If you’ve ever struggled with dealing with negativity from someone you genuinely like—but who seems to take subtle shots at you every chance they get—this story will feel uncomfortably familiar. In this candid and relatable post, April Shprintz shares a real-life example of how people-pleasing can quietly keep us tolerating disrespect, even when it starts to chip away at our happiness. Through an honest reflection about a negative neighbor, she walks through the moment she realized avoidance wasn’t the answer, how she set a calm but firm boundary, and why protecting your joy sometimes requires uncomfortable conversations. If you’re tired of dodging difficult people, absorbing negativity, or putting politeness ahead of peace, this post offers a powerful lesson in self-respect, boundaries, and choosing happiness without guilt.
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Dealing With A Negative Nelly? This Will Fix It.
Recognizing How People-Pleasing & Negativity Affect Your Happiness
I am so glad you’re here. The last episode inspired me because I know that there are still areas of my life where I do find a little bit of people pleasing. I’ve done it my whole life. It can be hard to get it all out there. I realized as I was doing the episode about how to help a child in your life, not be a people pleaser and how to step away from doing that yourself. There are still areas where I’m doing this. I’m going to call myself out, but I’m also going to tell you how I handled it because this might help you, too.
I love the neighborhood I live in. I love my home. I’ve done tons of things to make it even more beautiful. I’m big on the renovations and things. I have a neighbor who I have liked, respect and think is a great person but also, is this person a negative Nelly and beyond negative okay? There are negative people and then there are folks who cannot help but just take a shot at you every time they talk to you. I think I’ve realized what the issue is here. It’s just the fact that the more I spend money or do things for my home or show in some way, shape or form that I’m successful and happy, happy more than the successful, it triggers a fuck out of her.
She gets upset when I spend too much money on my house, and when I say spend too much money like get a new roof, redo the pool or what have you. Things that you kind of have to do. The display of spending the money seems to bother her. The fact that I am most of the time happy and perky having a good time. Folks, when I’m struggling, I stay in the house. I don’t go bother anybody with that but she seems to think that’s how I always am. When we interact, if I just go and say hello to her and speak to her for 3 to 5 minutes, she will take a shot at me every time and I just ignore it.
There are negative people, and then there are those who cannot help but take a shot at you every time they talk to you. Share on XI realize I’ve been just ignoring it now for years because the people pleaser in me always taught to respect your elders and she’s in her 80s. Again, I do genuinely like her, but she is starting to get on my nerves to the point that I want to avoid this woman. Now that’s impacting my happiness. How many people do you have like this in your life that you’re like, “Here comes Karen down the hall. I’m just going to jump into the bathroom real quick so I don’t run into her or there’s Bill and you know he’s always got something to complain about.”
I don’t want to live my life that way and I wouldn’t be true to who I am if I didn’t handle it so I’m going to tell you what I did. Number one, I was getting to the point where I was thinking I was going to confront when I was mad and what I was going to say was not going to be nice. I got the witty cutting come backs, which is a skill but isn’t one that you want to use on people if you can help it because sometimes, they are two bites. The thing about my comebacks is they’re always based in truth, which makes them sting much more. I want to be better than that.
Setting Boundaries & Standing Up For Yourself
I decided to talk to her about this from a good place before she had hit me with something. I’m going to call her Susan. I went to her and I said, “Susan, I feel like every time we interact you say something that is either negative or derogatory or candidly disrespectful to me and I don’t like it because I like you as a person. I think the world of you and I would like us to stay on a friendly basis. I think what might work best is when we see each other, we just wave hello and we don’t stop and chat. I don’t want to get to the point where we cannot interact because the interactions with you either irritate me or hurt my feelings.”
Let me just tell you that was scary. That was very scary. I feel like I’m not afraid to do anything but having this conversation with this neighbor was terrifying, but that was for me. I needed to stand up for myself and remind myself, “You don’t have to accept that kind of treatment for anyone and that your happiness is important.” I just threw up a little boundary and I figured one of three things was going to happen. Either number one, she was going to think I was crazy and stop talking to me all together.
That’s fine because I can be happy and think kind things about you if we don’t have negative interactions. Cool with that, or she was going to say, “Okay, we will only do that.” From then on, she would just wave and that’s fine too. I said three but it’s four. I thought there would be three things but there were four things that could have happened. The other would be that she said, “April, I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I’m so sorry. I’ll try harder or try to be kinder or whatever.” Let’s be fair. She could have like a phone off the handle and been mean to me and been crazy., right?
Any of those things could have happened and I was ready for it. I was like, “If she has a crazy reaction, that’s fine. That’s not about me. At least I stood up for myself. If she wants to work on this, I can give her another chance.” If she just says, “Let’s just wave to each other in the neighborhood. Cool.” If she then goes and avoids me, she’s not going to be the only neighbor that avoids me. She’s just going to be the only one I know about. What do you think happened? If you want to know, you’re going to have to tune in the next episode because that’s when I’ll tell you. Here’s to your success.
