Ways to Avoid Emotional Vampires
by Do you often fall prey to people who drain the energy out of you? Defend yourself with some easy-to-follow tips.
Emotional vampires are people who drain all your energy because of their negativity. They have a tendency to unload all their problems on other people until the life is sapped from their listeners. Avoid being victimized by following these simple rules:
Stay in a group
Emotional vampires like to engage their victims in one-on-one situations. If there are no other people, they can have a monopoly on your attention. A group setting will ensure that you will have more interactions with other people, lessening the chance of an emotional vampire entrapping you with sob stories.
Refrain from asking questions
Questions send the message that you are interested in the story and this will only serve to encourage emotional vampires. Not asking questions shows a lack of interest in the topic and will discourage further elaboration.
Change the topic
One thing about emotional vampires is they can rant about one thing for long stretches of time and return to the same topic time and time again. Whenever you feel that an emotional vampire is about to launch into his or her favorite issue once again, make a quick topic change. If he or she persists, be just as insistent to want to talk about something else.
Don’t offer advice
Emotional vampires like to pretend that they want your advice and usually use this as an excuse to confide in you. But you’ll soon notice that regardless of what you suggest, emotional vampires will continue to do what they want to do. Emotional vampires talk because they like hearing themselves speak. They are not interested in what you have to say. Don’t waste your time offering tips they will never follow.
Just say no
Sometimes, no matter how much you want to be nice, it just doesn’t get you anywhere. Take the direct approach and tell them that you are not interested in hearing them rant, not because you don’t feel sympathy, but because listening to them drains you. If they become offended, then so be it. At least you got rid of your emotional vampires.
Everyone has problems and, now and then, we need to speak with someone so we can let things off our chest. But this does not give us the right to burden someone else with our problem. Don’t allow yourself to be victimized by these sympathy-mongers.
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Post CommentClaire
On March 12, 2009 at 3:44 am
I just want to say how much the above article spoke to me. I met a work colleage who appears fun, friendly and we got to know each other pretty well.We often hung out together after work. That was however the beginning of her sucking me emotionally dry. All she wanted to do was talk about and repeat her problems constantly. She always wanted me to do what she wanted and she would plant emotional traps to get me worked up if I refused. I regret knowing her and I regret being concerned about her at the start of our friendship. I have made the mistake of asking questions about her problem, and trying to give suggestions when she asked. I had inadvertently encouraged bad behavior. All I could says is that after 6 months of emotional turmoil and being subjected to periodic outburst of emotional tantrums, I was going to pick a fight with her to end our friendship. I did not know if it was luck, but she decided to move overseas for 6 months to work. As we work at the same place, I found it hard to end our relationship and this gave me a reason to distance myself from her. I have not had such an unpleasant experience until I met her. I am definitely more cautious when I make friends in future. It was a tranforming experience, but as much as i HATE to be judgemental when I meet new people in future, I guess I would be subconsciously.