CHEERS

That's always sound advice. But how come it always seems to come from somebody who doesn't have a reason to need to be cheered up?

It generally seems to be some clown sitting there having a good day while you stuck with your head up your butt. Oh yeah, don't you just love with that happens?

No, I don't like it either. Encouraging is not the word I would use to describe how such people make me feel. That kind of encouragement is to me more like a person boasting.

Very subtly what they are implying is that if you weren't such a dufus you wouldn't have that problem. Only they are smiling and claiming they are just trying to make you feel better.

Personally, I never feel better after they do that personally. I always end up feeling mad. Of course I have my own ideas on how to deal with such forms of cheering up.

And the good news some of them are most of the time legal. Well, as far as I know they are generally regarded as legal.

But in order to avoid the possibility of saying something I might get into trouble for, I think I will just mention that the prime goal in such situations is to end up being cheered up. Now in the accomplishment of that goal if you happen to have to make the other person feel like crap, that is a good thing. I just regard that as a perk.

The simplest way to achieve this from my point of view is to be sure I divert attention from my misery by recalling some time when that person was totally humiliated and miserable. Oh yeah, how sweet it is!

It can be tricky though if you don't happen to know of some situation where the person blew it big time. Then you sort of need to probe around with some small talk tell you get them comfortable enough to spill their guts.

Which I generally start by getting the person to talk about themselves. Most people think you are asking because you care or are genuinely interested.

I just use it as a means to catch them off guard and get some information about them. Then once they have confessed the moment I just pushed the conversation farther along that road.

Before you know it, the smile has left their face and they look miserable. Oh it is to savor as a precious moment.

After that I get to take my turn at cheering them up. If I work it right, they left and want to go crawl in some hole and I get to sit and feel so darn cheered up. Ah, those are the moments to cherish the most.