BigDavyG

OK, when i say acquaintance I mean someone I've known for a few years, but not someone I'd class as a friend. Anyway, it wasn't some complete random if that's what you're hinting at. Its not as if I called this person a fat, ugly mo-fo with nothing worth living for - I merely said that I thought that this course of study was a waste of time for someone with their level of intelligence.
I work in IT and see this ridiculous attitude cost thousands of dollars a day. My company has to date poured $125 million into a project that was wrong from day one. All the staff working on it know it yet no manager has ever had the wit to say that its a mess, and maybe its best that we cut our losses and start again. I put this in no small part down to this stupid anti-negativity stance that americans seem to take. Negativity is not bad, its just , well, err....negative.
I agree with other posters that in many instances the whole positive attitude thing can be refreshing, especially for us Brits, but I am off the opinion that it is often taken way too far, well past the bounds of what i would regard to be sane.

I hope this explains my opinion a bit better than before, and i have to say CA that I'm amazed that you've never noticed any manic positivity in your 9 plus years in the US.

Celtic_Angel

erm...I've never worked...maybe you need to change company if they're making wrong decisions costing in the 100's of millions

BigDavyG

I'm looking into it funnily enough, but to be honest as long as it's not my money that they're wasting i don't really care. And to hark back to another thread doing the rounds today I get 25 days vacation in addition to company holidays, so I'm in no mad rush to bail out.

Celtic_Angel

see, now you're getting the hang of it, that's a positive way of looking at it...you even managed a

BigDavyG

Don't get too carried away - i just like the 's

Rushman

I like some smileys

Celtic_Angel

well given your track record it'd give it about 9 months and you'll be on to smilie number 8

Rushman

not a chance, had the snip

dunroving

I wonder why he was so pissed off? That seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

I hear what you are saying about excess positivity/optimisim (I deal with students who shouldn't really be in college every day), but it sounds like you were a little too direct and/or negative.

Maybe he's not good enough to study elsewhere? Telling him the course he was enrolling for was pants then would be telling him that he was pants, too.

USBound

in my experience there are some americans that like to hear certain things and REALLY get pissed when you refuse to "prettify" the facts... I'm the kind of person that calls a spade a spade... so if I think something is shit I'll say so. I may use language to portray a more refined negative opinion but thats a different discussion.

CitySimon

Whether people like it or not (over here it's mostly "not") I always let people know my real feelings on something.

My wife keeps coming out with "Simon, you really need to learn to form an opinion on things!" (The course in advanced sarcasm she took in England really paid off)

If I don't like somebody, they know it.
If I think that somebody is doing something stupid, they know about it

I've seen it myself where people will be all positive to the persons face but completely slate them after the matter.

It does irritate me. I'd rather somebody was up front with the truth rather than trying to say what people wanted to hear all the time.

BigDavyG

So, my questions to you are: how long have you been here for ??; and how on earth do you put up with this, because recently it has really started to grate with me and I'm not sure how much longer I can stick it for.

TruBrit

OK I've been with my husband since 1983 (he's US Citizen...lived in the UK 18yrs and now back here for 4 yrs) and it drives me crazy some days coz every day is a good day for him...even if he's had a crazy busy day full of meetings and they've all gone wrong, even if the flights are all late and his connections are screwed up, he'll still say he's had a good positive day and learnt a lot where as I'd come home from a trip...(cart tart job) and I'd be pissing and moaning about all the punters and who the fu** they thought they were...lol anyway I could handle him in the UK coz there was just one of him around me but now I'm here and surrounded by all of them....it drives me crazy...hence me being ...sadly in Houston....we go to his family gatherings in Austin and everyone is so nice and positive even to the crap sales police guy that rings up on your home number begging for money for their social fund...lol the family says 'oh well, he's trying, poor guy'...lol dunno how long I'll last. It is nice not to have a husband moaning when he comes in from work but it's all the others I can't take.... :scared:

Partystar

I'm the same way, I tell it like it is. Most people here don't like that, some people do, I stay friends with the latter.

Last year I was in a playgroup with a few mothers my age, we seemed to get on very well & spent a lot of time together. I occasionally noticed some funny looks from one girl, but sort of wrote it off thinking that if she had a problem she would say something, it got worse & worse. Then I heard that the girl giving the looks was completely slagging me off behind my back & that the other girl was doing it back, but less so.

I confronted them on their bullsh*t, for which they lied through their teeth & they also kept tripping over their lies! For a week or 2 after they kept calling & IMing me to plead their case, but I had already written them off. I don't need friends like that, I have plenty of great friends, I don't need to keep mediocre 'friends'. I don't ever stand for this sh*t, so I told them where they could stick their 'friendship'.

I left the group & most of the other girls followed me to another group. I guess I just don't understand why a lot of the girls here act like they are still in High School once they are out into the big wide world (or America to their closed minds!). I don't even remember my worse enemies saying the stuff they said about me.

On top of that, about 3 months after this happened, 2 of my best friends here came out & said they thought I was harsh on the second girl because she was young (she was actually the same age as me)! I was pretty shocked that they would be okay with 'a friend' saying those sorts of things behind their backs! I expect my friends to be loyal, not 2 faced lying bitches! Why does friendship mean something completely different here?

britvic

Poor Davy, you've got to bight that tongue, let them go on dreaming