I hear people talking all of the time about not liking other people and I have to admit that I just don’t get it.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been misunderstood so many times, discarded, disliked, not given the benefit of the doubt over and over, but I find myself not wanting to “dislike” anyone for fear that I might be wrong about them.  But I’m also a bit burned out on liking everyone when they don’t reciprocate. 

What do you think?

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I get it.  And honestly, I’m with you.  The whole concept of people not liking other people has puzzled me for many years now also.   Intellectually, I understand the concept, especially if you liken it to something like I don’t like steak or I don’t like watching professional sports or I don’t like cleaning the house.  I mean, everybody has their preferences, right?  And even so, something strikes me as wrong when you are applying this statement to another person. 

I can think of more than a handful of people who haven’t liked me over the years (and I know this because they have loudly proclaimed it or ghosted me or treated me exquisitely poorly).  And the one thing that I know without a doubt that all of these people had in common, the one thing I know with absolute certainty, is that these people knew virtually nothing about me.  Yes we might have interacted a bit, but not in any real or substantive way.  Maybe they saw something in me that felt familiar to them and so they assumed they knew me better than they did.  Maybe I made them uncomfortable in some tangible or intangible way.  But of one thing I am certain – they had to be telling themselves so many stories about me and who I was that they could no longer remain open to discovering the truth of me.

And this has no doubt gone both ways. More times than I care to admit, I have proclaimed to not like people.  Some I had heard stories and rumors about for so long that I refused to give them a chance.  Some I wouldn’t let myself like so that I would better fit in with other specific people, so hungry was I for belonging.  Some I ditched quickly because I thought I knew their type.  Others I disliked when I caught a whiff of their dislike of me.  But for all of them, I didn’t take the time or make the effort to simply get to know the real them.

You will often hear people say that when somebody doesn’t like you it’s more about them than it is about you.  And for most of my life, I have argued with that.  What do you mean?  They don’t like me.  What part of that don’t you understand?  That shit is personal! 

But over time it’s become apparent to me that we are all constantly creating characters to represent other people and therefore other people are creating characters to represent us.  And, too often, the character we create to represent somebody is only very loosely based on the actual, real person.  Doing this is largely unavoidable.  But once we know that we are doing it, that’s when we can start to choose differently.

So now I understand when people say to not take everything personally.  Now I understand when they say that somebody’s disliking me is more about them than it is about me.  Now I can see that it’s not necessarily as personal as I always thought it was. 

So what are we seeing when we look at other people?  Well, the characters we create that we think are the people around us are made up of a combination of a variety of things, but for the sake of simplicity, they can largely be grouped into four categories:

• Who they actually are: Spoiler alert, you actually have to talk to somebody to learn who they are.  In fact, this requires talking to them with an open heart and an open mind and with true curiosity. This takes time and a receptivity that many are unaccustomed to.
• Other assorted people that we’ve known that might share some basic demographic characteristic with them: Be they male, female, middle-aged, old, young, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, bespectacled, skinny, fat, curly-haired, straight-haired, pretty, ugly, wears cargo pants, wears diamond earrings, transgender, gay, tattooed, fast drivers, slow drivers, you name it, we can categorize by it.  We humans are dismayingly quick to categorize and think we know all about a person based on mostly superficial, descriptive data.  For whatever reason, our brains like to type a person and then believe we know all about their type, neglecting the fact that we are all absolutely unique individuals.
• Ourselves: When there is a gap in our knowledge regarding anything, but especially as it relates to other people, most of us find it impossible to keep from filling in those holes in our knowledge with characteristics we are unknowingly pulling from ourselves.  This is the very definition of projection and we do it all of the time with both good and bad traits, both traits that we embrace and traits that we are loathe to acknowledge.
• Things we’ve heard about them: When somebody talks about another person, it shapes both our initial and ongoing impressions of them.  If we hear about somebody, either good or bad, either before meeting them or often after already “knowing” them, it will shift our view of that person.  For instance, if the stories told about your Aunt Sally are that she’s eccentric and crazy and she’s talked about with much eye-rolling, you will start to see your aunt as somebody to be avoided.  However, if the stories about her are that the is brilliant and artistic and she’s talked about with excitement, the character you’d build for her would be exotic and appealing. Same person, different descriptors.  We do have the option to disregard what we’ve heard, but many of us don’t choose to do that or we are unable to override those biases.  Therefore, these descriptions will sadly often override our actual experiences of a person. 

In short, we see what we want to see, what we expect to see and what we fear more than we see what is actually there.  This makes what we think we actually know about somebody more of an optical illusion than fact, more subjective than objective.

Because only one of these categories has anything to do with who you (or they) actually are, we can see that they (or we) are spinning stories that sometimes barely represent reality.  Knowing this, it’s easy to see why when we are disliked, it’s possible, even likely, that it’s not about us. (And when we dislike others, it’s not really about them either.)

Knowing this doesn’t make being disliked any more comfortable though.

Even with people who we believe should know us well or, conversely, people we believe we should know well, like family members or people we’ve known for a long time, the truth is we may still not know them.  Whether it’s your child, your parent, your best friend, your next door neighbor, the woman you’ve worked with for 30 years, whomever, consider that you might not really know them. After all, time does not always lead to depth or clarity.

Sometimes we can get confused because we start to believe more in the character that other people have built to represent us than we believe in our own selves.  This can be especially true for people who grow up being disliked by a parent (yes, that happens more than you might think!).  In this case, we don’t yet know better and so we believe we are the person they have told us we are, even internalizing this messaging and starting to see ourselves that way too.  But most of the time they are describing the spun-up character, not the real us.  In fact, I believe that it is the rare parent who is open to truly seeing their child as they are, without the overlay of their own hopes, dreams, biases, disappointments and lofty expectations.

Unfortunately, regardless of who we’re talking about, we can never force somebody, anybody, to be open to getting to know the real us, even when we are able to decipher our real selves from who they think we are.  We also often remain largely unaware of how they actually see us, leaving us to interpret their behaviors or actions to try and deduce how they see us.  The whole thing can be quite maddening.

So while you can’t force somebody to truly see you, you can hold out for people who it seems are more willing to do so.  You can hold out for people who are less likely to categorize and dismiss you, less likely to deem you unlikable and more likely to try to get to know you. 

And while you can’t control the character that is being assigned to you, you can do your absolute best to resist the urge to categorize and dismiss others, instead choosing to try and get to know them. 

In fact, you always have the choice to stay intellectually and emotionally open to getting to know others, despite what they choose to do.

You always have the option to choose to remain curious rather than judgmental, even when they choose to judge you.

You always get to choose to dismiss gossip and rumors about other people, choosing to form your own opinions about any given person. 

Adopting these practices is likely to reduce the number of people that you categorically dislike.

Now, this can obviously create problems when you are determined to stay open to people who are themselves quick to categorize and dismiss you, claiming they don’t like you.  I am absolutely not advising that you try to force connection with such people.  I know that I have often wanted to SHAKE people who don’t like me and I have too often BEGGED people to see the real me.  Yes, literally.  In fact, many times when people have openly disliked me or shunned me or opted out (yes, I had one woman actually say that to me), I have become nearly obsessed with proving to them that they simply aren’t seeing me clearly.

But begging people to see you clearly when they are unwilling or unable to do so will not work.  All you have the power to do is to see your own self clearly and then resist the urge to retaliate their lack of openness, lack of curiosity and lack of kindness. 

I am advising that you yourself can resist the urge to reciprocate their tendency to dislike. 

I challenge you to shift your wording, your thinking.

I don’t like understand them.

Does this mean that I’m advocating for staying where you aren’t appreciated?  Absolutely not.  And I know from experience that this can be extremely painful if you are not liked in your own family or in the places where you spend most of your time.  But keep in mind that that means more about them and their ability to truly see you than it does about you.  Can you grow and improve?  Absolutely.  Do you deserve to be disliked?  No.  Sometimes you have to move out of the circles of people (family or not) where you are grossly misunderstood to make yourself available to other, more enlightened and open, people.

Time and again, I’ve heard stories from people that listened to a record or a new genre of music and immediately disliked it.  But for one reason or another they ended up listening to it over and over and over again.  Maybe it was the only record they had and they simply listened to it on repeat because it was there.  Maybe something inside them compelled them to continue to listen.  But each time I’ve heard a story like this, it ends with the person eventually growing to appreciate, even love, the record.

I am suggesting that the same can be true of people.   

I am suggesting that, if you are both able to stay open to and curious about another person, you will learn that it is always more nuanced than I like this person or I don’t like this person.  You don’t need to adopt this type of black and white thinking.  You might have more or less in common with any particular person during different periods of your life and you might share senses of humor with some and not with others and you might see eye-to-eye with only a subset of people, but there is a big range between liking someone completely and disliking someone completely.  I challenge you to live in the middle.

I challenge you to not take the shortcut that is saying you don’t like someone. 

I challenge you to find the nuance, the truer explanation, for why someone might make you feel uncomfortable.

I challenge you to recognize that the character you have created for another person is simply that, a character that is only loosely based on facts and truth. 

I challenge you to stay open to getting to know a person better, thereby increasing the percentage of this fictional character that is reflective of truth.

So, back to your question.  What do I think about this whole concept of people not liking you or you not liking them? 

I think that, in the end, you are the only authority on you, and conversely, others are the only authority on them.

I think it’s sad that we feel so compelled to categorize and discard.

I think claiming to dislike someone is taking the easy way out and is an attempt to avoid discomfort.

I think that when you find yourself thinking you don’t like someone, instead choose to lean in, to get to know them a little better.

I think that you can only know a person as well as they are willing to know themselves, and this will limit you at times, but you can still remain open to every single person you meet. 

I think that you can choose to spend your energy on being open to truly knowing yourself. 

I think that not everybody will be interested in getting to know you and you can let them go without choosing to dislike them in return. 

I think that you can choose to focus on the people that are willing to spend the time and effort to get to know you.

I think that someone disliking you is actually more about them than it is about you, and so it is also true that your disliking somebody else is more about you than it is about them.

Let that sink in.

Now go out into the world with your head held high and stop worrying about who likes you and who says they don’t. Spend more time recognizing how you are spinning up your own stories – the rest will take care of itself.