A Frown Turned Upside Down

I have a problem with negativity. Really, I do. I've always had it. I can't remember a time when I wasn't pissed off about something. Nope. I can't. There are people that say that our dispositions are evident in the womb. That is, we are born who we are. And there's always somebody's mother blathering on about how such and such was fidgity in the womb, and went on to be a fidgity kid who grew up to be a fidgity adult. "He was always like that" she says, shaking her head. Our personalities are as fixed as the stars in the sky. Unfortunately, some of us have what might be called "problem" personalities. We're the ones who are sure fire to bring down anyone's good time. The Eeyores and Oscar the Grouches who seem to get off pissing all over everybody's parade. The honest fact of the matter is that we do. Or at least I do. Sometimes, you're lucky enough to find another group of misanthropes who share your disdain for all things happy. In high school, I was lucky enough to find a couple of kids who shared my pessimistic outlook. Back in high school, I was partial to the "gothic" lifestyle. The funny (Iguess slightly ironic) thing is, is that there are plenty of self-professed goths who are, when the world is not looking, fairly upbeat and optimistic people. And this is exactly the situation that I found myself in. I had hooked up with happy-go-lucky goths. My worst nightmare. I was too dour for the downtrodden. All these years later, I find that I haven't lightened up a single bit. I'm just as bitter as ever. Perhaps even more so. (the past eight years of the Bush administration really put me in a foul mood). I'm so negative, that I've caused more than a few of the people that I know to say that i should stop being so negative. I've tried. I really did. I tried to do that "the Secret" crap, where you put out positive thoughts to attract positivity to you. Well, it didn't work. I tried to be positive. Does anyone out there know how hard that truly is -- being positive? I guess that experts on happiness (although I believe that being negative does not exclude one from being happy) will tell me that I didn't work hard enough at changing myself. They'll tell me that I was trying to take the shortcut, and that I wasn't being positive so much as I was wishful thinking. Either way, failing to attract the positivity that I deserve in the ling run, gave me one more thing to be negative about. This attitude is quite detrimental to long-lasting relationships. I had thought that I was doomed. No one, it seems, likes a perpetual grouch. I thought that i would spend the rest of my life faking optimism for everyone else while secretly harboring my little, black stormclouds. That is, until I realized that my problem wasn't that I'm a negative person. My problem was that I was trying to not be a negative person. My efforts to throw off my cloak of despair had led my to a place where I shouldn't have gone in the first place. I was trying to be so pleasant for everyone, that I wasn't being who I was. the reason why I was repelling people wasn't because I was a grouch, it was because I was a faker. I wasn't a genuine person to anyone, least of all I wasn't being genuine with myself. That was my problem. So, I've embraced my inner crabby person, and agreed with myself that, no matter what, i will not give over who I am to entertain the needs of other people. If other folks can't handle a little bad mood, then so be it. We'll part on good terms. I think that's what I'm going to do. At least until I meet some incredibly hot and painfully optimistic guy. In that case, I will immediately throw out everything about being an incurable pessimist and begin sunning it up immediately. After all, I'm only a girl.