The Complainer or Kvetcher

Many conversations are an exchange of complaints or a one-way dosage. I kvetch, you kvetch, everyone’s happy to have been heard. Jobs, spouses, children, other family members, service organizations, neighbours, slights, rejections, love life, law suits, he said/she said, you name it, we can all find something to complain about. It’s the basis of many a talk show today. You know, the old “You think you got it bad; listen to this!” It sells TV shows, products, newspapers and keeps the internet alive.

In a conversational context, I believe listening to some complaints isn’t a bad thing so long as you can be helpful to the complainant, assuming that person wants help or advice. More frequently, however, the complainer doesn’t want resolution, or help or even pity. It’s simply become a habit to complain and often the speaker is unaware s/he has turned into a whiner. Or s/he's made it part of their conversational shtick. Such can always be counted on to depart a delicious tidbit – “Listen to this!” about the horrors of their life to which they present a “this can’t keep me down!” or relay it in a comical perspective. While this can be wonderfully entertaining, for – let’s face it – it can give the listener a sense of “Well, at least my life isn’t THAT bad!” it becomes a drag if it’s a persistent conversational pattern.

Some listeners live vicariously through the talker’s experience; others can be judgemental and wonder why the kvetcher doesn’t take positive steps to remedy their situation. So what to do? Lisa R. Van Wagner has a wonderful page on kvetching in which she relays parts of Barbara Held’s "Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching: A 5-Step Guide to Creative Complaining. Check it out: http://www.recoveryroadmap.com/Inspiration/Kvetching.html In the meantime, monitor your own conversations. Are you still re-hashing some old hurt, regurgitating some past slight? Are you addicted to the negative because of the attention it gains you? Has it – horrors! – become part of your personality? Is this how you want to be seen or known…as the whiner?

From the listener point of view, absorbing a whiner’s download can be, amongst many other things: fun, disturbing, entertaining or worrisome or boring. Just bear in mind, you don’t want to become too much of an enabler. Some relationships are built on I whine, you listen. Sometimes it’s worth asking yourself what you’re getting out of lending a kvetcher your ears. Who is listening to you?