I’m trying to get over a temporary slump, and my complaining friends aren’t helping. What should I do? 

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz

Dear Hera,

I’m in a bit of a slump; I like to call it “the gloom”. Possibly due to winter, the state of the world, family issues – probably all of the above. I know what I need to do to shake it off, the usual things: exercise, eat well, spend time in nature and socialise.

It’s the last one I am struggling with, because when I feel like this, I find some of my closest female friends exhausting. A couple in particular are over-sharers. It’s great fun when I’m feeling well and happy and we have the best laughs. 

But at the moment, if we go out, I feel so overwhelmed by the onslaught of all their feelings. Nothing is off limits: their sex lives, their partners’ annoying habits, their friends’ annoying habits, how someone didn’t get back to them when they said they would, a difficult family member making life difficult.  I get these are all normal subject matters for friends, but right now I dread it. I feel like I am standing in emotional sideways southerly rain.

I admit, I have always been the one that friends have come to for advice or called in a crisis. I think perhaps this is because, shock horror, I also had a mother who was a complete over-sharer who constantly talked about all her problems. 

I do want to go out and chat with people, but I desperately want to talk about external things like great articles or podcasts or the psychology of procrastination; anything interesting really. But if I steer the conversation that way, it inevitably ends up going back to everyone’s FEELINGS.

I do love my friends, I am just not sure they are the answer to helping me get out of my low patch.

Would love your thoughts! 

Reluctant Recluse

Dear RR,

You say “oversharing”, but I can’t help but notice that what you’re actually describing is complaining. Maybe this is a polite way of phrasing your problem, but it seems like the relentless negativity is the real issue here. 

Some people, when they find themselves at a low ebb, love nothing more than a good old-fashioned bitch and moan. Sitting around a table and complaining, whether you’re at an upmarket wine bar or playing chess in the park, is a time-honoured way of blowing off steam, and is the default relaxation for many people. 

But complaining doesn’t work for you. You want to be distracted and uplifted. You want to talk about the lifecycle of the scalloped hammerhead shark, not your friend’s husband’s inability to hang his towels. 

Is it possible to change the conversation? It all depends on whether your friends are normal people who are prone to indulge in a little cathartic moaning from time to time and have no idea it’s bumming you out, or whether, for psychodynamically obscure reasons, you’ve accidentally sought out a particular archetype of person who is unable to hold a normal conversation that doesn’t always come back to the moral and spiritual stupidity of their friends and peers. 

These people are rare, but they exist, and their existence is relevant to my advice, because any attempt to whimsically redirect their negativity by taking them to a local guinea pig competition or bringing up the latest documentary about Morris dancing in prisons is not going to be strong enough to overcome their natural inclination to find something depressing and horrible to say about every situation. If you have unwittingly assembled a squad of haters or people who view you as their freelance therapist, these are probably not the kind of people you can trust to help you through your low patch, and you may need to find a few emergency friends. 

However, you say these friends are good for a laugh when you’re in high spirits, so this could just be a problem of routine. If every time you hang out you’re following the same pattern – going somewhere for a pint and a chat about the festering cesshole of your jobs/marriages/families – it’s hard to snap out of this dynamic organically. You’re either going to need to have an honest conversation or shock them out of their complacency by switching up your routine. 

A drink at a bar or a morning coffee is an invitation to gossip. But it’s much harder to offload about your personal issues if you’re at a trivia night, singing karaoke, playing a six-hour game of Risk or going to the cinema. If you just want to be around people, there are plenty of ways to socialise which don’t require a ton of conversation. You said that nature, exercise and company makes you feel better when you’re down, so why not try and combine some of these things? Do you have any friends who would be happy to accompany you on a trip to a waterfall? It’s hard to talk shit when you’re climbing a steep mountain, visiting a bird sanctuary or walking around a bustling cheese festival. 

If you want conversation, you could be more intentional, and invite a few people around for a book/movie/article club. If you impose a structure on the evening beforehand, it will be harder for people to deviate from the program. You could have a PowerPoint dinner party and force everyone to give a short presentation on a topic of their choice, whether it’s numismatics or Dragon Ball Z. If that’s a little too NPR for your tastes, no sweat. But I would try anything that would shock people out of their usual conversational habits. Sometimes even changing the size of the group and how familiar people are with one another can instantly change the tenor of the conversation. If you usually hang out one-on-one, you could try introducing two friends who don’t know each other. 

If this isn’t enough, and all your creative workarounds aren’t yielding results, it might be worth doing a little oversharing of your own. 

The good news about oversharers is that you can say almost anything to them without judgement.  You don’t even need to complain about their complaining. Simply confess that you’re feeling really down, and it would cheer you up enormously if you could go out and do something, anything, as long as it has nothing to do with anyone’s feelings. If you frame your problem as a rut you need help getting out of, rather than an interrogation of your friendship dynamic, I think it will yield better results. 

I think your friends would be happy to rise to the challenge if they know there’s a challenge to be risen to. Otherwise, all your valiant attempts to change the subject to Danyon Loader’s webbed feet may be too subtle for them to grasp. 

If your friends have a good sense of humour, you can afford to be even blunter, and institute a strict no-complaining zone where someone has to take a shot or forfeit every time they accidentally whinge about something. 

It’s hard to change traditions. But I think a change in routine, followed by a humble plea for mercy, might be a good start. And if your friends can’t shut up about their problems for two to four hours, maybe it’s time to get a little more intentional about your choice of friends, and join the local fishing club instead. 

Best of luck!