Negative Views About Life Can Be Positively Repelling

A friend of mine always looks on the bright side. After hearing about a hunter who shot his mother after mistaking her for a deer, my friend said, “At least she wasn’t mistaken for a moose or a cow.”

It’s unknown whether that particular spin would have consoled the hunter’s mother as they kept pumping IVs into her bloodstream, but as long as it helped my friend cope. . . .

Clearly, the world is made up of one group of people that always tries to put a happy face on things and another whose instincts run toward, shall we say, the darker side. My only question is why people from these opposing camps always wind up married to each other.

The two groups are hopelessly mismatched, and each seems equally irritating to the other.

Friends who have known me for years say I’m negative. That is so ridiculous I’m not even going to comment on it and, more to the point, who cares what those dopes think, anyway? OK, so I did want to form a choral group called “Down With People,” but I never did, so what’s the big deal?

But let me speak in general terms. The problem with perennially upbeat people is that they can’t distinguish shadings of personality. To them, anyone who isn’t whistling round-the-clock is morbid and a hopeless downer. They don’t understand that you can be a happy person while still assuming that you’ll miss every traffic light on any given trip across town.

For instance, my epitaph may well read: “While generally happy, he was annoyed much of the time.”

I don’t see any inconsistency in that, but try convincing the Little Miss Sunshines and John-Boy Waltons of the world.

What I’ve learned is that the difference between the two groups isn’t just in outlook; it’s also in behavior. Upbeat types are classic proselytizers, always wanting to impose their cheeriness on those less gifted with joy.

On the other hand, downer people don’t seem to have any particular desire to make other people mopey. They just want to be allowed to grouse when the need strikes.

That’s why happy types can be heard saying, “Why can’t you be more positive?”

You never hear a downbeat person saying, “Why can’t you be more negative?”

You can’t fault the happy people from wanting to spread joy. Somewhere, they learned perpetual joy should be the goal of us all. It would come as a complete shock to them, I think, to understand how irritating it is to be told, “Don’t worry, things will be all right,” after you’ve just rammed the car into the side of the garage.

The blind spot negative people seem to have, however, is in how their darkness affects the more upbeat crowd. They don’t understand why it kills the mood on an otherwise idyllic drive through the mountains to suddenly pipe up with, “Climbing this hill, I hope we don’t blow a head gasket.”

To the extent that I could even remotely be called negative, my dad was probably my inspiration.

He was one of those guys who could see trouble brewing far in advance of people with normal sensory or intuitive powers. It saddened me that he never got credit for coining such popular phrases as, “The line will probably be a mile long by the time we get there” and “We’ll be lucky if we ever get anybody to wait on us.”

Some of that must have brushed off.

Here’s what I mean: Some months back, I went to the theater with a happy person. I had ordered the tickets by phone, so they were supposed to be at the Will Call window the night we attended. As we approached the theater, I offhandedly said to my companion, “How much you want to bet the tickets won’t be there?”

That sent her into a mild tizzy on what had been an otherwise lovely evening in Beverly Hills, culminating in her delivering a telling blow to my arm and chastising me for “being so negative.”

Her reaction made me mad, because I considered the remark nothing more than idle chatter and certainly not worthy of bruising me.

But I’m all for self-improvement and, later on, I realized there was no reason to say what I said. I suppose it could have been construed as a dampening remark, although to me it was merely disaster preparedness for a wholly possible situation. It wasn’t like saying, “Gee, look at that wrecking ball attached to that crane across the street. I wonder if it’ll come loose and fly over here and crush us.”

But, so as not to be confused in the future with being a downer, I’m trying to bite my tongue in situations like that.

Besides, wouldn’t you know it--the tickets were there, after all.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.