Do Relentlessly Positive People Annoy You?

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I don't like listening to mindlessly positive people telling me that we are all a-ok and useless krap like that. I like listening to people who can analyze problems and suggest possible solutions. When I say I suck, I mean that I suck, and I don't want anyone telling me how great I am. I would rather they give me some practical something about how to stop sucking at whatever I say and mean that I suck at. Otherwise, I wouldn't have said anything to anyone, because it's not in my nature to share my suckage with people for emotional support that I don't perceive.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOv-7ZoMc7A[/youtube]

Pink one is right!

Relentlessly Positive People make me feel a little uneasy, but I can't say that I dislike them. They're kind of cute in a way -- yes, that is a condescending remark, but I mean no malice.

My problem with them is that I feel like they are not fully and honestly analyzing a situation which may actually be quite poopy. I find this to be an astonishing and confusing condition to observe, but it doesn't really offend me. I'm happy that they're happy, even if I suspect that they are fooling themselves.

People have different ways of coping with difficult situations and I respect that. I'm sure people think that my coping mechanisms are completely silly -- even clinically silly, as the case may be. Oh well. People are strange and sometimes amusing -- it's just a fact of life that I've learned to accept.

My mother is no Pollyanna, but she is very no-nonsense and optimistic. I am the polar opposite and I sometimes wonder how I can possibly have half of her genes. I am a total pessimist who has trouble seeing good in nearly anyone or anything. That's because like all pessimists I see the world for what it is. A dangerous, scary place where there are millions of things and people just waiting to kill you, or make you wish you were dead. I sometimes wish I didn't have such a dark outlook on life but all you have to do is turn on the news, read stuff online and sometimes just look out your window. Today while food shopping I happened to see a magazine and on the front cover it said why young people who are intelligent, talented, well-behaved, and do well in school have no future. ...Well, since you're always hearing what terrors kids are maybe they have no future 'cause youngsters like that no longer exist! When people try to cheer me up I tell them, "you can't change the world for the better so you can't change the way I feel". My parents are all I really have, and once they are gone, possibly they will be taken away from me by a deadly flu or terrorists on their next plane trip... I will be alone. ALONE. Then I'll be thrown into some terrible home for the mentally ill because I'll no longer be able to financially and emotionally look after myself...

In my teens, I would have absolutely agreed with OP...the excessive positivity grated my nerves like fingernails on a blackboard. However, as I've gotten older, I've grown more and more fond of people like this. I not only respect their outlook and optimism, but envy how satisfying it must be to wear your personality on your sleeve (make no attempt to hide or alter it for anyone else's benefit) and be, mostly, accepted for it. If I were to be as candid with my opinions, personality traits and quirks, I'd have had a substantially worse childhood. I also like having a friend who's generally very positive; their mood is infectious and being the generally negative person that I am, I enjoy the motivation they instill in me. Now, there are times when I'm in no mood for that sort of bubbly philosophy, but it's easy enough to simply avoid them.

You may be surprised at how many positive people have gone through adversity.

I heard a story about this one high school kid, a friend of a mentor, who had just started grade 9. He always had a smile on his face. Then my mentor got to know this peer who was in his class. He found out that the boy lived in a poor neighbourhood. His mom had battled depression and was under suicide watch by her family. She had recently killed herself. Yet the boy wasn't feeling sorry for himself. Instead, he continued on with his life and eventually achieved his dreams.

It's kind of just depends on how people look at things. If you get to know someone like me, I have had a hard life but that helps me to put things in perspective. Not much that I go through in my daily life is as bad as what I had went through so I tend to look on the bright side. I would get depressed again if I thought about how much worse off I am than a majority of people. So I can't afford to dislike my life and situation all the time. Sure, I have bad days and I'm not perfect. But I do not agree that people with a positive attitude would make bad friends if someone is going through a hard time.

I love those kind of people, they show depression who's boss, and don't get sad/mad about small things.

I have mixed feelings about them, but I guess mostly negative feelings. I feel uncomfortable around such people.

I respect them for what they are, optimists at their best, really, but I can't stand it if it "feels fake", which is often the case.
It's as if those people never have made bad experiences, so one part of me is jealous because of that assumption and because I can't have this attitude, but then again, I love to be realistic rather than acting as if I was on a drug that adds flowers, puppies, kittens, rainbows and more cute and pretty things to literally everything creating some fake everything-is-alright-world/utopia.
The world is not perfect and it will never be perfect, acting as if (personal) problems never happened and ignoring them isn't of any help (for me).

Suppressing my real feelings towards something feels unhealthy (and most likely is). If I try being overly optimistic, I feel as if my inner self is being teared apart. I feel physically bad actually and when I see people acting that way, I have a weak form of this feeling too.

Such people can be annoying, if they force you to think the way they do. Let me be myself, if they don't like the way I am, they're not forced to spend time with me. I've been acting different (trying to be normal) for so many years, I'm tired of doing that again to this extent.

And then there is the advice problem. When you ask such a person for advice, you will most likely get an answer like "that will soon be over, life is too beautiful, take a look at the pretty sides of life, like *lists things*". Yes, I'm aware of that, but that is not my focus at that moment, I asked for advice and for help and moving the problem aside and focusing on something else doesn't solve it at all, I need concrete ideas and solutions!
Let's say if I had a financial problem, would it help if I would just downplay it and focus on the good things in life? From my point of view their attitude seems to downplay problems and the negative things in life or simply ignore them, but I like to solve them to get rid of them instead of acting as if they were no big deal or as if they don't exist.

I don't have anything against the fact that they are who they are, I let them be who they are and I wish that they would let me be who I am as well and won't try to change me "for the better", but they should not be surprised if I just leave if it's too much for me to take. I can endure that but I have my limits. Often I have this thought "It could be worse" myself (because this is true, it could be worse, but thanks goodness it isn't), but I won't force myself to smile 24/7 and ignore any issues or just act as if they were less of a problem than they are. I'm much rather aware that they exist than live in an imaginary, utopic world.

I definitely find it annoying when someone tries to push advice or say that others are "doing life wrong" in some way. I know a lot of things work for me that I think may be helpful to others, but I feel no need to push them on others because of that.

I also tend to think that if something isn't broken, there's no reason to try to fix it. I have seen no compelling argument that this forum is actually broken, just not to someone's taste, along with an attempt to generalize to many others.