Can you really survive with bitching?

We like to pretend otherwise, but how many of us can honestly say they haven’t bitched about colleagues, in-laws, self-centered friends and annoying relatives in the last week? If you’re a woman working in an office, having to be polite and professional to people who get on your nerves, is going to take its toll once you leave work and the bitching commences…

As women we generally tend to hold a grudge and not let people, especially other woman, know we have a problem with them, whereas men will tend to vent their issues with each other and forget all about it the next day. Plus when it comes to assertiveness, women are still subjected to the patriarchal double standard that if a man throws his weight about he’s usually seen as a tough alpha-male, but if a woman does it she’s a hysterical bitch. So we tend to bite our tongue and let the resentment simmer until we can vent our feelings to someone else.

Working in the media – a breeding ground for bitchiness – coupled with having been sent to an all-girls school, I’m ashamed to admit I do it more than I would like to. Most of the time I don’t like doing it, and as soon as I’ve said something about someone, I feel morally grubby afterwards, especially when I see them later on and put on a friendly face.

But then, you might argue that sometimes we need to vent, and if we can’t do it to the persons’ face without hurting their feelings or causing a bad atmosphere, then we may as well get it off our chest with someone else. But even few catty remarks can often leave you feeling drained and with negative feelings which just won’t go away.

I want to attempt seven days without bad-mouthing anyone, and being the same person behind closed doors as I am in the outside world. People who are like that deserve great respect and if I can strive to be one of them, if only for seven days, then that’s a good place to start!

Day One

My experiment was going well up until lunchtime, when I got a phone call from one of my friends, who’s not averse to a bit of bad-mouthing! She started to talk about our ex-boss, who is always a good bitching topic. The temptation to join in was strong, but I realised I couldn’t fall at the first hurdle. I cut in halfway through her tirade with, “Well at least we left on good terms, that’s the main thing.” After a slightly awkward pause, we changed the subject. This was going to be more difficult than I thought!

Day Two

Had an awful day at work – my colleagues were really getting on my nerves, and giving me little jobs that they could have easily have done themselves. Not being one for confrontation, I smiled through gritted teeth and all I wanted to do when I got home was moan about them. Ended up grazing at the fridge to take my mind off things, and halfway though devouring a smoked French cheese and a bottle of rosé, I realised this probably was not the answer. So in desperation I lay down and put on some music, and tried to “let the negative thoughts seep out of me” as an old yoga teacher once said. Felt slightly better in my zen-like state, and did admit to myself that maybe this was a better alternative than tearing certain people to shreds – even if my boyfriend thought I was slightly weird when came home to find the lights off and me staring into space with Thom Yorke wailing out of the stereo (God, I’m a cliché…)

Wicked words with work colleagues....

Day Three

Experiment seems to be going well. I’m even more motivated to continue when I found out that a family member, whom we often teased for being uptight, had suffered a car accident when she was younger – which probably explained why she was so cautious and worried about every little thing. Aside from feeling incredibly guilty, this revelation provided me with another reason why it’s never a good idea to bitch about someone who may get on your nerves, when you don’t know the full picture.

Day Four

Get an email from an old work colleague along the lines of “I hear you left the company? Was it not for you?” It was in fact a job I despised, and was halfway through writing a venomous tirade about my old boss, when I remembered the experiment and had to prise myself away from the keyboard. I started to think – what would bitching about her really have achieved? Although I had already found a new job and didn’t need a reference from her, I didn’t need to stir up animosity in the bargain. Plus if I’m ever going to have a successful career I need to start as I mean to go on – in my experience things you say always about people always come back to haunt you, however remote they seem at the time.

Day Five

If there was any proof of my last sentence having any truth to it, then today I got it! The very same ex-boss I had refrained from bitching about the day before had left me a voicemail message. It turned out I’d ordered something on ASOS and accidentally sent it to my old work address (the result of drunken online shopping at 2am.) She said she would keep it for me and asked if I wanted to pop by to collect it. I breathed a sigh of relief, and realised if I had vented all my angry feelings towards her yesterday to my colleague, not only would I now have felt terribly guilty, but had any of it got back to her, she might not have phoned me at all! In any case I would have felt terribly awkward about going back there to collect it. I felt like I’d dodged a bullet thanks to this experiment, and maybe there was some point to this after all.

Day Six

I chat about my experience to Lifestyle Psychologist Mamta Bhatia of Think Spa London, about why so many people, and women in particular, are prone to bitching. “As women we’re generally more emotional beings than men, so we tend to judge each other’s behaviour quite heavily. Typically it’s easier to think negatively rather than positively about a situation, because the mind is very quick to form conclusions that are negative. It comes down to “fight/flight survival,” we’re constantly on the look out for danger.”

But what are the psychological consequences of picking people to shreds over a long period of time? “It’s a very draining activity and ultimately it’s a ‘lose-lose’ situation. When you’re constantly judging and nit picking other people’s behaviours, you end up miserable and unhappy in yourself, and others won’t like being around you. You’re not living in the present, and constantly feel on edge - you may end up thinking, ‘well if I’m talking about this person- what must they be saying about me?’ ”

Break the bitching cycle with a workout

So what is a good way to break the habit? “Meditation or going to the gym are good places to start. Another clever technique when someone’s playing on your mind is to actually visualise the image you have of them getting smaller, to the point when it’s the size of a postage stamp. When you do that, then replace the rest of the picture with something positive in your life: a holiday you went on, someone in your family etc…  Ultimately by doing this, you are getting back control; the minute you let somebody else create how you feel, is when you give them control over who you are. You become miserable and not very pleasant to be around!”

Day Seven

I wake up in a bad mood, and when this happens, I tend to recall all the people who treated me badly throughout my life. One incident in particular which always stands out was an old work colleague who was actually more junior than I was, but who consistently undermined me and was always trying to make me look incompetent. Because of his stronger personality, and the fact he was so popular in the office, I felt intimidated by him and didn’t stand up for myself. Even thought it’s been a year on, I’ve constantly bitched about him to whoever would listen, and spent fuming bus journeys going over and over in my head what I could and should have said to him. Which is ridiculous I know, and all it does is leave me feeling angry and annoyed, more so with myself than with him. Rather than bitching about him, as I often do, I try Mamta’s technique of reducing the thoughts of him to the size of a postage stamp, replacing them with those of people who actually care about me. Strangely enough it works!

Coming to the end of my experiment, I realised that bitching is like a drug in a way: the more you do it, the more addicted and eventually unhappy you become. Trying to break the habit completely is an uphill struggle, as there will always be people who get on your nerves. I’m still not above the odd bitchy remark but I’ve come to realise that this won’t make me feel any better about things in the long run. I recalled Mamta’s words about living in the present and not seething about the past. “This may sound corny, but just as the river flows, you need to move with it. Don’t be stale water because you will end up stinking!”