There was a good Guy Browning piece in the Guardian a few years back about how to sulk. I’ve C&Ped it so you don’t get asked a small favour.
Sulking is emotional strike action. You still function as a human being but you work to rule. You must never agree to anything, you must only ever acquiesce to things. When someone asks if they should put the kettle on, the correct answer is, “If that’s what you want do to.” That’s because the underlying message for all sulking is that deep hurt is being felt because the other person is utterly selfish.
The big dilemma with sulking is whether you should slope off to another room and do it. Remember that out of sight is out of mind, and they might forget that you’re in a mountainous sulk. The best solution is to stay in the same room but pretend other people are not there.
Eye contact is a big no-no for sulkers for two reasons: firstly, no eye contact is the clearest possible sign that a major sulk is under way; secondly, if someone were to do anything funny or loving and you were to see it, you might inadvertently smile and the sulk would be irreparably damaged. It’s a cast-iron rule that once you’ve unsulked you can’t then resulk. It’s like frozen food - once you’ve defrosted you can’t then refrost.
Sulks can last anywhere between seven minutes and seven years. Teenagers are in an almost perpetual sulk because they are in a continual state of being misunderstood. When people are in a sulk they discover how much harder everyone else has to work to humour them. Some people enjoy this so much that they decide to become permanently grumpy.
The sulk, like the trifle, is a peculiarly British thing. That’s because it’s the form of emotional expression for people who don’t know how to express themselves. The sulk says, “I can’t express myself, so I’m not going to express anything and you’ll just have to guess what I would have expressed had I been able to express what I wanted to express.”
The sulkee then has to decide their response to the sulker. Ignoring the sulk is like ignoring the laundry basket - it’ll keep building up until it gets very unpleasant indeed. What’s generally required to end a sulk is a mixture of complete attention, physical reassurance, brief subjection to verbal sarcasm, and then major admission of guilt and selfishness.
As the air clears it’s absolutely vital not to say, “That was a big sulk, wasn’t it?” This is the quickest possible way of launching the world’s largest, longest and deepest sulk.
