DoubleX staffers try to define complaining.

A woman practicing the art of noncomplaint.

Photograph by Digital Vision/Getty Images.

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.

Comments

Half full, half empty

By: pmayes | Sun, 11/01/2009 - 19:35

I've been thinking about this since meeting with a friend and listening to his complaints about jet lag, local politics, work etc. Everyone knows the half full, half empty metaphor, but cliched though it is, I find it very useful. If you habitually look at the empty half, then you can never be satisfied, because the glass can never be completely filled; there is always room for one more need, one more chocolate, one more affair. Conversely, if you habitually look at the full half, it can never be emptied; there is always a moment of delight, an anticipation, an unexpected benefit.

The point is that our world consists of what we pay attention to; by changing our focus, we can change our experience of reality. This might be called Pollyannaish, but so what? As long as it does not lead to ignoring problems, it can only be a benefit.

quest for the middle way

By: artemis | Wed, 10/28/2009 - 13:44

It is all a quest for the middle way, is it not? My French friend is driven crazy living in the midst of Minnesota nice, where everyone is "doing great" and the norm is not to complain. However, I tend to find the Minnesota can-do spirit refreshing after my Jewish upbring in the Northeast (full of Italians and Jews who used the word "aggravation".) But, like my French Friend I do seek kindred spirits in Minnesota who can tell it like it is--though I shy away from people who are too whiny & negative (though both Jess and Hanna sound like a blast). There is something realistic to admit that we have personalities that have been serving us for the past 20 or 30 or 40 years. But, can be break our attachment to the parts of ourselves that aren't working?

One more clue I have found in Hanna & Jess's posts: Toxic complaining seems to occur in the home and workplace--in situations of stress--whereas good, bonding complaining seems to occur in situations of fun, lunch with friends (complaining as "performance art"). This is true for me, I realize. I think there is an important difference in tone between the former and the latter.

It's the Inner Whine that Counts

By: KJ Dell Antonia | Tue, 10/27/2009 - 21:43

Unlike you two, I spend most of my day effectively in my head. I communicate with colleagues, editors and bosses via email, a medium that lends itself to the one-liner but not the extended kvetch, and I live in a non-urban community where the usual bitch-and-moan-style communication I'm used to isn't really the norm--maybe because, in this small town, the person sitting behind you in the coffee shop almost certainly knows the annoying woman who runs the school citrus sale.

Which is to say, I'm surprised by how little I actually complain...out loud. To my husband? Some. To two old girlfriends back in the city last week? Plenty--as you said, that's cathartic. But in general, I--as a working mother surrounded by non-working mothers, a person with reasonably fine kids all set in their fine schools and a husband with a (so far) steady job, I keep my gripes to myself--literally, in a constant stream of internal negativity, and that's what I noticed in our first week. I whine constantly to myself.

I read this piece in the WSJ today about people having trouble returning to work because they'd enjoyed their unemployed time today, and I realized--I have trouble enjoying either my work or my family and play time, because I'm constantly grousing in my head about everything else I should be doing. My whining is so noisy it drowns out everything else. So before I pat myself on the back about how little I complain to everybody else, I absolutely need to find a way to get me to stop complaining to me.

And while grabbing that link from the Journal, I found that they've joined us: John Edwards of The Juggle says he doesn't have much to complain about, what with his amazing and talented colleagues and wonderful family and all (oh, he protests, he does), but his commenters seem conflicted--and no wonder; who's going to admit that they have a complaining problem in the wake of someone without one--but at least we've got them talking.

could this column be defined as one long whine?

By: Traveler58 | Tue, 10/27/2009 - 13:52

I admire you for taking on this project.

But perhaps you are sabotaging yourselves in various ways. You've said you won't whine, isn't that enough? But what you keep writing about in today's essay is some presumption that you're not even allowed to FEEL anything negative.

Please, please, feel all the negative things you like. But find different ways of sharing those feelings, if indeed they need to be shared at all.

You're not talking about doing it this way for the rest of your lives, right? You're not saying that repressing feeling everywhere forever is good, right? So why not actually try what you proposed for a month, instead of trying to redefine complaining, instead of trying to litigate your way out of it?

There's a difference between not whining and being happy all the damn time. If I were compiling the reading list for you, it would consist of the Amish tune "Simple Gifts" -- "To turn, turn, will be our delight, till by turning, turning, we come out right." Or look at the Tao, especially the feminist translation by Stephen Mitchell. Finding some grace and/or graciousness in your life is not the same as your overwhelming fear that you will turn into mindless Stepford Wives who've slept with hangers in their mouths.

You are writers, which means you are overtrained in finding fault, because you self-edit every other minute. That's a great skill for your work, but it's gotten out of control in your life or you wouldn't be taking on this experiment. But again, I think it's not about HAPPINESS, it's about accepting what you can, and just taking a different path without complaint for what you can't accept. Think of it as emotional judo.

Maybe one other book -- LEARNED OPTIMISM, by Seligman. His concept of "explanatory style" -- how you internally account for things that go wrong -- can put a lot of annoying things into a different perspective.

But, but, but, the sentences from one of you that really struck me were:

<< 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. >>

First, mannnn, if my eleven-year-old used the "if it makes me feel better" definition, anything would be okay! Could you be lowering the bar any further?

Second, are you the best judge of what's annoying people? Someone who's just written that Gwyneth Paltrow deserves a cooter punch may not have the skill set for divining what's annoying others. Arguably you don't get to define what others have the right to see as a complaint. Both of you seem to admit that you are surprised by how others react to you. Maybe laying off the whines will make you listen more.

And lastly, there's this worry that without complaints, you would be boring. Oh, noooooooo! Seriously, maybe that's part of what you should be discovering through this experiment! What would it be like to be boring a little more often? Is complaint the only reliable way to entertain? Can't go there??? Well, did you want to learn anything this month or not?

In my own life, I don't think I'm so snarky myself, either -- I think I'm pretty clever, and I make an outstanding living by being clever -- but then I hear my daughters speaking with my attitude, and I jump. Be as bold as your experiment and look at yourself through different eyes, instead of worrying about entertaining others or satisfying your old expectations of social exchange. Weeks from now, gripe all you want! But at the moment you're trying to learn different modes of behavior for a month; it's supposed to be hard, and you undermine your ambition by trying to cram your regular modes of behavior into the deal.

Again, I commend your bravery in taking on this experiment -- which is why it's so maddening to see you trying to weasel out of it.