Why Don’t I Like You?
It took me a minute to name the negative, angsty feeling I got when looking at her social media posts. Being an amiable, agreeable person, who prides myself on my ability to get along with most people, the feeling wasn’t a familiar one. I sat with it for a minute, wondering at it, until I realized what it was.
“I don’t like her.”
At first it was actually a little freeing. I can dislike people! Look at me, not liking someone! I don’t have to like everybody, and I’m acknowledging that thisbody I do not in fact like. I felt a little satisfied with my dislike.
Then, sometime later, I paused on another post. And my satisfaction with my autonomy of dislike withered as I realized that this wasn’t the case at all. I don’t dislike her. I actually like her quite a bit. But years back, when we were young friends in college, she acted toward me in a way that made me feel insignificant. Foolish even. And as adulthood progressed, this was reinforced years later with the realization at a wedding that my interest in her was not reciprocated.
Insignificance.
Which made me think about why we like people. Sometimes, subconsciously, we treat people almost like mirrors. There’s the ones that reflect back an image that’s favorable, and we like those mirrors. But then there’s those that reflect back something a little warped. Sometimes even worse, they reflect something depressingly accurate that we’d rather not see. We avoid these mirrors. Maybe we blame them. Maybe we even hate them.
When I look at her I remember things about myself that I wish weren’t true. I remember my self-importance and my awkwardness. Things I like to think I’ve outgrown to some degree, but fear I haven’t. I remember my deep fear of being uninteresting. Dull. Usual.
A tension in life exists in the paradox between our deep, unquestionable value and our relative insignificance. We treasure the people that remind us of our value, we despise those that remind us of our insignificance. Really, though, we need to be reminded of both. One for the sake of worth, the other for the sake of humility. And humility has not generally been my strong suit. And so I’ve detested the mirror that showed me that to some people in the world, I am simply not…. important.
But that’s ok.
So my question to myself is… am I mature enough to like someone who doesn’t care about me? To admire what’s admirable, to hope for what’s good for them? Or does someone’s value only lie in their ability to value me?
