Everyone Is Difficult To Deal With, Including You

My husband called me difficult the other day. 

Let's not hate on him though. He called himself difficult at the same time.

He was referring to us as a couple. It was all in light humour, of course. He said, 

"We're the difficult kids." 

He was talking about us and our ever-demanding schedule. A friend of ours was trying to nail down a time to see us and we couldn't seem to find a time. It was all us, not them.

I know my husband has a point; I appreciate we're not the easiest people to deal with. Between mental health illnesses, physical illnesses, food intolerances, unusual working schedules and problematic relationships with certain people in our life, he had a point. We can be tough to have in your life.

Yet, I took some offence at his observation. "Sure, we can be difficult. But everyone is difficult to deal with."

I started pointing out all the ways our friends and family made life that little more difficult. I pointed out all the ways they annoyed us, their faults, and our grievances with their behaviour. I rattled them off one by one.

I wasn't ragging on my friends and family to be mean. I was pointing out that no one is easy to deal with.

And everyone is difficult, even if they don't know it.

There is no such thing as an easy person

Everyone has someone in their life they would call easy to be friends with. Think of yours right now. I'm sure they bring an instant smile to your face.

The person I think of is a friend of my husband. This guy is cool, calm, and collect. He is always easy to talk to. Honest. I've never had a bad time when hanging out with him. Polite. Intelligent. Listens to what I say. Easy to be friends with, in short.

But let's be real here. He isn't the epitome of easy. 

He isn't exempt from doing the wrong thing, being annoying or draining the emotional energy of everyone around him. It's impossible for him to be easy in the true sense of the word.

If you ask me, if someone is truly "easy" as someone in your life, they are a mythical unicorn. 

They are so easy to be friends, lovers, and have a relationship with. They aren't real. They aren't human. Or they are a people pleaser who has a duck-like attitude. They're calm on top, but paddling like crazy underneath the water.

Someone who doesn't present any challenges to any people in their life can't be real. 

It's all a matter of personal opinion and what you're willing to tolerate.

I guarantee you there will be someone in their life who thinks your easy friend is difficult to deal with.

 What I find charming about my husband might annoy everyone else. A part of his personality that I find easy, other people might find difficult. 

We could debate it until the cows come home. It's too personal.

If you ask me, the easy people in our lives tend to be those people we forgive harder than others. Or, because of our rose-coloured glasses, we see them in a way other people don't.

And, for some, these easy people are only easy by comparison to their more challenging relationships. On an easy scale, they beat out every other relationship you have.

They are easy purely by comparison. Does it make them easy in the true sense? 

No.

There are the normal difficult people

We all do things that make us challenging to have a relationship with. We all have our little quirks, behaviours, and nuances that annoy the hell out of the people in our life.

These things might seem small, even forgivable annoyances. But when the stars align and you do these things at the wrong time, and at the wrong place, you are difficult. This could be any of the following traits:

• Running late or being early
• Forgetting important information about someone
• Being too in someone's life
• The way you walk, talk, eat, dress
• The music you like
• The sports team you follow
• How you are after a few drinks
• How no one can nail you down for events
• How no one can get you to leave an event
• How obsessed with your partner you are
• The way you always interrupt
• The fact you gossip about the people you know
• The fact you're too good of a secret keeper
• The way you have to be right
• The way you always sit on the fence and don't have a strong opinion

You can see how endless yet random this list is. I could add so much more to this list. It's a list of normal, everyday behaviours we all do. Some good, some bad, some indifferent.

Any or all of these things on the list make you difficult at some point in your life. 

When you do these things, people in your life feel challenged in their relationship with you. It's the same way you feel challenged when they do it to you. This is where I say:

You're never going to please everyone

We all know this, too. I'm not saying anything new. Even if you've never heard that expression before, you practise it in real life.

You don't end the relationship because you know it's normal for people to do things that annoy you. 

You know no one is perfect. 

We're all hypocrites

My ex-best friend broke up with me because she said I was too difficult. It sucked that she said this after I told her all about my health issues and why I was having such a hard time. She used this suffering to be a reason to end our friendship.

When you say someone is difficult, too difficult to be in a relationship (romantic or plutonic), you're a hypocrite. Or a narcissist who believes they can do no wrong. 

Probably both.

As if you're a walk in the park to be around. You have things that annoy people too. You make decisions that other people don't agree with. You might be the extremely difficult one and not know it.

What about the extremely difficult people?

Narcissists. Emotional vampires. Drama kings and queens. Time wasters. 

We have an entire encyclopaedia of extremely difficult people the world is currently educating us to stay away from. For those people you've tried and failed with one too many times, write them off. 

Write them off if they don't change when you ask them to. Don't think twice if they keep hurting you when they've promised not to.

We all know those extreme people with extreme situations. We know those people who make our life difficult. Their difficulties directly impact how happy we are.

Not everyone fits in this extreme category

We have to be careful, though.

Despite the fact everyone has difficult traits, it doesn't mean they have a personality disorder that makes it impossible for you to have a relationship with them. Not everyone who is asking for your emotional support during a tough time is an emotional vampire, for example.

That's an extreme reaction to one or two little normal grievances you have with them.

The problem is that we're in this modern age where we have these established phrases for people like this. And we've gone too hard with the labelling. We stick these labels onto everyone and anyone who even slightly demonstrates the qualities.

You bummed us one time, and now you're an emotional vampire.

It means we're quick to write people off from our life because we think they're something they're not.

In my situation, I know this is what happened to me and my friend. She didn't want to go through the rough patch with me. She slapped a convenient excuse on me and walked away.

Those in glass houses shouldn't throw…

When we start labelling people as difficult, it's could be a sign we're getting lazy. We don't have the energy to have this relationship with them, so we blame it on them.

Or that we have something just as difficult happening in our life, we don't have the emotional energy to share it around.

You might be ok with the lazy approach. At the moment, you're fine to let someone go because of how difficult they are.

But what happens when your life gets difficult and you need someone to be there for you? What happens when you go from having an easy situation to a tough one?

We all go through it. A rough patch life in your life will happen. Guaranteed. Then what? You've said how difficult everyone is. Now the shoe is on the other foot.

Sometimes I say careful who you slap the difficult label on. 

It will come back to bite you.

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