PhDSciNet Roundtable 5: Have You Vented Today?

Historical interview: The following preserves the research experiences and personal views expressed in the original manuscript.

PhDSciNet Interview Series—Have You Vented Today?

If you clicked on this article, you have probably vented about someone before. A colleague? Your boss? Or, when you are feeling particularly harsh, even yourself? As human beings, we inevitably need social interaction, and friction arises. Things that we dislike and cannot help complaining about happen all the time. After venting, do you feel relieved, or suddenly guilty when you look back on it? How do you see venting? Is it talking badly about someone behind their back, or a quick way of finding people who share your views?

01 Do not demonize venting

Question 01: Online definitions describe venting as sharp criticism of words, actions, or things. Some people say it can quickly help you find a group of friends and build solidarity within and beyond a group. What do you think venting is?

Eureka: I do not think the venting we mean here is the kind of roast show you see on television, or a deliberate attempt to create a dramatic effect to attract attention or deliver a punchline. It is also different from so-called intellectuals or public figures publicly expressing their opinions. I think genuine venting is an ordinary person's need to talk things out. Fundamentally, it is like a confession prompted by affection, an outburst prompted by anger, or a scream prompted by fear. Your inner feelings reach a threshold, and you need to find an outlet into the outside world.

For me, venting is a perfectly ordinary social behavior, and I think the idea that “venting is simply badmouthing people” is a cognitive bias. Compared with other ways of socializing, the person starting the conversation usually has a preconceived view and often expresses very personal, one-sided judgments. But there is nothing inherently bad about that, because the listeners are often close partners, friends, parents, or colleagues. In that setting, I think venting is a very healthy, normal psychological or social behavior. Normal or positive venting can actually have meaning in your life.

Calorie: I think venting first of all means expressing your own views. The word itself implies some negative assessment of a situation or a person; it is a way of expressing emotions. Just as we cannot help praising delicious food, attractive people, or beautiful scenery, we also express opinions when we see things we dislike.

The question was whether venting can help us find friends, and I think there is some truth to that. We generally become friends because we like the same things or the same people. Disliking the same things can also bring us closer. Through venting, we can find people who are more like us. So I agree that it can help you find some friends.

Question 02: Is venting, to some extent, talking badly about people behind their backs? Where are its limits? Is it a kind of verbal art?

Eureka: I really do not think venting is the same as badmouthing someone behind their back. For me, its boundary is determined by one criterion: it is a private conversation that should not be made public.

If you broadcast it widely, it becomes public criticism, something closer to a polemical manifesto or an academic paper. It starts to sound like the views or truths proclaimed by a celebrity scholar. I do not think that counts as venting.

Venting is an exchange of personal values within a very small, private circle, with an obviously subjective character. You cannot inflate it into an ideological issue and demand that every sentence be “great, glorious, and correct,” representing some perfectly correct, progressive view. I think venting simply gives people a psychological outlet. We should not make it excessively righteous, but we should not treat it as excessively vulgar either. It is a very normal, private activity.

As for whether it is a verbal art, I do not think it should be elevated to that category. Calling it an art makes it sound like a television comedy show. I think venting is something very natural: away from the spotlight, people can relax, freely express their views, and share their feelings with their closest friends and companions. It is a kind of private enjoyment, rather than something to display to outsiders or submit to their judgment.

Calorie: I do think venting certainly contains an element of “talking badly about people behind their backs,” and that is something all of us have done.

Its limits depend on context. If we are talking “behind someone's back,” how many people are there, and how private is the setting? Are you venting to your boyfriend or girlfriend at home, or to coworkers at work? I think the number of people present matters. When venting, we may inevitably use somewhat intense language that goes beyond the facts. For me, the boundary is that it should not hurt the other person.

Another point is not to make the person listening uncomfortable. For example, sometimes friends whom I do not know particularly well complain to me about other people, and I can only remain silent most of the time because I cannot really join in. We should therefore choose the right person to vent to, so that we can do it comfortably and safely, receive feedback, ease our emotions, and avoid putting the listener in an awkward position.

I think that kind of process is relatively healthy and positive venting.

02 Venting may also be a form of self-protection

Question 03: In what circumstances do you usually vent?

Calorie: I think everyone has probably complained about a coworker, but these are usually small matters that do not have much bearing on our own interests. Often, we have simply seen someone do something a bit silly and joke about it behind their back.

I do not think making fun of yourself is necessarily a way of expressing your needs to someone else. When I poke fun at myself, or see others do it, I tend to regard it as self-protection. Many people use self-deprecation to soften how threatening they seem, show friendliness, and bring themselves closer to others. In most cases, I think criticizing yourself is a form of self-protection.

Question 04: What should you do if you feel guilty after venting?

Eureka: I do not feel that way. I am very happy after venting. I feel relieved, almost as though I have finally avenged a great wrong.

Calorie: I can understand that feeling. Perhaps you subconsciously believe that you should not vent, but could not help saying something in the moment. One part of this is how you see yourself: you feel that you “should not complain about other people.”

Afterward, you reflect on it and feel that what you did does not quite match your expectations of yourself, which leaves you a little disappointed. But I think reasonable venting is healthy because it releases your emotions. There is no need to feel excessively guilty.

03 Do not let venting take over your life

Question 05: Have you ever complained about your supervisor?

Eureka: Far too often. The person I most want to complain about is my supervisor. I think the biggest problems in a laboratory often do not come from students or postdocs. As the saying goes, a weak soldier affects one person, but a weak general affects the whole army. If you feel that a laboratory has serious problems, the main issue is generally with the supervisor. My own supervisor is a very laid-back person who is not particularly responsible toward students. Most of his energy goes into securing funding and publishing papers quickly to satisfy funding requirements or project targets. He gives very little thought to students' career development or to supervising them.

That created a poor overall research atmosphere in the group. During my PhD, I first tried actively communicating with my supervisor many times. I believed there was nothing wrong with my attitude or approach. I tried to speak to him earnestly, in a spirit of learning, and asked whether he could give me more time for individual, one-to-one conversations and guidance on my studies and research. But my requests never received a positive response; his answers were always vague. Right up to the day of my formal defense and graduation, he had not helped me much. He simply read the final version of my defense presentation and made a few changes. That was all.

I believe I am not the only person to encounter this kind of supervisor. But beyond complaining about him, you cannot make your whole life revolve around how to criticize him or spread stories about him so that other people will not become his students. I do not think that is useful either.

After all, your life belongs to you. To your supervisor, you may be a student whose presence barely matters, but to yourself, you are extremely important. Time passes in a flash; these few years are so short. Do not let the petty details of complaining undermine your own outlook. Remember why you started, and take care of your own work first.

Calorie: I agree. That is the attitude we should maintain: value our own lives and our own work. A perfect supervisor is hard to find. We can complain, but we still need to do the things we ought to do.

04 What if I accidentally become the bad pea?

Question 06: What should I do if other people start complaining about me?

Eureka: It can happen even if you are very nice, because you cannot expect everyone to understand you well. As I said earlier, “There is unexpected praise, and there is criticism that demands perfection.” These things are unavoidable in life.

If someone who does not understand you very well makes an inappropriate judgment, you can still listen and take it with a grain of salt. If you think there is even a little truth in it, that can actually be helpful: they have pointed out a mistake that you can correct. But if it makes no sense, there is no need to dwell on it. Just smile and let it go.

As long as it has not escalated to the point of seriously affecting you or becoming defamatory, I think you can leave it alone and not take it to heart; those who are innocent know their own integrity. But if someone maliciously attacks or provokes you, I think there may be a need to respond.

Calorie: Another way to think about it is to look through your circle of friends. Can you think of anyone who is absolutely perfect, with nothing to criticize? I suspect such a person does not exist.

Everyone does some things badly, so it is normal for people to complain about them—just as we complain about others. Even someone who never complains about anyone else might be criticized for that very trait. So do not worry too much about what people say.

Question 07: How do I decide whether I am easy to get along with?

Eureka: I think evaluating yourself begins with basic self-awareness. You should have a fairly accurate sense of whether you are easy to get along with.

You can also ask very close friends or your parents for their views. I think that, in the course of growing up, most people have already come to know, more or less, whether they are particularly easygoing.

Calorie: One more point I would add is that it depends on the environment in which you interact. If we are discussing a workplace, for example, the minimum requirement for getting along is that everyone follows the rules within that setting. In a laboratory or a studio, there may be established rules and workplace expectations. Following them shows respect for the working environment and for one another. I think that is the baseline for being easy to get along with.

Beyond that, if you can offer appropriate help and give others more encouragement and praise, you should be someone who is easy to get along with.

Question 08: A final word on venting.

Eureka: I think venting can be a good thing. There is no need to have too many reservations; we can enjoy the process. As long as you are not genuinely attacking someone maliciously or describing them in extremely offensive language, but are simply using it as a private outlet, I think it is a behavior that people should widely understand and accept. You do not need to carry too much of a psychological burden about it yourself.

But I think venting should remain private and should not be made public. Once many things become public, their nature changes completely.

So, within a private circle, you do not necessarily have to be overly careful about your choice of topics or the extent of your comments. You may not even need to impose strict limits, but you must protect that privacy and keep what you say from spreading. In that situation, venting can be a positive way of interacting with friends. I think you can enjoy it and make good use of it under those conditions.

I therefore encourage people to talk to friends about things around them, to release the unpleasant feelings they are carrying and leave themselves in a better mood.

Calorie: I agree. I do not think everyday venting usually crosses anyone's bottom line; it is often about small, ordinary things. We complain, and that is that—there is really no need to feel pressured. We can vent in a healthy and reasonable way, avoid hurting others, and make ourselves happier. That is enough.

Interview participants: Eureka and Calorie (in order of appearance)

Editor: Honey Peach Oolong

Interviewer: Fantuan

Audio recording: Huangyuan Wandou (黄圆豌豆)