Emotional vampires are people who drain all your energy because of their negativity. They have a tendency to unload all their problems on other people until the life is sapped from their listeners. Avoid being victimized by following these simple rules:
Stay in a group
Emotional vampires like to engage their victims in one-on-one situations. If there are no other people, they can have a monopoly on your attention. A group setting will ensure that you will have more interactions with other people, lessening the chance of an emotional vampire entrapping you with sob stories.
Refrain from asking questions
Questions send the message that you are interested in the story and this will only serve to encourage emotional vampires. Not asking questions shows a lack of interest in the topic and will discourage further elaboration.
Change the topic
One thing about emotional vampires is they can rant about one thing for long stretches of time and return to the same topic time and time again. Whenever you feel that an emotional vampire is about to launch into his or her favorite issue once again, make a quick topic change. If he or she persists, be just as insistent to want to talk about something else.
Don't offer advice
Emotional vampires like to pretend that they want your advice and usually use this as an excuse to confide in you. But you'll soon notice that regardless of what you suggest, emotional vampires will continue to do what they want to do. Emotional vampires talk because they like hearing themselves speak. They are not interested in what you have to say. Don't waste your time offering tips they will never follow.
Just say no
Sometimes, no matter how much you want to be nice, it just doesn't get you anywhere. Take the direct approach and tell them that you are not interested in hearing them rant, not because you don't feel sympathy, but because listening to them drains you. If they become offended, then so be it. At least you got rid of your emotional vampires.
Everyone has problems and, now and then, we need to speak with someone so we can let things off our chest. But this does not give us the right to burden someone else with our problem. Don't allow yourself to be victimized by these sympathy-mongers.
