I guess for me I have hard time listening to people saying how hard life is for them. It's probably because I'm a highly sensitive person plus I feel like I'm empathetic (feeling their pain a lot). There had been times when someone tells me about how hard something is and then I don't have anything to say back. Because I had not experienced what they are feeling.

Years ago I had a good friend. In fact he seemed like a "soul mate" for me. Lots of times, as I recall, he would complain about something that would happen to him or what was said to him. I had agreed with him a lot and felt like I had appreciated what he had to tell me. I would reply back to him saying that I felt the same way or experienced the very same thing. Perhaps him complaining to me was what made me feel like I could bond with him.

I feel like I'm not a "happy-all-of-the-time" kind of person myself. And I've had times when I would say something to someone about how I feel and they would just invalidate me. I would never want to invalidate anyone's bad feelings.