What are the 7 signs of a negative person and how do you deal with that person?
Have you ever met someone who, after spending time with you, seems to suck out all goodwill and positivity from you? Within a short period, you feel tired and drained from holding a simple conversation.
Many can relate to this because certain people in life can’t help but bring us down, whether it is your overly critical friend, your pessimistic neighbor, your hostile and cynical boss, or your fault for funding Er, it is endless.
You feel constantly drained and anxious around these people, and you’ve often wondered what it is about them that wears you out consistently. You have thought hard and long but can’t seem to pinpoint the driving force behind their actions.
Well, they just might have a huge or tiny amount of negative energy, and such a person is called a negative person.
Negative people are all around you and can even include you What negative people manifest in their actions and emotions are the negative thoughts trapped within their minds.
Minds can subtly or openly influence the way you think, feel, act or react.
They can cause unnecessary stress and build chaos in your life that will bring you down.
These negative emotions that people emit can be of any kind, ranging from fear, anxiety, sadness, and discomfort to hatred, jealousy, anger or resentment.
When these negative feelings reside in a person’s mind, they take time to build up, accumulating other negativities around them, and then explode into something worse, which in turn can take a huge toll on your health, creating feelings that are harder to deal with and leaving you exhausted both physically and mentally.
Different circumstances may lead to a person becoming negative; most negative people have passed through certain difficulties in life that translated into traumatic experiences for them; others grew up in an environment where nothing but bad vibes were carried around; while a few others seemed to bend towards the negative side on their own because of certain characteristics like jealousy or low self-esteem.
If you’ve ever gone through a phase in your life where you feel constantly drained from experiencing negativity, then you’ve certainly been around a negative person.
You can be exposed to them without being aware, and these people are either open, (that is, they are aware of their negativity and hope to influence others as much as possible), or they are not aware and don’t even know they are sucking the positivity from another person.
Either way, it is important to be able to identify the different 7 signs of a negative person so that, whether they come subtly or you aren’t even aware of them, you can protect your emotions and control your actions around such people.
Since negative energy is easy to feel but not easy to spot, there are 7 signs of a negative person that would help you identify them.
In this article, we will reveal 7 signs of a negative person to watch out for and help you understand why a certain person wants to bring you down.
7 Signs of a Negative Person
1: They are selfish and lack empathy
One of the 7 signs of a negative person is that they lack empathy. They love sympathy but are not sympathetic. They always expect other people to be on their beck and call but they are rarely available for others.
They always expect support but would not give one in return. They crave attention and love channeling it towards themselves, they then get angry when someone seems to steal much attention from them.
For instance, you might have confided in a friend about a certain hardship you are going through and instead of your friend sympathising with you or joining you to brainstorm a solution to your problem, they come up with their problem just to shift the focus from you to themselves, they simply cannot fathom you having any issues since they’re of the idea that your sole focus should be on them.
If you try to call their attention to their actions, they guilt trip you and accuse you of not being sensitive to their needs and complaints.
They turn the table 360 back on you and if you are not careful, you begin to feel bad about yourself. That’s what a negative person can do to you.
2: They are curious about other people but secretive about themselves
A negative person is a busybody in other people’s matters. They are so curious about people’s lives and happily indulge in talking about them.
They enjoy putting people down, and gossiping about any little happening in other people’s lives.
Sadly, they are not interested in these people nor do they have any intention of helping them, they tend to enjoy the stories of other people’s misfortune, and they have low self-esteem so they rejoice when other people’s plans do not work out.
They won’t tell you anything about their lives but want to know as much of yours so that they can judge you and gossip about you.
3: They are pessimistic and complain constantly
Negative people would always have a pessimistic point of view and enjoy complaining about things they have no control over.
They think negative thoughts and see wrong in almost everything so much that they can’t even contribute meaningfully to a suggestion or conversation.
Whenever someone comes up with an opinion, a negative person would be the first to openly complain about the lack of creativity in the opinions but would not be able to bring up any counter-opinion that would benefit others.
They are so quick to figure out what would go wrong with a plan and finally dissuade people from putting their best foot forward.
4: They can’t handle criticism
If someone is always getting angry and defensive when criticized, the person is negative. This is not even about malicious criticism but constructive criticism.
Negative people are usually very sensitive to words people throw at them and care so much about how other people perceive them to be, so they get very defensive when criticized openly, they won’t accept their fault because they are afraid of being at fault so they try to convince themselves otherwise and relay the blame.
They feel attacked when offered advice on how to get things going and because their negativity prevents them from seeing the big picture, they may gloat over your words and it will gradually turn into a grudge against you.
5: They find faults in everything and look for flaws in everyone.
Negative people are quick to find faults in people and situations.
They are very difficult to please because they purposely set high expectations that cannot be met and complain bitterly when it is not met just so they will have something to complain about.
This attitude gradually grows into disappointment and then resentment for people who do not seem to listen or walk the path they pave.
They get angry when someone decides to put themselves first.
For instance, you made it late to their party and they wouldn’t let you hear the end of it. They are ready to badmouth you for months on end even after you have apologized. They rarely let go of grudges.
They are negative to the extent that even if you manage to meet all their expectations, they would still invent something to make you feel like you didn’t do enough.
Another instance, you passed your exams with flying colors yet a negative person would rub it in that someone scored a 100 on the test whereas you scored 99 and try to make you feel bad about losing a mark.
6: They avoid risks
Because negative people look for faults in everything, they can’t seem to take risks. They are filled with low self-esteem and riddled with self-doubt.
Only a few who can get past their issues would be open to risk-taking because they trust themselves to scale through.
Being a risk taker is not about impulsiveness; if not, a negative person would be the chief since they are quick to act on impulse.
Rather, taking risks involves being calculative and one can effectively do so without the issue of negative thoughts being a burden. When you have no ulterior motives towards someone else your mind is clear enough to do your calculations.
This can’t be the case for a negative person, since they are so afraid of losing something, venturing into one would be a huge task for them, they would prefer to sit on the sidelines watching the outcomes of other people’s risk rather than taking theirs.
Their story is one of “nothing ventured, nothing gained”.
If they get forced to take a risk, they look for every possible way to avoid it and easily come up with an excuse of, “If I wanted to, I would have done it.”
7: They get easily disappointed
As the saying, “misery loves company” goes, so a negative person is not satisfied with being the only negative person around so they tend to diminish the joy of others to recruit them into their negativity.
They can drain your excitement and wonder what is good about your good news. This can lead you to question your happiness and positive vibes and wonder if anything is good with you.
Negative people get disappointed in people when they do contrary to what they were expecting because they do not have the chance to be part of such a person’s life the way they want.
Negativity is a disease, a communicable one that spreads so fast to anyone who comes in contact. Negative persons do not have joy for themselves so they tend to pass that around to others and while most negative people may not even know they spread such energy, it is safe to protect yourself from imbibing such nature.
