It is no secret that it is hard to get along with other people. Sometimes it is because they don’t clean up after themselves, sometimes it is because others are in positions of authority (bosses and teachers often fall into this category) and can make demands on us that we don’t like, and sometimes it is because they just don’t understand us. There are hundreds of reasons why it is hard to get along with others. Before reading any more think for a moment of someone you have trouble getting along with, someone you just wished lived on the other side of the planet. When you have that person in mind ask yourself, keep them in mind as you read this blog and ask yourself if there is something YOU can do to improve the relationship?
In Jean Paul Sartre’s play, “No Exit” he places three people in a room which is poorly decorated. These three people 
can’t change the room, they can’t leave, and they are in fact in hell where they will spend eternity. They were expecting flames and torment, but all they find is two other people who are different than themselves. At the end of the play, when they realize they will be in this room with each other for eternity we read Sartre’s famous line “Hell is Other People.”
The play is saying more than other people are annoying and don’t clean up after themselves. He is saying that at the core of our being we want other people to understand us and validate our existence. He is also saying that other people, at the core of who they are, want us to validate who they are. Sartre believes that we are doomed to misery because we all want something from others that they cannot give because they are trying to get the same thing from us. Sartre believes we cannot live without other people, but other people will never really give us what we want. So, hell is other people.
Sartre, like most philosophers, isn’t all wrong. I think we are all aware of a deep desire that someone else would really understand who we are, validate our existence, see what we need, and do what they can to meet our needs. I think we can all relate to the disappointment when we thought someone else really got us, really cared about us, and then missed us or betrayed us. And if we think really hard, we can think of a time with we missed or betrayed a good friend.
However, research shows that hell isn’t other people. In fact, numerous studies show it is possible for us to develop close relationships with others and these relationships are a key component of happiness. If other people and good friends are important to our wellbeing, then we should become students of how to make and keep these friendships. Too often we think good friends just happen, we just get lucky or unlucky. But detailed studies have shown there are things that we can do that contribute to good friendships. But these things do not come naturally and generally take practice.
One of the most powerful things we can do to promote the kind of relationships we want is to rejoice and celebrate the victories of others. Others often will tell us of a victory, an accomplishment, or a triumph and we miss it, ignore it, suggest it isn’t a real victory, or imply that it should have happened to us. Although these responses happen naturally, they do not move us to the relationships we all want. Marin Seligman in his book Flourish suggests that there are four basic ways we respond to the good news others share with us. Here are his four categories and two examples of how they might be applied. I think the following charts are helpful, but here is my warning: if our response isn’t sincere the others will immediately sense the insincerity and it WILL NOT help the relationship. In fact, it will probably hurt it.
| Your Friend Shares a Positive Event | Type of Response | Your Response |
| “I received a promotion and raise at work” | Active and Constructive | “That is great! I am so proud of you. I know how important that promotion was to you! Please relive the event with me now. Where were you when your boss told you? What did he say? How did you react? We should go out and celebrate” Nonverbal: maintaining eye contact, displays of positive emotions, such as genuine smiling, touching, laughing. |
| Passive and Constructive | “That is good news. You deserve it.” Nonverbal: little to no active emotional expression. | |
| Active and Destructive | “That sounds like a lot of responsibility to take on. Are you going to spend even fewer nights at home now?” Nonverbal: displays of negative emotions, such as furrowed brow, frowning. | |
| Passive and Destructive | “What’s for dinner?” Nonverbal: little to no eye contact, turning away, leaving the room. |
| Your Friend Shares a Positive Event | Type of Response | Your Response |
| “I just won five hundred dollars in a charity raffle!” | Active and Constructive | “Wow, what luck! Are you going to buy yourself something nice? How did you buy that ticket? Doesn’t it feel great to win something?” Nonverbal: maintaining eye contact, displays of positive emotions. |
| Passive and Constructive | “That’s nice.” Nonverbal: little to no active emotional expression. | |
| Active and Destructive | “I bet you are going to have to pay taxes on that. I never win anything.” Nonverbal: displays of negative emotions. | |
| Passive and Destructive | I had a bad day at work today.” Nonverbal: little eye contact, turning away. |
Dr. Seligman has shown that the only response which will make relationships strong is the active constructive response. To illustrate how un-natural this response is he tells a story of how he was teaching this very concept at a conference in Berlin. At the conference he gave the participants the opportunity to practice by dividing the group into pairs with person A presenting a good event and person B responding, then switching. (This highlights the truth is isn’t enough to just know what to do, you have to practice). Dr. Seligman’s family was along on the trip and the next day the whole family went to a large flea market. The family scattered to find a souvenir to remember the trip. Their two girls, Carly age 9 and Jenny age 6, where trilled and ran from booth to booth looking for the perfect souvenir. This is what happened when the family reassembled to share their treasures:
“Carly and Jenny were both sporting gold tiaras made of plastic and encrusted with costume jewels.
‘We got them for thirteen euros,’ Carly said proudly.
‘Didn’t you bargain?’ I (Dr. Seligman) retorted unthinkingly.
His son pointed out this is a good example of an active destructive response. None of us want to think that we respond in less that Active and Constructive ways. But we all do.
Dr. Seligman suggest that if we are to get better at responding to the positive events of others, we are going to have reflect on how we have reacted in the past and visualize the future. He suggests that we write down positive events that were recently reported to us, think about how we responded and WRITE how we wish we had responded. He goes on to suggest that we spend some time every morning thinking about who we will encounter, what good news they might share, and how we want to respond. This can never be insincere, but with deliberate practice it will become a habit of sincerely wishing the best for others. Once we get good at it, and I think we all can improve, we will find more people like us, more people will share the details of their life with us, and we’ll feel better about ourselves (we’ll be happier).
I don’t think that other people are hell, but I do think if we are going to have the good friends we all want, we MUST spend some time in reflection and visualizing of the future so that we can become better friends.
