Venting can help us bond, but it can also leave a sour taste in your mouth – where is the line, and why do we love doing it?
It’s a rush to realize you dislike the same person as someone else. There’s a delicate, intoxicating dance: throwing out oblique criticisms and prowling around the edges until one person takes the leap and bravely says: “Honestly, they kind of suck.”
Soaking up the golden rays of your rightness and another’s wrongness can feel exhilarating. Then, sometimes, there’s a comedown. It hits a little later, or even while you’re making a snarky comment: a sour taste in your mouth that makes you wonder if you went too far.
About Author
More Stories
I keep fantasising about living in total solitude in a forest
Microsoft unveils chip it says could bring quantum computing within years
Five years on from the pandemic, the right’s fake Covid narrative has been turbo-charged into the mainstream | Laura Spinney