“You’re So Negative”: What They Don’t See Behind That Judgment

Have you ever been told you’re “too negative” — while you knew there was a whole story behind what you were saying?

Yesterday, my friend Albert came to visit. Albert and I are from different generations. I’m in my mid-fifties and Albert is nearing seventy. Albert was talking about someone of his own age, and about a shared childhood experience they both had, which they nevertheless remember in very different ways.
About that man, Albert said:

“He’s a nice enough guy, but he can be quite negative.”
“If you listen to how he talks about his life, it’s all misery and hardship.”

When he was four, this man had told Albert, his mother sent him out on his own to fetch coal. The walk there was fine, but the return trip was heavy (because the coal scuttle was full), and “my hands used to hurt”, he had said.

Albert continued:

“Yet the way he tells it, it sounds like such a sad story, whereas I actually enjoyed it as a child.”
“My mother would tell me it would be heavy on the way back, but that I could show everyone how strong I already was.”

Albert’s mother would encourage him to take it slowly on the way home, to stop every now and then and rest. And when he came back with the full coal scuttle, she would already have a cup of hot chocolate waiting for him.

(Life in Poverty in Amsterdam in the Early 1960s)

Albert found that difference in how the same experience was remembered to be quite revealing of how negatively his friend approaches life. I didn’t fully agree. Apparently Albert’s mother had framed that experience for him in a warm way, with a cup of hot chocolate waiting at the end.

“You don’t know what things were like at home for your friend,” I said.

I told him about my own childhood.
My parents divorced when I was eight. I mostly grew up with my mother. She worked far too hard and was constantly stressed. She was a bit of a control freak. At the slightest thing she would lose her temper and start shouting. 

Weekday mornings were never calm.
They always began around half past five. In every room, the lights would go on. Bright artificial light—I still can’t stand it to this day. Radios were placed throughout the apartment, all tuned to the same station, blasting far too loudly.

Through that harsh light and the noise of those radios, my mother would make her way through the morning in a state of constant tension and urgency.
And I would go to school almost every day with a knot in my stomach. Not only because I didn’t like school, but mainly because of the unrest and tension that had already been driven through my system before the day had even properly begun.
Every morning felt like a struggle I had to get through.

Once, I must have been a teenager by then, I had to stay with my uncle and aunt. I don’t remember the reason, but it doesn’t really matter here. Things at their house were very different. My uncle and aunt were rather indifferent, didn’t pay much attention to me, and I found that strangely comforting.

The next morning I had set my alarm in time, but not as absurdly early as my mother usually did it. I made something to eat, packed my bag, and walked to the tram stop. The early spring sunlight was soft and promising. On the tram, I looked out of the window at the city slowly waking up. It turned into a pleasant day. Very different from usual.

I shared this with Albert to make a simple point: The same event can lead to completely different lived experiences.

What I wanted to say to Albert was that he shouldn’t be too quick to conclude that someone is simply “a negative person”.  I shared a few more anecdotes from my childhood to make the same point.

“Wow”, Albert said,

“but you don’t come across as bitter at all.”

I took that as a compliment. Because when I was a teenager—and for a long time after that—it used to hurt a bit when people told me I was “negative”, whenever I spoke about something I had found difficult.
Now I hardly ever talk about those things anymore (except here on the blog), because I already know what kind of reactions to expect.

But sometimes I still say it before I even realize it. And when someone says:

“You’re so negative”,

I now just reply,

“Do you really think so?”

And I think to myself: What a limited way of looking at things.

Have you ever experienced someone putting a judgement on you without knowing anything about the context you were in?

Feel free to share—I'd be very interested in hearing your experiences.
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