MetaChat - Have you ever been in a situation...

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27 November 2006

Have you ever been in a situation... →[More:] ...where you had something you needed to get off your chest, but it turned out that there were good reasons why you shouldn't talk about it to all of the people you would normally talk to? It's equally frustrating and funny.

And please -- this is not an ask-mudpuppie-what's-wrong thread. It's an honest question -- have you been in that situation before?

post by: mudpuppie at: 16:00 | 29 comments

I have been. It's an annoying thing. I have found that talking to someone completely outside of the situation is a good way to vent, and the only downside is they will almost invariably be annoyed at you because they don't care because they're totally outside of the situation and uninvested in your drama, but that's okay because you both knew that when you started venting.

Also, I'm actually a gay black transvestite squirril, but I can't tell my family.

posted by cortex 27 November | 16:05

Yup. It kinda sucks. I try to romanticize it in my mind, like, ooo, I have a secret from the world. That helps. A little.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 27 November | 16:07

yep.

posted by ethylene 27 November | 16:08

Yes, I have. I disguised them as bad prose and posted them to my blog (Slashdot journal, actually).

posted by Daniel Charms 27 November | 16:09

Yes and it always drives me crazy until I finally find someone who is not at all involved and I can vent to them. Then I feel guilty and weird, yet relieved, which is one of those not so hot emotional trifectas. This is also why therapists are so damn helpful.

posted by mygothlaundry 27 November | 16:13

Yep. Usually vented to unassociated friends or to therapist.

posted by matildaben 27 November | 16:15

I pretty much can never tell anyone my problems. They probably wouldn't really understand. Or sympathize. And even if they did, there'd be the whole uncomfortable "Oh, great, now I have to go fix the door that the cops busted in" angle. So I make jokes, and cram the feelings all back down inside with a dirty plunger until the magic day when it's all too much and my head explodes with chocolaty goodness. So, yeah - I think that situation is pretty much where I dwell. The view's nice, though.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 27 November | 16:20

Isn't this the type of situation strangers in bars were created for?

posted by jonmc 27 November | 16:23

I'll drink to that.

posted by chewatadistance 27 November | 16:25

ha!ha!ha! mudpuppie! That's a good one. I am so laughing out loud the lady next office over probably thinks I am a psycho.

okay, yes.

posted by carmina 27 November | 16:28

What It's Raining Florence Henderson said. That's pretty much me too.

posted by JanetLand 27 November | 16:34

I find myself running into the problem of being OK with telling certain people only certain problems, but those problems are so entertwined with other problems that I'm not willing to talk to that certain person about, so that the discussable problem, by itself, doesn't actually seem like much of a problem, and so I worry that the person I'm talking to thinks I'm completely nuts for being stressed out about what seems, due to the lack of background info, to be a minor issue.

And now I've just confused myself.

posted by occhiblu 27 November | 16:37

Occhiblu's got it. As usual.

posted by mudpuppie 27 November | 16:40

I'm telling you, random barflies. They'll listen to just about anything for company. (I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding).

posted by jonmc 27 November | 16:46

MeChazens are my random barflies. :)

posted by JanetLand 27 November | 16:48

Therapy, Therapy, Therapy, Sliding Scale, Sliding Scale, Sliding Scale, Rinse. Repeat.

posted by Lipstick Thespian 27 November | 16:51

All the time pups. It's almost always bad for me to tell things to the people who need to hear them, with the exception of my wife, thanks be to God.

I don't tell my other (non-wife solvable) problems to anyone except Messrs. W. Turkey and B. Udweiser. I like it that way, but I doubt it's a good idea.

posted by Divine_Wino 27 November | 16:56

Countless times. It's never fun, but it is occasionally funny.

posted by me3dia 27 November | 16:57

Occhiblu...yes.
exactly.

posted by karim satasha 27 November | 17:02

I used to be pretty open about things, but I learned many years ago that repression is just easier in the long run. At least when it comes to the important stuff.

posted by jrossi4r 27 November | 17:16

What jrossi said.

I still cannot see how all this can be funny. It is frustrating, emotionally numbing and socially disruptive, but I cannot see how it is funny. If I could, I would actually enjoy it.

posted by carmina 27 November | 17:27

Yes, I've been there mups. But more often it's like what IRFH and JanetLand said. Hell, I'm unsympathetic to my own problems. How can I expect anyone else to be supportive?

posted by deborah 27 November | 17:29

Man, occhi nailed it for me...

posted by Specklet 27 November | 17:41

IRFH: So that's where our plunger went...

I just mumble to myself a lot. Gets me lots of elbow room on city streets and subways.

(I'm a hard person to get to know, I think.)

posted by Pips 27 November | 18:06

What's wrong, mudpuppie?

posted by knave 27 November | 18:23

Yes, and currently. I'm not sure I would agree that it is equally frustrating and funny.

posted by amro 27 November | 19:01

Yes. I've used a couple Livejournal filters for that and also talked to my therapist.

posted by sisterhavana 27 November | 20:07

(I'm so glad that other people go through what I wrote about. I actually did think I was being all weird about it.)

posted by occhiblu 27 November | 20:17

No, occhiblu, you said it perfectly. That's exactly how I feel about some things I just can't say to some people. And then I feel guilty about feeling what I'm feeling, and I'm not sure how to explain it without sounding like a horrible person, so therefore it's simpler to keep it to myself.

posted by redvixen 28 November | 16:29

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