I used to say I enjoyed complaining.

Until very recently, I would tell myself and my friends that I enjoyed complaining. It was a way of beating the recipient of my lamentations to the punch. If I could observe that I moan a lot and make it a joke, then no one can use it against me.

It was fun for me to find fault in almost everything. It was a conversation starter/maintainer for me. It’s like I enjoy this misplaced sense of power of shitting on something someone enjoys.

Something in a random blog post stuck with me, ‘Complaining isn’t charismatic’. Now, I am not known for my charisma, but this has been my got to for a few years. Before I bitch about something not worth bitching about, I tell myself I am not being charismatic, which to me, means I am being boring and that terrifies me.

But in the past few weeks, I have noticed that I don’t like complaining so much. Some close friends seem to have taken a leaf out my book and started complaining to me. Apparently the strategy has backfired, my love of a good moan has been absorbed by the people around me and now I have become the recipient of their misery. But they are complaining because they have problems or they aren’t happy. But here’s the thing! Their problems are so trivial and boring that I have to do everything in my power to stop from saying ‘Shut the fuck up!’. It used to be fun for me to go an entire conversation saying nothing positive and be verging on suicidal contemplation as a fine answer to my problems.

If my friends problems to that to me, imagine how they feel. And for me its a defining characteristic.

I want to be different. I don’t want to be so negative. I think this is a smaller part of a bigger issue about me striving for something more. I am scared there is no end to this feeling, no matter what I do.

In the spirit of positivity, I will now tell people:

‘I used to say I enjoyed complaining’