Do People Secretly Hate You? Probably.

Do you ever feel like people hate your very guts? I think we all feel this way. Usually for no reason. Brains are cruel, cruel things, and they regularly lie to us about our looks, success, friends, and how well we think we can pull off a swimsuit.

I’d say 99 out of 100 times, our insecurities are completely unfounded. Yes, you do know what you’re doing. Yes, your fees are fair. Yes, you can get away with wearing short-shorts. (Newsflash, wear whatever the fuck you want).

But guess what? Every now and then our worst fears are valid.

It’s entirely possible that right now, someone out there hates your very existence.

I mean, think about it. Do you secretly hate anyone? I secretly hate at least four and a half people and actively dislike dozens more. As in, people who know me. People related to me. Would they ever guess? Hell no! I’m polite as fuck! I’m way too chicken for confrontations and I believe in being a nice person, even when someone’s presence makes me loathe being alive. I’m normally a wretched liar, but for some reason I can really pull off fake liking people. I guess it’s from a lifetime of practice. So if I, Ms. Miffed, one of the nicest people on the planet, can find others secretly abhorrent, why wouldn’t they return the favor?

Most of the time, we skip through life, blissfully unaware of our un-likability. After all, if we sucked, surely someone would tell us? We’d get some clue, some hint of our detestability. Right?

Depends on the quality of people who hate you. If they’re wonderfully kind, like myself, you may never know in this mortal life that they secretly call you poop face and dumb ass in lieu of your actual moniker.

You’ll have no flaming clue.

I have a lot of thoughts on this. First, the very idea that this is a real and viable possibility fills me with anxiety. It would be easy to lie awake at night, trying to winkle out the most likely of your “friends” who may have a doll-version of you they stab in the eye with safety pins every night. It would be absolutely natural to wonder if your coworkers really respect you or if they bitch about your punch-able face whenever you go the bathroom. It’s enough to drive you to a paranoid frenzy. Especially since there might be a grain of truth to it.

Brace yourself but…it’s highly likely that someone out there doesn’t like you.

Now, perhaps you already know this. I’m a bit late to the game, myself. I figured I didn’t know enough people for them not to like me. One must have social interactions with others to be hated, yes? But no. Even I, with my tiny, miniscule circle of acquaintances surely have my haters. Why do I bring this up? Well, it’s something I’ve been struggling with. Hating others has always come naturally to me. I’m a grumpy gal, and easily irritated. But coming to the conclusion that I’m no picnic in return? Somehow I managed to be surprised. I’ve had a few isolated incidences of people outwardly not liking me. One of my earliest memories of it was when I was about 10 years old. My twin had a best friend we’ll call L. L was a lying bitch. I’m not exaggerating. She was actually a habitual liar, the kind who should probably get help, honestly. Her tall tales were such that you couldn’t believe a single word from her mouth, and it made me dislike her intensely. I also didn’t trust her with my belongings. I don’t remember if she ever actually stole anything from me, but once she was in our bathroom with T (my twin), doing each other’s hair and play makeup. I knocked for them to let me in, politely stepped inside, and without another word I pulled out my entire bathroom drawer and took it into my bedroom so that she couldn’t mess with my shit.

For some reason she was insulted.

I have a journal entry ranting and raving about her. I wrote that L didn’t like me because she said I was, “A grumpy crybaby chicken who’s unpopular and dresses stupid.” See what I mean? Bitch. Anyway, other than my siblings, it may have been the first time someone outright said they didn’t like me. I was angry enough about it to immortalize the insults in my diary and though I find it funny now, there’s still a  part of me that will never forget the rather aggressive slight.

The next hint that someone didn’t like me came from a guy during my 20s. The tale with him is so entirely fucked up that it would take several blog entries to cover and I just don’t have that kind of energy. To massively streamline it, he had an unrequited thing for my twin, I (rather stupidly) had a thing for him, and when one of my supposed friends told him, he decided to confront me about it. We were driving back from Seattle, a trip that was hours from our town. It was late, dark, and it was just him and me. He pulled over at a rest stop, which confused me because it’s not long enough of a drive to warrant a pit stop. He turned the car off, got out and proceeded to tell me that he knew of my “feelings,” for him. Then he decided to tell me every mother fucking reason why he did not return those feelings. He then spent the better part of an hour going over each and every character flaw I could possibly have had. I just listened, in humiliation and shock. I was stranded. Hours from home, no car, no one to call. I was just stuck in the middle of nowhere while this asshat told me everything that was “wrong” with me. The two biggest points against me that I remember? I was too negative and my ass was too big. While I do own the fact that I am rather negative (too bad fuckers), he was dead wrong about my ass. It was curvy and gorgeous and he was an absolute idiot for thinking otherwise.  

I won’t get into the saga of this complete dick, because there is sooooooo much more to the story. But, it is a very jarring thing when someone isolates you physically like that and you have to listen to critique after critique because you are literally at their mercy. I will never forget that experience. Never.

I’m unhappy to say that, through my facebook stalking, I see he’s living a happy and wonderful life that he in no way deserves for so many reasons. He’s a prime candidate for a doll-likeness full of safety pins, no question about that.

So, other than L and dickwad, I haven’t been overtly confronted about any real or imagined short comings for the most part. I am pretty wonderful, after all. And normal people don’t treat others that way.

Then, 2020 happened.

In February of that horrid year, T had a baby. Her third, and she had a really rough go of it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there for her. We were in lockdown and I was terrified of accidentally getting her family sick anyway, never mind the fact that I never saw anyone or went anywhere. In the early days of the pandemic, I was practically convinced that driving by a store with my window down would give me Covid. Everything was so new and panicked and I’ve always been a germaphobe. Add to the mix that one of her other kids has type 1 diabetes and she said in the past that if anyone was accidentally responsible for his death, she’d never ever forgive them. So…can you see why I’d be careful, regardless of the lockdown? A simple cold screws with his blood sugar levels for days, let alone covid.

So, I didn’t see her. For months. I texted her all the time. I dropped off groceries sometimes. I got her toilet paper when she couldn’t find any. I tried to be there in little ways like that. And above all I missed her. She was my twin, after all. My best friend. Pre-covid we’d see each other 2-3 times a week. We’d go on walks and talk and go shopping or on car rides and it was the best. And then suddenly, nothing.

Eventually, restrictions lessened. Cases were down, I felt comfortable seeing her again. That said, if I had an INKLING of feeling sick, I’d cancel. My throat tickled? Cancel. I sneezed too much that day? Cancel. I had a headache? Cancel. I couldn’t risk any of those being pre-covid symptoms. Not with her kids at stake.

As the pandemic went on, things loosened up a bit more. I realized that I wasn’t sick. I was paranoid. I never once got sick that whole time. I was just so keyed up from the very possibility that I psyched myself out. Oh well, better safe than sorry. I still hold to that. I haven’t changed much. I take a lot of precautions when it comes to covid. For myself and for my twin’s family. However, this whole situation ended up causing a problem.

Things were…strained. I started seeing her more regularly but it just wasn’t the same. Our conversation didn’t flow like it used to. She seemed indifferent about things now. When our usual hang out day didn’t work I’d offer her another one instead and she’d say things like, “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just do next week.” In the past, seeing each other was paramount. It was our favorite thing to do, to be together. Now she was so uncaring. So unaffected. I asked her about it and she simply said, “Oh I just got used to it. I’ve realized that we’re not really friends anymore, we’re just sisters. And that’s ok. I’ve moved on.”

What. The. Fuck?

Ensue the biggest fight we’ve ever had in our entire twinned life-span. I went home and cried. I emailed her how upset I was. She wrote back savage things, saying it was my fault for always canceling all the time, that I threw away our friendship, blah blah blah. It got incredibly cruel and I was in absolute shock. I have never felt so betrayed in my entire life. I thought this was my best friend. I thought this was my twin. Why was she acting this way? I seriously came this close to cutting her out of my life and never talking to her again. It was scary how close it came.

Eventually, though, we talked some more. And I came to a realization. She actually thought I was lying. That I had made up all those cold symptoms. That my tickly throat was just me not wanting to hang out with her and her kids. That I thought her children were annoying (they certainly can be), and that it was my way of getting out of being around her and them. She’d really needed support with her new baby and it had scarred her to have to do everything so isolated and alone those first few months. And me withdrawing, me not being there and “making excuses,” just made her feel like she’d been abandoned. That I wasn’t interested in our friendship, in her family, in her.

I was blown away. I explained that, no, I really was just afraid of accidentally killing her son. That’s it. I was being honest, I was being paranoid, and that she should know by now how much of a germaphobe I am. And just like that, our fight ended.

Are things perfect now? No. But we’ve learned to communicate. We’ve learned to try to accept what the other person tells us at face value. We’ve learned to be more honest when things are bothering us. And while we’re still not where we used to be pre-pandemic, our friendship is better. When things start to become a problem, I know we can be open about what’s happening and deal with it.

So what the hell does this have to do with people secretly hating you?

Here’s the thing. There’s a lot of reasons people don’t like us. Some may be valid. Some may be character flaws on their part, such as not appreciating big butts. Others, however, are because we view the world through our own biased lenses. My twin often gets out of social functions by feigning illness or busyness etc. She thought I was doing the same. She saw me through her own biased lens. She forgot that I’m a germaphobe (she really shouldn’t have). She forgot that I’m paranoid and neurotic. She forgot that she told me if anyone was ever responsible for her son’s death she would never forgive them. She had her own world, her own mental and emotional limitations for how she saw things. And that made her come to some very stupid conclusions.

For my part, I thought she just didn’t care about me anymore. That I was annoying and unfun and that she preferred other company to mine. She seemed so indifferent, so aloof. In reality, she was hurting from her own erroneous assumptions. She was protecting herself against someone who she thought had rejected HER. We didn’t like each other because we were idiots. We were shaping our ideas of someone around our own personal misconceptions.

People are going to do this to us. Lots of people. They will judge you for reasons that may or may not be accurate. Ignore the ones who will only drag you down. The ones worth fighting for you should approach kindly, honestly, and with understanding. People form opinions of you that are filtered through their own assumptions. You need to realize this. Let that take some of the sting out. After all, how often do we do that to the people around us? How often do we assume they act a certain way because of motivations WE give them? Are we right? Sometimes. Sure. But how often are we wrong? How often do we decide that someone is a certain way because of XYZ? How often do we put the cruelest of traits on someone just because they’re acting a way we don’t understand? How often do they do this to us?

I’m not going to pretend there aren’t people out there worth disliking. I’m not going to pretend the world is a rosy happy place with only wonderful people in it. I’m a big butted pessimist, remember? I know the world is shit and people are shit. But-maybe there aren’t as many shitty people as I tell myself. Maybe, just maybe, some people out there don’t deserve the judgements we give them. Some people’s actions, while we don’t understand them, are rooted in good intentions. Rooted in honesty and well wishes and are the result of someone just trying their very best. So, if you have a problem with someone, you have a few options. You can hate their guts, take the easy way out, and not learn a thing about them. I’m guilty of this and I shall continue to be guilty of this for some people. Option 2, you can try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Try to look at the things they are doing right. The efforts they are making. The fact that they keep trying, even if they fail over and over again. Try to get out of your own head, think about ALL the reasons for their motivations, not just the conclusions you’ve leapt to. Just because you think you’re right doesn’t mean you ARE right. You can feel something in your very bones, in your heart of hearts and still be dead wrong. It’s a lot more common than you think. I think we can convince ourselves of some pretty depressing things, when we are feeling self-wallowing. So give people the benefit of the doubt. Try to figure out if the problems you have with someone warrant you thinking less of them or if you’re actually giving them negative traits they haven’t really earned. The last option, in terms of deciding if someone is worth hating? Mother fucking talk to them. Don’t be an asshole about it, though. There’s a great quote that says, “Honesty without tact is cruelty.” I firmly believe that. There are polite, kind ways to tell someone you have concerns. Questions. That something isn’t working for you. And then give them a chance to explain themselves. Don’t just assume you know why someone does something. Listen to what they’re telling you about their actions. Open your mind and learn something, dammit! Because I promise you, other people have lots to teach you, if you’ll let them. You may find out you were wrong. You may find out you’ve been hating someone perfectly wonderful.

Now, what do you do if you’ve tried all this and you still want to poke sharp objects in effigies of the offender? If you’ve determined they really are as despicable, offensive and wretched as you supposed? You have my permission to despise them, my friends. Plenty of people actually suck. And no, that’s not just me being a pessimist.