Bitter
“To be bitter is never a good thing; not even in chocolate.”
– Julian Antonio
So what does it mean to be bitter?[edit | edit source]
Being bitter describes a person who takes any statement as a personal insult. It doesn't even matter if the statement is about them at all or not. Bitter people often cause problems in the workplace because they are sure that everyone hates them, which is likely accurate. However, bitter people are irrationally paranoid—they believe they have definitive proof that people are out to get them.
Bitter people tend to cling to their memories. They do not forgive and let it eat away at them. Some experts have argued that this could be caused by:
- being treated poorly for an immense amount of time
- being mistreated by family
- receiving constant disappointment
- etc.
The feeling of being jaded is also accompanied by bitter thoughts and actions. Bitter people will eventually shy away from affection because they're not used to it.
The origin of bitterness[edit | edit source]
Since the dawn of history, people have been petty, causing any attempt to track the first example of bitterness to fail. However, some theologists argue that the origin of bitterness could be found in the first chapters of the Book of Genesis, after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. Being kicked out of Eden and being forced to fend for themselves, the duo became very, very bitter at God.
This theory has been contradicted by some anthropologists, who argue that the first example of bitterness likely occurred when the person who first created fire had their invention stolen by a more respected fellow.
Regardless, bitterness has seen an exponential increase throughout history due to a mixture of warfare, famine, ecological destruction, or just plain unluckiness.
Interacting with bitter people[edit | edit source]
There is no statement that could be neutral enough to not be negatively interpreted by a bitter person. Here are some examples:
Statement: Did you just have your hair cut?
Response: I know what you're saying—that I got a bad hair cut. I will have you know I like my hair cut this way?
Statement: So who do you like in Sunday's game?
Response: You don't think I know anything about football do you!
Statement: The sky is blue.
Response: Look, I appreciate a nice day as much as the next person, but I'm having a really bad day OK! You don't have to make such a big deal about it.
Bitter people often spend great amounts of time together telling each other what other people have said and speculating what they think the real meaning of their statements could be. This includes, in many cases, their ordinary actions. For example:
Action: smiled.
Actual reason: in a good mood.
Interpretation: is planning on firing them.
Action: man doesn't call.
Actual reason: doesn't like you much.
Interpretation: is cheating on them.
Action: walks down street.
Actual reason: going that way.
Interpretation: proving that can walk down street better than self.
You can't deal with bitter people, so don't even try. You might want to have fun by saying a lot of things that can clearly be taken in more than one way, but that isn't recommended since many bitter people own semi-automatic weapons due to their paranoia.