Negativity: The Lowest Common Denominator

The message of negativity seems far more present in our society than the message of love. Hollywood spews violence galore, strangers ignore each other, and strong friendships are a rare commodity. I believe this is caused in part by a common model for socializing taken too far. More precisely, I am thinking about talking with strangers. Complaining or whining seems to be the protocol when talking to someone for the first time. Think about standing in line somewhere, if there is a delay or some inconvenience eyes will roll before they lock with the person in front or behind, seeking someone to share the frustration with. Sometimes this will blossom into a conversations like: “Can you believe this?” or “I was here last week and…” which are negative in nature.  Chances are that if nothing frustrating happened, no conversation or contact would have occurred. It is by no means impossible to hear conversations start on neutral grounds, such as weather discussion, or even positive topics, but I think it troubling that the majority of encounters birth in negativity.

It is significant that negative conversation starters seem to appear in greater concentration under stressful circumstances or in places that bring together people that have little in common other than that point in space and time. Negative icebreakers are more common in the workplace, at school, at a store, or on public transit (airports anyone?) than they are at parties, bars, in parks, or at concerts. It would seem that our rat race system is at least in part to blame for the suppression of positivity. It might also be because of our pop culture which pushes certain types of personalities as desirable, or it might just be the cold weather as warmer nations also seem to have warmer people. Regardless of its causes and origins, negativity as an introduction and filtering method might not be damaging at first, but it is important that it only be the stepping stone. Following it should be a more positive interaction for better relationships, which, when refined and practiced should lead a more positive of approaching people in general. First, I want to look at my personal exposure to negativity between strangers, as I am sure it is a path familiar to many.

My personal experience and the influence of cool

I imagine the first taste I got of the cold aloofness of strangers was in the world (duh), learning humanity’s ways by a parent’s side, though shockingly enough I am unable to put a date on it. I must have been hitting the bottle pretty hard in my childhood; I can’t remember half of it. Anyways, I appeared to have sobered up near the end of elementary school, and in high school I was exposed for the first time to negativity as a dominant social model. In high school, as we all learned, it was uncool to appreciate stuff. To be cool meant that you could have a good life or situation, or many material possession, but you did not really care and treated it like it didn’t even matter. Cool people scoffed and made sarcastic jokes in class and the hallways. Cool people did not care about their grades and disrespected the teachers. They were impressive, and they had power, socially at least. Perhaps the reason other kids flock to the cool kids and the cool way of life is that through their disdain they seem confident, like they know what they’re doing in this mature environment that we are all just experiencing for the first time, and that the rest of us are so apprehensive about.

As we young teens adapted and conformed to this mode of thought, I found that conversations started out of circumstance, such as walking in a hallway with classmates that did not really know or talk to each other, often started the same way. They also had with a negative flavouring that was not often found on the innocent playgrounds of childhood.  The default conversation starter was our common ground: our classes, teachers, projects, the state of the school, and so on, but rarely did these casual icebreakers focus on the positive aspects of classes (granted they were sometimes non existent). I find it unsettling that young teenagers bond, at least at first, by trying to find a common target to hate.  One example that springs to mind is that of high school dances, where those who were brave enough to dance were judged mercilessly by those who secretly wished they had the courage to do the same. The herd and the collective is a safe place, safer than standing alone. By immediately targeting anyone who strayed from it we consolidated our position within the collective and proved our loyalty to it. The herd finds an easy common enemy in the individual who walks away from it. Not to say that belonging to the faceless majority meant absolute security, but it guaranteed receiving less insults, bullying, or less general attention than those who did not. By criticizing the weird kid, we distance ourselves and avoid becoming him or her.

Social awkwardness

It goes deeper than just coolness and belonging though. As we start to separate ourselves from our parents we begin to learn to socialize as adults. We younglings do not know the dos and don’ts of the world, and we try to find our way. In this pursuit, it is safer to let others go their own way, see how collective society reacts to those actions, adopt the reaction as our own, and then shape ourselves and actions based on what is not seen as bad. I’ve read somewhere that we do not define ourselves by who we associate with, but rather by whom we disassociate ourselves with. If we realize that a certain group does something we do not agree with or would not do ourselves, we distance ourselves from that group and so on until a small group of acceptable people remains and we define ourselves accordingly.  Think about politics, people in general vote against the party they hate rather than the party they like.

The easy way to know if you can agree with someone is to see if you disagree about something. This also allows us to weed out potential deal-breaker disagreements early. For example if you learn that your fiancée secretly agrees with Nazi policies while you are a Hippie, then you have a problem. A problem that could have been avoided had you started your relationship by outlining things you both dislike.  The idea then is that before we can find common loves and interests with people, we must first make sure we are not on different levels about things we dislike.

I am not above this method. I let my mouth run sometimes in my criticisms of the current governments policies, and if I find out that someone I just met supports these policies, then most of the time we will not share the same values on many other subjects. The method is not inherently bad, it allows us to disassociate ourselves from people who would hurt us or make us angry before the emotional stakes are raised. However, my personal impression is that this mode of thought is imprinted too heavily in the minds of most.

The problem that prevails is that some people never move past the negativity stage when building relationships. Some friendships are based solely on criticism and negativity, often even attacking members of the same group behind their back. Vicious high school girl clicks come to mind, but they unfortunately prevail past high school as well. It is not uncommon to overhear nasty bits of gossip in public, but in contrast you will very rarely hear people talking of their appreciation or admiration of anyone with a lower social status than Brad Pitt. I suspect groups of people who attack each other in secret are groups who bonded from a common dislike, but never moved on to common likes. Chances are if they had migrated to deeper common ground, they would no longer be such “good” friends.

The Good Part!

I do not want to overly extend what was originally supposed to be a short blog post about a random thought, and I do not want to plunge anyone into perceiving nothing but negativity around them. So here comes the cheery part!

People might approach with negativity, but I do not believe that people are negative in general. In fact I find it quite easy to turn a conversations mood right around, especially with a new acquaintance. For example, I like to tell people who complain about the encroaching cold “In an month you’ll be begging for weather like this. Enjoy this while it lasts!” It might seem tacky, but try it and you will see how quickly the tone will change. Or try to approach people with outright positivity and a smile. It won’t always work, the positive vibes will frighten some people, and you might feel silly after an attempt, but at least you tried. Sometimes it does work and a nice conversation with a stranger on the bus is a whole lot better than gloomy silence. Who knows you might even start a good friendship with a solid and positive foundation. Just make sure they’re not Nazis.