DoubleX staffers try to define complaining.

As Hanna said in our initial entry about our monthlong noncomplaining project, our first task as less-obnoxious individuals is to define complaining in a way we can live with—which is to say, cutting out the complaints that are generally unhelpful without becoming Stepford Wives.

The early result of this quest for delineation between necessary and unnecessary complaint is that I spend much more time thinking before I speak. This is not really a bad thing, mostly because I am a somewhat verbally impulsive person, prone to snap judgments and foul-mouthed hyperbole (e.g., Lisa’s husband is a total dork; Gwyneth Paltrow deserves a cooter punch).

In the office, this more measured approach to self-expression means I talk less than usual, which doesn’t really alter much because the Slate offices are near silent most of the time, with the whirring of the air conditioner the only perceptible noise. I didn’t have time to write anything on Monday, the first day of the no-whine regime, so it’s not clear yet if the noncomplaining project has changed the way I blog. I didn’t have to decide whether a rant about Levi Johnston’s soon-to-be-exposed wang is a worthwhile sort of whine. Considering that this is what I do for a living, I don’t think this particular issue will be worked out in a month.

But that evening, I had dinner with a close friend I hadn’t seen for a few weeks. Our mode of connection is equal parts kvetch and spite: She tells me loony stories about her reality-TV obsessed boss and her possibly racist roommate; I complain to her about a mutual frenemy and launch into a tedious recount of the amount of work I have. On this night, we couldn’t help but fall into our usual patterns, and yet I felt buoyed by the time we spend together.

Which brings me to my first major definition of complaint: It is not a whine if it makes me feel better and is not annoying the people around me. Had I been mum on my problems that evening, I’m sure my friend would have found me entirely unrelatable and dirt boring. What’s more, she is an excellent advice-giver, so I would have not benefited from her clear-eyed problem-solving skills if I had kept our conversation focused on happy trifles. I’d like to think that she appreciates my advice as well, so we both would have been less enriched by that interaction.

After my friend left, my fiancé came home from dinner with one of his buddies. He informed me that we were having dinner with his grandmother the next day on the Upper East Side, an hour-plus subway ride away from our apartment. "Oh, really?" I said, trying to sound as neutral as possible. He chided me for not being more enthusiastic. "But I’m looking forward to it!" I explained—I was just not psyched about going that far. "Like you’re super-thrilled when we have to schlep to Westchester to see my Oma?" He had to concede that he was not. But that brings me to the second canon of noncomplaint: tone. My "Oh, really?" had the nasal up-speak of a kvetch, so even though I was completely excited to hang with my future G-I-L, it was received as a whine.

Later in the week, I was walking from the subway to the office, looking at the 20 e-mails that had accumulated while I was underground. This is about twice the usual pile-up, and I scrolled through and walked along Carmine Street, my brow furrowing more and more deeply with each step. It was a collection of requests, problems, and things to add to my already voluminous to-do list.

Normally when I get into the office after that kind of atypical barrage, I brightly declare to my always-understanding DoubleX pod-mates Noreen and Sam before I’ve even taken my coat off: "Everything is annoying me today!" But since I’ve taken my noncomplaint vow seriously, I simply say hello and sit down to begin to whittle down my list of tasks. This is the third revelation: If there’s something I know is immutable, best just to do it—and figure out who can help you to do it, if necessary—without a lot of whinging.

Tags: Happiness, kvetching, noncomplaining

Jessica Grose and Hanna Rosin are the managing and founding editors of Double X, respectively. Click here to follow Jessica on Twitter and here to follow Hanna. To follow the non-complaining project on Facebook, click here.

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The Whiner's Guide to Not Complaining

Two DoubleX staffers attempt to cut down on kvetching.

Jessica Grose and Hanna Rosin
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October 19, 2009

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How feminism has failed.

Christine Rosen
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May 11, 2009

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It's not because we have too many choices.

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October 1, 2009

Life

The Noncomplaining Project: How Do You Define a Whine?