Disclaimer: this isn’t about any situation in which i’m personally dealing with, but it is something i’m currently witnessing in someone else’s life. I do see it often with certain personality types and I know a lot of this can be about personality differences. I still think it’s annoying.
It’s okay to admit that you’re a superficial friend. It’s okay to admit to yourself that you are not a support system friend. Someone who is going through normal life hardships is not the same as the always in a crisis friend though. Someone sharing pieces of their life with you and it not being sunshine and daisies all the time is not them trauma dumping. It’s okay to admit to yourself that you are not this type of friend for someone or for anyone. It’s okay to communicate that to them instead of being rude to them until they go away because you would prefer small, positive talk and casual hang outs all the time over anything else. It’s okay to say no. It’s natural for people to want deep connections over time though so if you do not communicate then eventually that’s what will start to happen. If you only want surface level then make that known!! You’ll lose friends in the process, but at least you were honest and not stringing someone along.
What annoys me is the talking shit about every friend that is doing normal friend things such as seeking comfort during a hard time or opening up about something in their past (or even present). Not everyone is trying to be a negative Nancy because they are not making substantial effort to be an annoyingly positive person all the time. They’re not a robot. If you cannot handle that part of friendship then communicate it. You don’t need to nit pick everything they’re doing that isn’t ‘positive’ to try and find issues in someone. Sometimes your emotional unavailability is the problem. Not everything is supposed to be positive. Not everyone had a positive life. People will have bad days. Not everyone will always be living stress-free lives. Not everyone will be happy all the time. Not every conversation will be about happy things. Everyone around you will experience all other emotions aside from happy and energetic. They will be shocked, excited, sad, stressed, angry, grumpy, worried, have lower energy than most days, and feel the full spectrum of emotions. I don’t even know why anyone would want someone to keep all that in, but that’s beside the point. They’re a human-being, not a character. It doesn’t mean something is terribly wrong with them. It doesn’t mean they’re always negative. You can admit incompatibility.
And at some point the overall resentment that builds shows up in the already limited conversations everyone’s allowed to have with you becomes a bigger issue because it’s like ok, so what? they just said that it’s going to be rainy for the rest of the week. Are they really the most negative person because they mentioned the ‘bad’ weather? They love the rain. Maybe they want to make the most of the last remaining sunshine by doing something fun? Now you are annoyed and being mean to them over dumb things and it could have been prevented if you had just said to them that you can’t be a friend to them. You aren’t what they’re looking for. And I get it, it feels weird to outwardly communicate these things, but it’s better than what is currently happening where you’re building resentment because someone is seeking more out of the friendship and you just want superficial, positivity-only people in your life. Now they have a “friend” who talks shit about them, gets irritated over everything they do and say, can’t be honest with themselves, and tbh cannot handle anything.
At least by admitting to yourself that you’re not the type of friend to be anything more than superficial with then it would save a lot of time and bullshit for everyone involved.