First, let me set the scene.
You're at work. Your coworker walks in the door for their shift, which means you get to go home. You smile, then say, "I'm so happy you're here! I've never been more in need of a nap. I think I could fall asleep standing up at this point." The comment was meant as a conversation starter. You don't actually know this person well.
You are tired, but more than anything, you felt like you should fill the silence between your greeting hello and your wave goodbye. Instead of smiling back and coming up with a socially acceptable response, your coworker says, "Well, I've worked the past seven days, and I've never gotten a break, and my neighbors are loud so I never get any sleep, and my dog was up howling all night, and I have a sleeping disorder on top of that, so yeah, I'm probably way more tired than you are."
End scene.
You probably recognize this person. He or she exists somewhere in your life. They like to walk around discrediting the problems of others, always bringing the conversation back to themselves and their own problems. I like to call them Backwards Braggers.
Let me assure you, no one wants to be a Backwards Bragger. By carrying this quality, you make the lives of your coworkers and friends and family absolutely miserable since everything revolves around you. You're constantly trying to one-up people, but in a negative way. If you had a good day, other people can have a good day. If you had a bad day, then guess what? Everyone else should have a bad day, too.
If you're a Backwards Bragger, you like to let people know how tired you are, how much you work, how lonely you are, or how little money or free time you have, usually in an effort to make them feel sorry for you. If someone tells you about how great their day was or how much fun they had somewhere, you probably respond with something like, "Oh, I wish I could have done that. I had to work. I never get to do anything like that." I can guarantee you that friend will never want to tell you about the happy parts of their day again since you'll just shatter any positivity into pieces with your negative portrayal of your own life. I mean, when did it become enjoyable to compete over whose life is worse? Congrats. I guess you win...
And backwards bragging has a brother. It's called self-absorption. They walk hand in hand. I once had a coworker who said to me, "I'm going through a lot more problems than you are right now, so work is harder for me." Um, what? This person knew nothing about my life (since I don't generally roam around telling strangers about my problems), and therefore made a wild assumption. And this assumption was crafted for the purpose of bringing the conversation back to himself and making me feel sorry for him. The same coworker spoke a derivative of this comment nearly every time I worked with him. Let's just say he wasn't my favorite person by the end of the summer.
I'd like to acknowledge that, at times, we've all been a Backwards Bragger. And, of course, we all think like a Backwards Bragger. We compare our problems to the problems of others. But it's those who regularly downplay the problems of others who need to be careful. Because by constantly trying to one-up the problems of other people, Backwards Braggers are implying that their problems—their feelings and emotions—are more important. And that's how you lose people. No one has ever found joy in hanging out with a chronic complainer. Complaining is annoying. Bragging is annoying. But backwards bragging? I think that's even worse.
