Do you mean happy or goofy? People who are hyperactive/goofy annoy almost everyone – even the happy people.

Some cheerleaders are kinda super bubbly yappy like a small dog.

You know, maybe I do mean hyperactive happy. That would almost be a better term for it.

I just figured it was because I was becoming a crotchety old man before my time.

If someone is a Karen Valentine, bubbling over, hearts and flowers always type, I usually am somewhat skeptical that it is genuine.

I must say, though, that I have met a few who were sincerely like that. Once I determine that on acquaintance, I am fine with it.

If it’s fake, I can’t stand it.

yeah they kinda do,but only if they’re not making me laugh.

not sure why, maybe it just seems fake to me. anyone who’s smiling for more than an hour a day is putting it on.

If it’s genuine… maybe I’m subconsciously jealous. If it’s fake, maybe I just can’t stand fakers. I don’t know.

Anything “over the top” is annoying.

Goofy doesn’t bother me as much as overwhelmingly positive people do. I just don’t understand how someone can be that positive. Not based on my own life experiences and the life experiences of everyone I know, anyway. People who are that happy just seem delusional to me.

It’s the chirpy, peppy ones that annoy me. Genuine happiness seems like it would be calm and serene, barring the truly joyful moments.

From what I’ve seen, people who overdo things are just doing it for attention. What annoys me is that it’s so obvious, yet they still do it.

Because they’re so fuckin’ happy it just makes me want to spit!
AHHHHHH!

What ever happened to Karen Valentine?

Wow… This almost makes me a little sad.
I am generally a happy person. I don’t ever get super bouncy around people I don’t know, but when I am with my friends I am bouncing off the wall. I think I am a people person and I like to think I don’t take my happiness too far. I’ve seen a lot of shit in my day and been through things some people haven’t but I have made a decision not to let that affect the person I am. Not in a negative way atleast. There is always someone who has it worse so I am not going to let my crap experiences turn me into a grump.

Sorry. Bad day at work.

Hey krose, I wouldn’t want you to be a grump! When I’m with my friends, I’m all kinds of silly. I’m talking about strangers who are acting like that with me.

Oh… well actually I think I am almost rude to a lot of strangers. See explanation here

“Het there! <giggles> Isn’t this just like the nicest day ever?! I mean like the birds are singing and the clouds are all puffy like cotton…”

People like that need a smack. Twice.

@krose: With friends is certainly cool. It’s with strangers or acquaintences that it gets annoying.

@Krose, “I have made a decision not to let that affect the person I am. Not in a negative way at least.” Well said. I wish I could be like that always. One of my new year’s resolutions is actually to try to be a happier and more positive person. I think sometimes I get irritated and upset at these type of people because I am also secretly jealous and can’t come out of my gloomy bubble.

Lurve for “gloomy bubble”.

:) Thank you, you just popped it for me.

I asked whether those kind of happy people were really happy, or whether they were hiding some inner pain. I would say the majority of my answers said they were truly happy, but maybe a quarter of the responses admitted to hiding pain. They offered a variety of excuses for using the appearance of happiness to hide pain.

I wasn’t sure what to conclude from this. One of the more positive people I know happens to be a rape and cancer survivor. I admire her for her attitude, and am a bit jealous.

I guess I think jealousy has a lot to do with it. She asks, rhetorically, why should she dwell on what happened? Why not do her best to make the most of now? Many folks living with cancer seem to have learned a similar lesson. For example, I originally wrote “folks with cancer” instead of “folks living with cancer.” That’s an example of one way they use to change their attitude towards having the disease.

Mindfullness practice also urges a similar thing: live in the now, not the past or the future.

Still, waking up each morning and smiling at yourself in the mirror? Each day writing down one thing you are grateful for? Listing accomplishments instead of failures? Deliberately provoking the “glass half full” approach?

I was recently (a year ago) diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At the time I was entering my first serious depressive phase. But even before that—all my life, I have had a mistrust of bubbly happiness. It just seems fake, and not just because there are so many things going wrong in the world, or my life.

I am grateful to be alive. I think it is the greatest gift possible. I wouldn’t be able to feel depressed if I weren’t alive. I choose depression over death, even though I often think about killing myself when I’m depressed. I know I’ll never do it, and that that kind of thinking and talking is more about warning myself and others that I am desperately unhappy, and please, please can’t someone help?

I was brought up to feel like I had to earn my happiness. I was brought up to believe that happiness is that distant goal, on the top of the mountains that you are allowed only a moment before death, if even then. I was brought up to believe that happiness is only for the few; true happiness, that is.

I have come to believe, I fear to say, that in some way, I like my unhappiness. It motivates me. It makes me think. It gives me attention. Maybe that attention is as artificial as the attention happy people get, but still, it’s attention, and I need it.

Hell, that’s why I fluther. I want validation. I want people to think I write well and think well (even if saying that invalidates every compliment I get from now on).

I also feel a lack of confidence. It seems like happiness leads to confidence, and I’ve used the aura of happiness to sell myself (for a job) and to sell ideas. It’s not fake, either. I truly believe the ideas I have and work for are good ones that will help people. I truly believe I can do a good job at this or that. Of course, will I? Hmmmmm.

So I have become a curious combination of confidence and insecurity. I’ll talk to anyone. Argue any point I believe in. At the same time, I’m wondering if I’m offending them, insulting them, or making them never want to talk to me again. That doesn’t stop me, though.

Happiness leavened with despair. My existential dilemma. Why do I keep on being unhappy? Is it because of the chemicals in my brain? Is it because I don’t know how to be happy? Is it because I choose not to be happy?

The first two possibilities let me off the hook. So I don’t like them. I want to be responsible for my own state of mind. But what if I’m not?

What I find unsettling (yeah, maybe irritating) is any kind of emotional stuckness. Barring a few extreme situations, life presents plenty of reasons to be happy, sad, pissed, grateful…People who can’t respond to those situations with the full range of human emotion, who seem continually stuck in one mode, feel awkward to be around. It’s a bit like trying to dance with someone who’s always listening to the same song on their ipod instead of following the changing rhythms of the band onstage.

When dealing with people face to face, it’s natural for us to unconsciously negotiate some kind of emotional common ground with our companion. We take cues from the immediate environment and our sense of where each other is at, emotionally, and we try to zero in on some common wavelength where we can both be comfortable. But stuck people are constantly making others come more than halfway in this emotional pas de deux. We’re willing to do that every now and then, but it eventually becomes tiring and feels dysfunctional.

@Harp: Excellent answer.

Very insightful.

Harp is brilliant.

huh-oh, now I’m stuck on “happy”

Happy people irritate you because they are irritating.

Ok. So I wanted to ask this question, but I’m afraid my sister in-law could possibly read it (doubtful, but you never know). Over the top, happy bubbly people irritate the hell out of me. She is one of these people right now.

I’m happy she’s happy. Hell, I’m happy right now, but what she posts on Facebook every day is getting very annoying. She wishes everyone a “Happy Monday everyone”, “Happy Tuesday everyone”, “Happy Hump Day Wednesday everyone”. barf

Today’s post is what got me started. “Happy Tuesday everyone. Don’t let the weather get you down”. For anyone living in the midwest right now, you know we are dealing with a record breaking low pressure system. It’s nasty out. My lovely husband is working in this stuff today, running cows. I can’t help but worry about him, and all the other people that are working outside in this stuff today. So, SIL, while you sit in your jammies, safe and sound inside, think about the people that don’t have it as lucky as you. :P

Thanks, I feel better now. I’m happy, but not too happy. <end rant>