How To Stay Comfortable Around People Who Dislike You
“I don’t like you. You are SO full of yourself and your boyfriend thinks so, too!”
My college roommate shouted that at my face right before she walked out and slammed the apartment door behind her.
I stood there in the living room, staring at the still door.
I had no reaction.
3 seconds later, I mentally shrugged it off and pivoted my body to walk to my room.
I was 22. It was the first time that I didn’t get emotional, angry, feel my blood boil, or start to cry when someone expressed that they didn’t like me.
Before this, my reaction would’ve been to hate her back, immediately. As much as or more than she hated me.
But I didn’t.
It’s because at the time, I really liked me.
I worked hard on that.
I was about to graduate university, was nominated for #Rutgers250, our Toastmasters Club got Presidents’ Distinguished and won Rutgers Spirit Award, and I was off to work at Sprinklr in couple months.
Call me “full of myself”?
I didn’t really care. In my world, I was winning.
As much as you work on bettering you, there will ALWAYS be people who won’t like you.
Here are 3 things to help you stay comfortable about this:
Accept that there will ALWAYS be people who don’t like you.
You’re probably uncomfortable because being around people who don’t like you feels different, weird even, when it’s actually a norm. It’s like gravity. It just IS. No one gets turned off because of how we’re held to the center of the earth. Don’t be turned off because people have their own preferences of personalities.Remember that there are people who genuinely DO like you for who YOU are, without you having to change.
I learned to stay comfortable by remembering that millions of people don’t like chocolate, but that makes it no less delicious to those who do. Chocolate doesn’t try to become peanut butter to win people over, does it? (in the words of Jordan Yates)If you like you, then who cares for anything else?
The most important person that needs to like you is you. It’s called self-acceptance for a reason. Don’t outsource that to other people. You’re too precious.
For full background, I didn’t struggle with self-confidence growing up.
I had a different complex.
See, I really like people* and I love winning them over.
When I was younger, I always sought to like others so when they didn’t reciprocate that back, I would feel rejected.
It resulted in this mental game.
Like I would be on this mission to get them to like me and for as long as they didn’t, it felt like they had this “power” over me, like I was a dog and they had a bone and I wasn’t going to stop until I got that bone.
So I was never comfortable around them.
Because I would be what they wanted me to be. I would want them to like me, too.
If they liked me only when I was soft-spoken, I’d speak in a more calm and quiet tone.
If they liked me only when I was light-hearted, I’d laugh and smile more.
As I did this in middle school and high school, I started to lose myself and a different discomfort came.
It was disturbance in my core, my heart. I began to not like them and me.
It’s a stupid game to try to win over people who don’t like you. It’s smarter and easier to accept it.
I learned that acceptance is key.
Being comfortable around people who don’t like you is effortless when you accept yourself.
It’s not your problem if someone doesn’t like you. It’s theirs.
And really, who cares?
SERIOUSLY THOUGH, SO WHAT?
There are people who don’t like me and I’m ok with that.
It’s been years since that moment with my roommate and I still hear critiques in my personal, professional, and social media worlds.
“You come off TOO strong.”
“You’re just really straightforward.”
“You are taking work WAY too seriously.”
”You talk about yourself too much.”
“You have A LOT of energy.”
I had a friend tell me once that his friend didn’t even want an introduction to me because she thought I might have TOO much energy for her.
I wasn’t even SURE how to take that? Thank you???!
Look, you’re never going be a magic medium or goldilocks combination for people.
And you know what? You don’t live for them.
And if people think you’re TOO [whatever awesome thing you are], so the f what?!
There is ONE you. You choose to reinvent yourself as you grow.
*most people: there are definitely some people I’ve met that if I ever saw them walking toward me on the street, I’d cross to the other side.