annoyingly happy
I think sometimes I annoy those of my friends who ask me for support, even though I sincerely try to support them.
Most you have seen or maybe even participated in a scene like that: a guy has dumped a girl, so she gets together with her friends and they together scold "this jerk". Same can happen for a random boor on the street, or for a terrible boss at work, and generally in any case when someone has hurt your feelings. And men also let the steam off like that. The common thing in all such scenes is that someone is guilty and you try to make yourself feel better by cursing him and listening to your friends do the same.
I have somehow adopted a different approach to make myself feel better. It helps me to tell myself this won't happen again, because I have learned something, and now I know how to respond better, or how to prevent that situation, or which actions to avoid. I so strongly focus on that "everything will be better" that I forget all about the negative feelings. Even searching for a solution helps well enough. It's this constructive approach "don't think about the past, think what to do given current circumstances".
Everyone knows the choice between "give a fish" and "teach to fish", but no one mentions the words of the man who asked for a fish and got the fishing rod. Here's a tip: the words were not too nice. Well, they were softened by display of good intentions, and by the fact that the giver was a friend. But the man's expectations were deceived.
And I have only recently realised that my way to calm down doesn't match very well what friends expect of me when asking for support. Someone tells me a sad story expecting sympathy and support in the form of scolding the bad guy. But instead of the obvious thing I give him some misplaced constructive thoughts. What does that make me? That annoyingly happy guy?
Well, now I'm glad that at least I see the root cause of a problem. But despite they say it's a half of the solution, I struggle to find the other half. I want people asking me for support to feel my support, but I don't like the traditional group scolding, it is too "negative" for me.
Any ideas how to show support?