What happens when you express gratitude rather than simply feel it?

Surprisingly, I have found it depends on the situation. Most people are very receptive to gratitude! They are looking for it and they take it up, agree, and return their own statement of gratitude. They feel lifted up. Together, you share something. But I’ve also found that a few people, at least some of the time, dig in to their negativity. and I have sometimes been barraged with negative statements or even anger for offering one, mitigating or grateful sentence that they might have used to feel better.

What I’ve learned from this is certainly I have to get better at reading a person! I did not feel that offering a statement of gratitude meant that I was unsympathetic to them, but it’s perplexing how heavily invested people can get at times with gloom, or criticism, or sarcasm, even when it means they have to distort the truth to arrive there and stay there.

So that answer sounds a little glum, lol. It is fortunately, rare, but it happens often enough. Most of the time expressing gratitude around others makes others feel better, too. We certainly can use more positivity in our communities these days. I’m just trying to recognize and figure out how to be helpful or at least not provocative when someone doesn’t want to hear it.