You Asked For It! (an advice column)
Today's topic: delivering constructive and compassionate criticism to a friend. Or anyone, really.
Dear Sarah,
How do I tell my dearly loved best friend that when she regurgitates her stressful day on me without providing enough breath to even let me be an active listener, it brings my already stressed out/anxiety ridden ass right down into the depths with her? She has so much on her plate that I cannot dream of adding more to it but I’m starting to dread her calls and that’s not what I want for our friendship.
-Alexandra H.
Dear Alexandra,
I’ll start by saying that your friend is lucky to have someone in her corner who is generous enough of spirit to a) have put up with this trend for a long time already and b) be seeking a loving way to extricate oneself from it with no hard feelings. Well done, you.
And I’ll follow up by saying that it would appear your friend and I are cut from the same cloth. SHIT IS HARD OUT HERE FOR US NEGATIVE NANCYS.
I have to fight my natural tendency toward doom and gloom (or as I like to think of it, “pragmatic realism”) all damn day—in large part because my husband has made it clear he doesn’t want to be married to that, and I can’t blame him. No matter how justified I feel in being stressed out about <gestures at the horrors of the world> or pissed off at Those Who’ve Wronged Me, a constant stream of negativity is neither helpful nor fun.
For either of us.
And while the hubs probably does qualify as my biggest fan, even he did not sign up for a lifetime front row seat to my one-woman show: Everything Sucks! So although it stings a little to get called out on my shit, I appreciate his willingness to do so. It’s much better for both of us than him simmering in a shallow pan of annoyance and resentment that, if left unattended, could one day reach a truly relationship-damaging boil.
As such, my overarching advice is to be honest with your friend and to deliver that honesty in the kindest possible way that can also be assured of getting through to her. (Some people don’t take the hint as well as others; you’ll have to be the judge in terms of how gentle-yet-really-fucking-clear you need to be.)
Here are three ideas for introducing the issue, softening the blow, and reining in your own expectations for how it will go.
Lead with understanding and sympathy; then ask for similar understanding and sympathy in return.
In my book Grow the Fuck Up (in a chapter about self-awareness and honest communication thereof), I described a similar scenario:
If you’re feeling bummed and wish your friend would shut up about ketos and calories because it sucks being dragged down into the scourge of diet culture when you’re trying to enjoy a chill brunch date, THEN TELL THEM SO.
Say something like “Hey, I get that this stuff is foremost in your mind, but I have to confess that it’s hard for me to enjoy getting together for a meal and then spending the whole time talking about how bad it is for us or how guilty we should feel for ordering the crispy potatoes. I’m not trying to tell you how to live or relate to your own body, but if we could put a moratorium on this conversation topic while we’re actively eating, I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much for understanding!”
In your case, you’d tell your friend how sympathetic you are to everything that’s going on in her life and confess that while you want to be supportive, unfortunately your own anxiety gets seriously triggered by these kinds of conversations—but you have an idea!
What if you could help each other out by actively trying shift your mutually stressed-out mindsets toward a greater good? For example, you could make a friendly pact that every phone call has to start with something cool (or at least hilarious) that happened to each of you since you last spoke—sort of a collaborative, tag-team gratitude journal.
Getting into the habit of sharing good news never hurt anybody, and by framing the request as YOU being in desperate need of a pick-me-up and a break from <gestures at the horrors of the world> and asking HER for help, then—if she’s as good a friend to you as you are to her—I bet she’d be happy to give it a whirl.
Interrupt the negative neurons by turning a stressful conversation into a funny “bit.”
This is something I do with a friend of mine who lives in the same neighborhood where she teaches, and where we often get together for dinner. She’s paranoid that a school parent might overhear her bitching about her day over apps and sangria, so we employ a coded language of positive opposites that allows her to vent, which swiftly becomes so silly that it lifts the mood and allows us to drop the shop talk and enjoy our night:
Me: “How are you?”
Her: “OMG I had the BEST week. My supervisor was, like, the MOST understanding about this problem I was having with one of the kids. I’m SO LUCKY to work for somebody who REALLY LISTENS and gives me such AMAZINGLY CONSTRUCTIVE feedback.”
(It usual only takes this long to start laughing and get back to the serious business of tapas consumption.)
Be prepared for backlash.
It may not come, but if it does, don’t be surprised—and do be ready to accept and absorb it in the name of maintaining a mutually respectful and thriving friendship.
Feathers get ruffled. It happens.
One way to smooth ‘em down is to open with that gentle-but-firm request for your BFF to cease and desist with the Misery Monologues, but close with something like this:
“Anyway, I wasn’t sure how to bring this up because I didn’t want to pile on to your shit, but I figure it’s better for both of us to be honest! And obviously, if there’s anything I’m ever doing that’s stressing YOU out, I hope you’ll tell me.”
Maybe she’ll take you up on it right then and there—and if so, you’ll have some constructive criticism of your own to consider. (There’s a whole chapter on how to do this in Grow the Fuck Up too; it’s called “Come on, don’t be like that.”)
But often the mere acknowledgment that you know you’re not infallible (or as my husband puts it when he lodges a complaint with the Wife Department: “Hey, I know I’m no picnic either, but…”) can be enough to keep everyone’s plumage in its place.
Hope this helps!
Sarah
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"...enough to keep everyone’s plumage in its place" – what a wonderful line! 😆