Never tell your problems to anyone . . . 20% don't care and the other 80% are glad you have them.

The quip is a blunt piece of locker-room stoicism: it warns that publicizing one’s troubles rarely yields sympathy or solutions. By dividing listeners into the indifferent and the secretly pleased, it suggests that complaint can invite judgment, schadenfreude, or exploitation rather than support. Read charitably, it encourages self-reliance and discretion—focus on solving problems instead of narrating them. Read critically, it can also be seen as overstating cynicism about human empathy, since trusted friends, family, or mentors often do care. Its punch comes from the exaggerated percentages, a rhetorical device meant to jolt rather than to measure.