accommodating and professional to them but when they left I would vent. Then my boss would "scold" me for "believing everyone was an asshole." He was very good at ignoring obnoxious behavior. I was not.

Hitting first because you assume someone was going to hit you makes you deserve to be hit. (thus do the punished come to merit their punishment) It's a clear cycle that people still sometimes get stuck in. Thats why the phrase is "put on" a happy face. It takes actual effort.


And yeah, there's a difference between bitching a lot about really just a few little things (human nature), and actually being seriously negative about seemingly everything.

Thanks for the responses. I'm going to pay attention to whether this actually happens as often as it seems to.

create a thread on gfy as a passive aggressive display of "HINT HINT, WINK WINK"

haha