How do you deal with negative people?

United States
May 19, 2008 5:23pm CST
What do you do when someone directs negativity toward you? Do you ignore it completely? Do you try and remain positive and hope that it will affect them positively? Do you retaliate? Do you allow them to bring you down and affect you in such a way that turns you negative? Or some other variation of reaction? I try to remain positive although this is not always easy and sometimes not even possible. I try not to let them see that they have affected me negatively though because I feel like if I do then I let them win. Most times I can brush it off and move on with my day. Sometimes I vent it out to my wonderful hubby and then we laugh and I'm fine. Every now and then it really gets to me and I vent it into my writing by writing an article or a poem that speaks to the situation. What do you do?
5 responses
@kmurti (100)
• Russian Federation
23 Oct 08
first of all never let anyone influence you ..esplly when ur heart tells you u are rite.. dats it as women our sixth ense is always srtong go by gut feeling who ever tries to tell u something negative saymmmm..agreed /rite/and end the coversation but do wat u think is rite if you disagree or argue with these negative fools u will landup wasting a lot of time and energy..nor worth it dats my positve /attitude try it it works!! cheers
@lemayan (188)
• Germany
4 Sep 08
one thing i have learnt about people who direct negativity are people who either hate your character or you have something that they dont, or maybe they do suffer an inferiority complex, the best thing to do is ignore them because when you get irked to the point of reacting then you stoop down low to their level,and if one was to be rude to you and ignored them, then after sometime they stop because they cannot be insulting someone who is not falling for it
@minnie_98214 (10557)
• United States
20 May 08
I vent to my hubby or mommy. Most times it wont phase me but my ex husband always seems to get to me and I hate that. But he was a very negative person all the time i knew him so i am learning to just ignore him.
• Canada
19 May 08
I try and distance myself for negativity and people that a perpetually negative. Although I do sometimes respond in kind to those people, I try to be positive and influence them with my behaviour. It's hard to turn negative energy into positive energy, but I agree that channeling it into creative work is one of the best ways.
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
• United States
19 May 08
Hmm, think I already answered this... I guess it depends on the person. Friends who are always negative and I find their negativity bringing me down, I will just talk to them less and less and eventually not at all. This has actually happened with more than 1 friend, but in the end I'm better off without those sorts of people. Now my husband often has a negative attitude towards things when they don't turn out as he expected them to. When this happens I get really annoyed. I'm still learning how to deal with him when he acts this way. I usually just get upset with him, but eventually we both calm down and he begins to see things more positivly, or I explain the positive aspects of it.