As I mentioned, this is something I need to work on. I think it probably has to do with my beliefs — I tend to view people experiencing negative emotional states as if they’re infected by some kind of self-induced plague. So I wonder, “Why do you keep doing that to yourself?” Hence, the eye roll.

I was intrigued enough by the dialog to continue it on my own blog. You can read the article, if you’re interested, at http://emsky.typepad.com/winwinweb/2005/09/steve_pavlina_c.html
It’s called “Dealing with upset people: calming through connecting.”

Example: If my girlfriend is sad because she failed at something, maybe it’s best to teach her to succeed at that thing.

I had my times when I was depressed, and I learned to think this way: “Hey, I’m depressed. That means my mind has a lot of misdirected mental energy. Instead of directing my mental energy towards being depressed, I can direct my energy towards solving the problem that is causing the depression. Now, what are some ways in which I can solve the problem that is causing the depression? What would be at least a small first step? Is there any way I can approach the problem differently than before? How can I approach it in a more intelligent way?”

This kind of thinking has helped me a lot. I find that it lifts most of the depression and makes me more active.

You can do this when the person is in normal state.

I think that everyone has most of the responsability for his or her emotional state.

If I’m extremely nervous and kill somebody, it’s my responsability. If I’m nervous and offend the people arround me, it’s still 80-90% my responsability.

Dumping one’s anger and negativity on someone else is not acceptable, especially if it happens over a long period.

I think that instead of develeping some technique to calm the other party down, one should look inside himself/herself to find one’s own “loopholes”.

But improvement is the whole idea of growth, hey?

What I have found to work is calmly listening to their rant, and then calmly making their best rational argument for them. For example, if somebody starts spewing hate over XYZ, I would calmly state what aspects of XYZ could lead someone to feel aggravated.

Whether it helps calm the person down, or whether it just drives a nutball up the wall and drives them away, I would consider it a success. One of the boundaries I try to maintain is that people around me need to try to be polite, rational, and calm. One way or another, their “nutty” behavior is not acceptable around me.

I said that a little too strongly. I have had (and still have) problems with my temper. One of the important parts of my relationship with my wife is that she was not “freaked-out” by my temper tantrums. A temper tantrum was unacceptable to her, and she let me know it (_boy_howdy_, did she _ever_ let me know!), but she cared enough stay there with me. She did not just leave.

The reason was partly that she herself has a problem with temper. At this point in time, I would say I have my temper under better control than she does. So handling her outbursts is something that I do with love and understanding.

I am not interested in being a person who runs away when emotions get intense or scary. But I don’t wish to indulge in negative energy, either.

And I will not lay out the welcome mat to nutballs, either.

Being calm and not relating to their frenzy certainly doesn’t work. That often plunges them deeper into it.

I personally like to use humor, but even that will piss off some people who think you’re not taking them seriously.