What to Do When People Don't Like You? Nothing!
What to Do When People Don't Like You? Nothing!
I was analyzing the behavior a male checker I have been dealing with a long time today. I had my first conversation with him the other day, and I always thought he didn’t like me.
I thought the conversation went ok, but today when I analyzed it in fine detail and looked for the pattern, I figured out that he still doesn’t like me and he was communicating that in the conversation.
It was a depressing revelation but I think next time I won’t talk to him at all. Turns out I was right all along.
The problem here is that we are optimists, and there’s a part of us I call the subconscious cope that keeps trying to tell us that everyone likes us even when it’s quite clear that they don’t.
The cope exists because it’s very insulting and depressing to realize that someone - anyone - doesn’t like you.
The implication is that you’re something wrong, and it implies that you weren’t so damned…whatever…they might like you. So you have to agree that you are defective and unlikable if only in this one case.
Most don’t want to admit this, so a lot of us keep trying with unfriendly people, say at counters, in this faint hope that maybe this time they’ll be nice.
The subconscious cope also tries to convince you that they really like when it’s obvious that they don’t.
This is a problem because you keep giving unfriendly people second chances, try to engage in one more conversation, always with the idea that “If this person really knew what a great guy I am, there’s no way that they would hate me.”
The problem is that pretty much none of this is going to work. All you’re going to do by continuing to engage them is get more rejection. You’re digging the hole deeper and in a sense, you’re a bit of a social retard.
I finally figured out, once again in my 60’s, that this is basically hopeless. Once people don’t like you and you keep getting that attitude repeatedly, they’re simply hopeless, and they’ll never like in you in a hundred years no matter what you do or say or act.
Changing your behavior doesn’t seem to help, as it’s usually a mystery why they don’t like you, so there doesn’t seem to be any way to adjust your behavior to make yourself more likeable. Basically, you’re fucked.
Every now and then one of these people comes around and starts acting friendly if something in your life changes, but then they’ll still often be unfriendly.
My landlord was completely hostile until she saw me bringing women around to stay with me for a night or even a week or so.
I was a single man in middle age, and there wasn’t much going on romantically, so this didn’t happen very often.
But as soon as she saw me bring women around she completely changed and stopped hating me all the time. I guess she hated me because she figured I was some guy who never got laid.
Why on Earth anyone who hate some poor schmuck who never gets laid is beyond me, but apparently it’s an extremely common attitude.
The problem is that by hating him you’re just making him miserable, and the more miserable you make him, the less likely he is to get laid because women run from misery like it’s a ghost.
So you hate the guy for something, and then you treat him in such a way that he’s going to act even worse. That doesn’t seem intelligent.
This happened in another case too. I used to go to a coffee shop every day, and there was this guy who never liked me at all.
Then I had this woman come visit me. She stayed for about a week. We went to the coffee shop just about every day. The guy completely changed. Even after she left he was giggling and laughing and all smiles every time he dealt with me.
Is sex really this fucking important to people?
You’re Probably Never Going to Figure out Why People Don’t Like You
There’s a problem with people who hate you and that’s that you’re unlikely to ever figure out why they hate you.
If you’re going through a bad spell mentally or deteriorating psychologically, I guarantee you that most of the time this is going on, people are going to treat you like the worst shit.
I don’t know why but people absolutely despise someone who looks like they’re losing it or falling apart. So in that case you can pretty easily tie it into your deteriorating mental health.
Say your mental health is stable (either healthy or unhealthy, it doesn’t matter) and you think there’s nothing obviously wrong with you psychologically (you don’t feel crazy, anxious, down, or miserable).
In that case, it’s almost impossible to figure out why people hate you.
There are quite a few people in this town who act like they don’t like me at all. For the life of me, I have absolutely no idea why they feel this way. I’ve wracked my mind forever and I still can’t understand it.
When I first moved here a long time ago, I heard that a lot of the people at the local coffee shop absolutely hated me. They said I was “creepy” and they were all terrified of me.
I haven’t the slightest idea why they thought I was creepy, nor do I understand why they were scared of me.
I’m a pacifist and actually I’m a very nice person, or at least I try to be. I want to be the nicest guy on Earth (within reason) and that’s how I try to act. Whether I succeed or not is another matter, but that’s the goal.
I don’t feel angry most of the time nor do I feel malicious or destructive thoughts towards others. I’ve don’t commit crimes that victimize others and I’ve hardly done it in my life.
I do have OCD and I’ve heard that this can give you a weird distracted look in your eyes. It’s true I can’t control my mind very well, and I’m dealing with all sorts of intrusive cognitions on a pretty regular basis, maybe all the time.
I’m trying to stop them but they keep intruding anyway. It’s sort of like the Iron Dome shooting down incoming rockets.
I’m also very much a stoic with a constricted affect. People have said that I’m like a rock. Sometimes I get a vibe like people think I’m a wooden Indian, made of ice, or a stone sculpture.
I actually have all sorts of feelings going on all the time, but they’re microfeelings, so you mostly can’t see them. But the impression is you’re dealing with Mr. Spock.
My voice is normal and I’m attuned to nonverbal communication such that I’m making little micromovements in my eyes and face a good part of the time I’m talking to you or even if I’m just taking in a scene.
I’m adjusting my thoughts and feelings to the changing thoughts and feelings of those around me. That’s the definition of someone with good social skills right there because people with no social skills don’t do that.
This is especially true in a conversation where I’m adjusting my thoughts and feelings to react to those of my interlocutor.
I’m also checking the conversation all the time to see how well it’s going over and if I have to adjust or change anything. I’m analyzing everything all the time. I still don’t do this very well though, and I have to better at this.
The micromovements seem to be socially skillful in my opinion. Hell, I can almost read minds. You might expect me to have a robot voice, but that’s not the case at all.
I think my voice is pretty normal. I hope it’s not too stoical, but I’ve gotten vibes a few times on the phone, especially with a very professional person (one was a book publisher and another was a university professor) like people think my voice is constricted too.
The higher you go on the social totem pole, the more controlled people get, the more strictly they follow all the social rules, and also the more in tune they are to people who are not following the rules in the right way.
It seems like all sorts of emotions are running through my head whenever I’m talking to someone.
So people could be reacting to this rock-like stoicism. Perhaps they think it’s weird or bizarre. I haven’t the faintest idea because no one ever tells me what I might be doing wrong.
You would think that you could ask people why they don’t like you, but that’s never going to work.
First of all no one is going to admit that they don’t like you. Everyone is going to say that it’s not true, they like you just fine, and the problem is you’re paranoid.
They’re gaslighting you! Then they’ll go and tell everyone they know, including others who don’t like you, that you accused them of not liking you and that you’re really weird and paranoid.
All of the other haters will agree that no one hates you, and they will think it is very disturbing how paranoid you are. They’re gaslighting you too! So just don’t bother.
Perhaps someone may tell you sometime why some person or persons doesn’t like you.
But I’ve lived here in this city for many years, and almost no one has told me a single reason why any particular person might not like me, and plenty of people are pretty damned unfriendly.
So it’s going to be a gigantic mystery forever, and there’s no point in trying to solve it because there’s basically no solution.
I’ll go over this in another post, but basically if there’s something wrong with your brain - say you are autistic or have a mental disorder, even a minor one like an anxiety disorder - you’re just going to come across weird no matter how many of those stupid rules you memorize.
You can teach these people social rules til the cows come home, but it won’t do a lick of good because their presentation is so weird, and most people are too stupid to figure out that someone’s presentation isn’t a reliable indicator of their sanity or social skills.
In addition, if you come across as weird, you can have the exact same social skills, tell the same jokes, make the same comments, and engage in the same behaviors as a normal person.
But the normal person’s speech and behaviors will be regarded as normal while yours will be regarded as evidence of weirdness despite the fact that your behavior is exactly the same as the normal person.
What is an indicator of your sanity? Your speech and behavior! If your speech and overt behavior are normal, you’re not that far gone, and in an important way, you are still quite sane.
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