Eeyore Quit Calling Me…

There is nothing less worthy of dedicating my morning commute to than bitching about first world problems. I must have the face of a therapist because I seem to attract people with problems. Which isn’t usually an issue until I get the happy sucked out of my morning commute by an Eeyore who calls me just to complain incessantly about some garbage that really isn’t that much of an issue.

You know the type: the world is ALWAYS against them, every inconvenience is another person’s purposeful attempt to keep them (in particular) from getting ahead…they suffer from an overabundance of sourpuss. Thank you so very much for choosing me to verbally vomit on first thing in the morning.

I know I have my off days, and I will even admit that on occasion there are things that really get to me. However, I am not like that all the time. I do wake up and look forward to my day. I have much to be thankful for, like my children, being back in college, my cozy apartment, my freedom from the tyranny of an abusive spouse… these are all good things.

This particular Eeyore has plenty to be happy about, from what I know about her life, but nope. She doesn’t see it, or she refuses to see it… I don’t know which. Either way it’s hella annoying and a total downer.

Moments like these make me regret ever opening up and befriending people. I started wondering if she ever has anything positive to say, so after the incident, I began a mental playback during the short walk from my truck to the classroom.

This is no hyperbole: I only had that amount of time because she talked for SO LONG that it ate up the entire drive from my apartment, through dropping my kids off at school (even putting her on hold to see them off), the entire drive to campus, circling the parking lot a few times for a spot, and up till the point where I turned off the motor. OMG!

My mental slideshow comprised of all the times we have spoken on the phone, studied together, and chatted either before or after class. I have only known this person since the beginning of the semester, so it wasn’t a very long movie in my mind, but it was consistent. She complains, and complains a lot.

Holy wow. That is a lot of grief for one person. And the crazy thing is, I often try to lighten the mood, joke around and change the subject sometimes to keep her from spiraling down the drain of woe, and my efforts usually get rebuffed. The only thing that terminates the train of unhappy thoughts is when I physically remove myself because I have another class, or I have to go home.

That’s sad! I want to help her find some happy, but I have met her type before. Why? Because I attract them like flies to a corpse. It’s my fate apparently. But I have also been burned before trying to save someone like her from their sinking ship, and the only thing that happened was that I sank right along with them until I had to finally bail when I finally realized the water was almost waist deep, and they weren’t making any moves to save themselves. Sad, but true.

Perhaps the reason why it seems like our conversations consist entirely of complaining about one thing or another is that we don’t actually have anything in common, and being negative is at least, something in common, even if it is depressing. It is very unlikely, given our respective focuses of study, that I will have another class with her next semester. If that is the case, perhaps this association will run it’s course and that will be that.

Conclusion is: I can’t help her. I just have to let her be.