8 Problems Sarcastic People Are Secretly Plagued By

1. Thinking, "Wait -- am I TOO negative?"

Updated 10 years ago, June 4, 2014

What builds the foundation for a sarcastic person? I can’t speak for everyone, but I do believe that growing up in New York City helps, where the default facial expression is a scowl. Go ahead and pick a subway car, any subway car, and you’ll notice most New Yorkers look catatonic, with the occasional eye-roll being the only indication that these are in fact humans and not automatons. But none of this feels out of the ordinary growing up in New York, until other people step into the picture — “happier” people — who didn’t grow up to the tune of cursing taxi drivers, and who have a hard time warming up to your cold, bitter soul.

1. Thinking, “Wait — am I too negative?”

The problem with fundamentally sarcastic people is that they tend to have a hard time turning it off. They also don’t know when to turn it off. While an everyday I-hate-the-world tirade might leave a sarcastic person feeling refreshed and revived, it often leaves others — those who didn’t grow up with concrete and smelly backyards — with bad tastes in their mouths.

2. Love.

If the growing popularity of dating sites has taught us anything, it’s that finding love ain’t easy. But it’s actually much worse for the sarcastically-inclined. Because they aren’t just looking for your average, run-of-the-mill love, but a love that’s founded on a shared hatred for love. Think this sounds confusing? That’s because it is.

3. Positive people.

When they’re not making the cynics nauseous by testing their patience ever so mercilessly, optimists are usually making cynics a bit envious. It’s not uncommon for the sardonic to actually look upon a group of bright, joyful mortals and, after the befuddlement and awe wears off, feel a tinge of yearning. Perhaps they imagine themselves turning over a new leaf, taking up cooking, arranging dinner parties and all with a big, goofy smile. But all too often they’ll end up getting bored of this, crawl back into their caves, and forget it ever happened.

4. The Internet.

The internet is not kind to those prone to sarcasm, largely because it’s not easy to convey sarcasm on paper. The result is often an unpleasant situation in which the internet disparages the sarcastically-disposed because they mistook a sarcastic tone for a serious, deadpan one.

5. Translating sarcasm.

Sarcasm is better off living in one language at a time; try and make a sarcastic joke to someone who doesn’t speak English very well, and it’ll likely misfire. And, as it happens, this isn’t always fun for a dry-humored person, who, like Daria Morgendorffer, has a hard time communicating anything in an unmocking tone. But it’s also the only choice they have — they either make the best of it and appear boring and unfunny, or else they’re not understood at all.

6. Being misunderstood.

Cyncis are constantly being misunderstood, especially in text messages. Although, to be fair, texting is not exactly the best tool for someone to show off his or her nuanced language. We can look to Daria again for inspiration, who’s lucky to have lived during the time she did because if she were still around today, her texts would be ruthlessly misunderstood.

But it’s a specific ilk of misunderstanding that slowly eats away at sarcastic people, one that is succinctly delineated in Wheatus’ acclaimed 2000 hit “Teenage Dirtbag” (I’m not sure why this image comes to mind when I think of a misunderstood cynic, but let’s just go with it). Wheatus paints the portrait of their Jason-Biggs-inspired “teenage dirtbag” who’s sadly misunderstood. “But she doesn’t know who I am,” the dirtbag whines, “And she doesn’t give a damn about me.”

7. The mid-sentence oops.

So accustomed to sarcasm as they are, the sarcastically-inclined routinely find themselves, mid-sentence, about to finish their cynically-flavored thought, when they suddenly lock eyes with their grandma and think “Wait — am I talking to the wrong crowd here? Is this schtick getting old? Can it get old?” But at that point it’s already too late; not finishing their thought is no longer in the cards, and so they wrap up their inappropriately-morose remark and, once more, glance over at the disapproving grandma.

8. Enjoying dark skies.

I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that London, the epicenter of sarcasm, is also the same country where cloudy skies abound. Dark humor finds no solace in the sunny Greek islands; no, it would much rather be sitting in the back, corner booth of a dark london pub. Committed cynics derive a strong, perverse pleasure from a dark, imminent storm, and from the prospect that they’ll be able to comfortably sit indoors and not get any slack for it. Which would all be fine for them, actually, if it didn’t clash so deeply with the more popular weather condition — sunlight.