On Saturday night, just after ten o'clock, I drifted down to my local pub. It had been a hot day and I just fancied necking three or four pints of my favourite brew - Tetley's bitter.
Over the years, I have seen many barmen and barmaids come and go. Oftentimes they are university students seeking extra income to pay off loans or to fund travels or just to put food on their tables.
There's a nice lad working there just now. He is called Luke and he is from Liverpool. Whenever I have met him we have enjoyed what the Irish call a good "craic" together, happy in each other's company.
On Saturday he talked of his mother who is a hospital nurse and he explained her key philosophy with regard to other people.
"My mother says you meet two types of people. Drainers and Radiators. Drainers draw the lifeblood out of you and radiators leave you feeling lifted."
The notion resonated with me and perhaps it will do with you too. In my life, I have met many people who are naturally judgemental - seeking weak spots and loopholes in others. Digging away and maybe if you report something you have done or experienced they will leap on it, keen to outdo you with their own tales. They are the drainers.
Equally I have met many other people who take you as they find you, listen to what you have to say and show interest with follow up questions that are not intended to bring you down. They are people who make you feel warm inside and better about yourself. They are the radiators.
Which are you? A drainer or a radiator.?
To tell you the truth, when I reflected on this idea as I was preparing Sunday's barbecue, it seemed to me that in reality most of us have our feet in both camps. Sometimes we might tend to boost other people and at other times we chip away at their foundations.
The dichotomy is not as clear cut and rigid as Luke's mother might have suggested. Even so, as a social being, I thought it was an interesting way of looking at other people and there's probably a vein of wisdom in that particular cheese. We seem to spend our entire lives trying to make sense of everything, especially the people who enter our orbits.
There is truth here although I am thinking of the other old saw that says, "There are two types of people on earth. Those who think there are two types of people on earth and those who do not." I will say that I used to fill my life with what you might call drainers. Slowly and surely, I have eliminated them. And I hope to be, I TRY to be, the sort of person who makes others feel good about themselves, to show them the positive aspects I see and feel about them. The things that make me love them.
ReplyDeleteInteresting reflections Mary. Thanks.
DeleteExcellent philosophy although, as you noted, it's not quite as black and white as that. It depends on the situation, the people involved and how one is feeling on any particular day.
ReplyDeleteThings are rarely as straightforward as we might like them to be.
DeleteI think we can all be both, but should perhaps to be more radiator than draner.
ReplyDeleteSo in other words there is some good and some bad. Sometimes we have good days and help people and some days we are a problem.
ReplyDeleteAs a blog commenter, you are most definitely a radiator Red!
DeleteThere are three kinds of people in this world, those who can count and those who can't.
ReplyDeleteLooking at it another way, maybe there are just two types - the living and the dead.
DeleteAgree with most of us having a foot in each. Sometimes which camp you lean toward is a function of who you are with and the circumstances that brought you together in this place.
ReplyDeleteYes Tigger. Circumstances. And I would also suggest that none of us can really help who we are. It is almost impossible to change.
DeleteVery few things in life can be sorted so easily into certain categories, least of all people. Most of us have days when we feel good about ourselves and can spread that goodness to others, while at other times we do not particularly like ourselves or are unhappy about something; it then becomes difficult to be a radiator.
ReplyDeleteWhen I began to have piano lessons at 15, my teacher told me about this radiator/drainer thing. It certainly is like that often, with many people, but not all the time and with everyone.
Hmm... this one is quite interesting .
ReplyDeleteI have to say that living with a drainer would be quite exhausting.
Especially if it was a kitchen drainer by the sink.
DeleteOne of my neighbours, who I am avoiding for now, is a drainer. We visit and have long conversations, but after, I am always feeling sad about something she has said, so I stay away for a while, like I am right now. she thinks music is rubbish and doesn't like babies and I love both, so we agree to disagree mostly, but I have adorable new babies in my life right now and I don't want to hear her views on that.
ReplyDeleteHow can she not like babies? Babies are our hope for the future and we were all babies once. My greatest joy since January 15th 2021 has been to witness our darling granddaughter's development. Pure magic.
DeleteShe doesn't like a lot of things and is racist as well.
DeleteI'm probably a mixture of the two. I have days when I moan and days when I listen to others. I try to be the latter most of the time, but, as someone else said, there are circumstances when one might be forgiven a bit of a moan.
ReplyDeleteThe death of my "difficult" younger brother has caused me to arrive at a very simple observation - namely, that we cannot help who we are and who we are is exceedingly difficult to change. Do you think this was true of your Greg?
DeleteYes I most definitely think that is true of Greg. He wanted to change but couldn't and I think addiction was probably very deep-seated in him because not only could he not give up the drinking but he had tried to give up smoking for decades and couldn't.
DeleteI think we all have a mixture of the two. It's a balancing act, often depending on how we feel in certain situations. Hopefully most of us tend towards being radiators, but there are certain people who make an art of being drains!
ReplyDeleteOne of them will be Britain's next prime minister.
DeleteAlthough there is truth in what Luke said, I prefer to ignore such things because it focuses on blaming someone else. Instead I much prefer to look internally and try to do/act true to who I am regardless of how I affect others people around me. It sounds a bit selfish for sure but I believe that if I am good, those around me will adopt some of that and be good people too, i.e. if I don't dig and drain, they won't dig and drain me.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you are an accidental radiator Ed - even if you don't mean to be.
DeleteI think that I aspire to be a radiator but regret that I might have been a drainer on some occasions. I try hard to encourage and support others but sometimes I fail. But I keep trying, Neil.
ReplyDeleteNone of us can help who we are.
DeleteThat's an interesting question! I think you're probably right that there's a little Drainer and Radiator in all of us. I have a rather snarky sense of humor which is probably a Drainer quality, but I like to think I'm a Radiator overall. Of course I could be kidding myself. LOL
ReplyDeleteHaving read your blog for a good long while, I'd say you tend to look for the good in other people and seek to encourage whenever possible.
DeleteHmmm... I am 100 % sure that I left a comment to this post yesterday, and I don't believe it was offensive in any manner so that you would not publish it. Maybe it went to spam?
ReplyDelete