How to Complain

almost everyday with slightly
dispiriting inevitability someone in our
vicinity will hurt us in some way it
could be a friend a colleague a child or
most likely a partner
they’ll be neglectful of something that
matters immensely to us they’ll be to a
greater or lesser extent unkind
thoughtless offensive or brusque we may
never have given much thought to
observing the way we characteristically
respond and yet our style of reacting to
maltreatment goes right to the heart of
who we are and can make the difference
between a life of constant frustration
and bitterness and one of tolerable
coexistence a crucial part of the art of
living seems to lie in knowing how to
complain constructively and sanely to
those who do us wrong there are broadly
three main ways in which one might
complain the first is lies here we
explode shout insult belittle and
attempt to crush our opponent what lies
players response is at heart panic and
agitation and a catastrophic feeling
hurt and betrayal the slights to our
dignity cuts a so deep unsettled us so
much we attempt a roar our way out of
humiliation our bark may be loud but it
comes from a place of extreme
vulnerability we’re living without a
psychological skin unfortunately of
course life fury is guaranteed to
prevent our complaint from ever being
heard in the face of our ranting those
who’ve offended us will themselves get
offended begin to resent refuse to
listen and accuse us of a raft of things
which entirely bury our original
complaint against them we achieve
nothing but there is a second option
called fury
here one says very little but hates very
deeply and quietly we don’t dare to
complain directly from a despair that
the other would ever understand fueled
with a feeling that we don’t deserve
ever to be listening to a primitive
self-hatred encases us in cynicism and
melancholy we become experts but
withdrawn we’ve probably been like this
from a young age the adults we grew up
around were probably too touchy busy
domineering or absent to give us much of
a hearing so we learn to swallow our
pain and while seething inside act with
brittle courtesy and failed aggression
against those hated characters who’ve
done us wrong then comes that far rarer
achievement mature complaint in order to
master such a feat we must work with a
background scent that we don’t
fundamentally deserve meanness and also
that it won’t on its own ever be able to
destroy us we are calm because we like
ourselves well enough a legacy of being
cared for by people who liked us and
refused to enjoy
punishment quietly or with masochistic
patience we have the confidence not to
be thrown into complete disarray by
insult we can seek restitution and tend
to do so fairly fast while the incidents
are still fresh in everyone’s mind but
with a measured strategic calm manner of
people secure in their right to have
their say we’re careful not to insult or
belittle our opponents we always simply
say how we feel rather than declaring
you’re vindictive and selfish for doing
X we say I feel hurt by the way you do X
we don’t give others easy excuses to get
insulted and block their ears in turn we
don’t want to make it that simple for
them nevertheless we don’t have
unlimited faith that people are always
going to understand and accept what we
try to tell them that we want to speak
out anyway because we know it’s not good
for us to swallow our complaints and we
don’t want alter we are the ones
realistic about the chances of dialogue
and determined to talk in any case we
deserve a huge amount of compassion for
our failure to know how to complain
wisely our inability is a secret into
our past and it doesn’t properly
troublesome dynamics that occurred long
ago but by sketching the ideal style of
complaining we can start to imagine what
we’re not natively capable of and to
fill in through reason or reflection or
we haven’t been able to achieve
are bringing we can take offers
stumbling steps on the car to the shore compliant