When one doesn’t hear what one wants to hear, I suggest one change the topic of conversation immediately. Perhaps this one is a she, and suppose she’s admittedly needy. Validation is required, dear friends. It’s the only way to communicate with her. Otherwise, she retreats to her downtrodden self and she’s worse than where she started. You see, she’s always looking for confirmation that she’s wrong to be positive, that she’s simply pathetic for wanting something better than what she has.

 

Maybe she needs to hear reality, but that’s a constant swirl in her head anyway. Her reality is confined to circular reasoning fueled not by logic but by fire. And later, when the fire dies down, there’s nothing but to look at those she knows as if they were strangers. They are strangers, really. So I suggest a change of subject to keep things pleasant.