Actually, there are a lot of things that fit that category (drinking too much, not menu planning, giggling at farts), but for now, we'll focus on the big one.
My suckyupedness when I think someone doesn't like me.
I don't even especially have to like them... I just don't want them to feel the same way about me. When the feeling is mutual, I go to absolute pieces and try to win them over with my charm and niceness. Shudder. No wonder they don't like me. But there I am. Oozing suckyupedness.
I really admire the people who, when they suspect that someone doesn't like them - and this is, of course, if they even notice in the first place (I always notice) - just shrug a little and go, "oh well, it's probably them, not me" and get on with their lovely life without a single thought to that person.
I am not like that.
It's like I have a cool-seeking missile attached to my brain that explodes the minute the slightest hint of frost towards myself is detected. I wish I never noticed such trifles, but I do and I seem incapable of ignoring them. Why? What did I do? What's wrong with me? How can I fix this? Sometimes I can think of nothing else.
Being hyper-aware of those around you has its day, of course. It's always a nice feeling when you're the first to ask someone 'what's wrong?' and really mean it. But being hyper-aware (or paranoid? Probably paranoid) of people's perception of yourself is cruel and surely unnecessary. I want to be more content within myself so other people's perceptions of me don't define me. I don't need to care about what someone thinks of me because I think I'm okay. I'm kind of there, but I'm kind of not there. Truth is, I just can't stand their coolness. It seems somehow... superior.
I think I might possibly be the most annoying person on earth.
Are there any other paranoid / suckyuppity types out there?
Can you stand it when people openly don't like you?
[Image of the Snow Queen from FACEON, November 2010 issue: Dave Piper]
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40 comments:
There is nothing worse then that cold cold feeling and knowing it is there. And even worse when you know that you are going to a function and someone who has this feeling toward you will be there. Yep.. Suck up xx
I am with you on this. I only need someone to look at me the wrong way from the other end of a supermarket aisle and I will be awake all night worrying about what I did wrong and what I can do to make it better, even though I will never see that complete stranger again.
If I think someone actively dislikes me, that is a sleepless month.
I am forever telling my kids not to worry about what people may think of them. As Dr Seuss said "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind"
I can only hope that they grow up without my worry because at 43, unfortunately I don't think I am going to change.
This post could be written about me! I do the same thing, I can't stand it if if I think someone doesn't like me! It's funny, there's a woman at the moment that I suspect doesn't like me because of me trying too hard to GET her to like me. I'm trying not to worry about it, not everyone likes everyone right?
Love the dr seus quote, very wise words!
Human.
Me too.
I am the queen of the emo parinoia.
Yes, I prefer people to like me, even if I don't like them. I won't bend over backwards for it, but when they don't like me, it's almost like it's justifying all my negative feelings about myself.
I am pretty much convinced that our neighbour (the wife) doesn't like me or my daughter (who is 5 and plays with her 5 year old son on a nearly daily basis). Now I know my daughter is loud and assertive (read bossy) and I am working on that but I still get the impression this woman does not like me. She says hello and stuff but my guts says...
So yeah, I hear you.
I worked out that a neighbour with kids the same age as ours, and who we considered potential BFFs when we moved in a couple of years back, has no desire to even be the least of friends with us. Once I was really sure about this, took me about a year to be sure, I thought, fuck you, and returned the rude cold treatment. Since then, about 8 months, I have never once made the first hello, not even a wave of a hand. While they have popped over the fence to ask what's new... Too late, I give lots of chances, but once I put you in the cupboard you are there for good. Life is too short to tolerate rude and shallow people.
You're right - it is somehow superior of them...and that's why it shits me! Who made these people the 'cool police'?? It's a sign of their shallowness, of their judgementalness (oh look I made up a word).
I've been trying really hard lately to just be me. After all, that's all I can be.
Human. But yes, I feel this too. I don't know whether I'm a person who needs to be liked, and readily feels rejection, and for whatever reason is rejected a lot (or sees it when it's there and not there!), or whether in fact I don't like that many people, but when I can tell they don't like me, I take it badly (which seems irrational).
I, too, would like to be one of those people who doesn't notice or shrugs it off if I do.
Blimey. All that emotional energy. It's hard being us!
I shifted schools quite a bit as a kid and it was really good training in shrugging off the cold shoulder. No one much likes the new kid - especially the dorky glasses one. It was either shrug or weep in the corner. Might as well think it's them and not me. You can be surprised what can seem like coolness is actually just shyness or a more introverted personality - who knows what people are really thinking? Of course there are rude people out there, and its hard to not feel the odd twinge. When my kids have been teased I've said just hold your head high, stand straight and raise an eye brow, no one likes to feel stupid.
I'm not sure if I just have thick skin or just don't notice..... hope you havent made me paronoid now!? I'm from the cant be arsed school. Oh god, perhaps that's why.....
it's all a dynamic of feel...:)
Oh, this was so me a few years back. I have to say that I'm super aware of people's perceptions and notice the way they treat me. I always try to be nice to everyone. But I have noticed that if someone isn't keen, I don't even care anymore. How cool is that? It's been years of effort and I think it's actually paying off! You're such a lovely duck that I can't imagine people not liking you anyhow... Xx
I can tell you hands down that you are not (by far) the most annoying person on earth. There are plenty of other candidates for that position with stellar qualification.
As I've gotten older, I've become more thick-skinned. Or maybe more confident, not sure. But I don't worry about this so much. Maybe when you reach my ripe old age you won't care anymore. :)
Smiling at you, right now Maxabella.
Maybe because I don't think you realise how cool the rest of us humans think YOU are.
Maybe because its nice to know that someone I think is SUPER COOL still has paranoia about being liked, which makes you - human.
I was always SUPER sensitive about being liked, mainly because I was always a nerd and never in the "cool crowd".
Now that I'm (mostly) a grown up I still have my moments and that sinking feeling when someone I admire doesn't return the sentiment, but i am much better equipped to let rejection slide right off now.
There's a few stylie mamas at school who are really too cool for school, and I remember telling myself, It's OK, i have my own friends. I don't need them, when their gaze grazed across me and away as if I was of no account.
Ouch. But really - they aren't my kind of people anyway.
I can walk away thinking "stupid stuck up b**ches" and remind myself of my lovely down-to-earth friends who i can hang out with and be myself with.
I feel sorry for the snobs, really, because they are so busy trying to impress each other with how cool they are that I wonder if they have any true friends who really love them warts and all anyway?
Oops, sorry about the blather... my fingers got away on me again
x
I could have written this - but not as eloquently.
Even the title had me laughing and nodding.
Hubby finds it so amusing that I HAVE to be liked, just HAVE to!!!
Oh - to be easygoing and underthinking.
But then I wouldn't like myself!!!!!
:-) xxx
This could be written about me too. I'm going through this exact thing at the moment with someone. I don't really want to be friends with them, but knowing they don't like me makes me feel I NEED them to want to be friends. Which is completely ridiculous. I wish I was brave enough not to care. But I am working on it. Great post x
Ps. Farts will always be funny to me.
Somewhere along the way I missed this gene.
I honestly don't care. The one thing that age has brought me though, is an empathy for their dislike. Sounds bizarre but the only way I can describe it. I just know they are uncomfortable around me because they don't like me and give them space. There was one in my mothers group. I just did not go to things at her house. I knew she would not want me there.
My thing is the way I look. I am paranoid that I must be dressed right. I waste so much energy on it. WHat is the right thing for this situation... Often I get there and think "seriously, I am insane. Anything would be fine here." It's not what others think, its me. I blame my mother. She was always on about appropriate dressing.
It is true...farts are always funny.
I used to be really concerned with what other thought of me...but somewhere along the way this has changed and now I really just don't care.
Sure, I generally want people to like me and I feel like I am generally welcoming towards people. But if for whatever reason someone doesn't seem to like me then I just don't really bother with them anymore.
I think I just have enough people that I really care about...and who I think really care about me...to care.
I certainly don't think I am superior or cool...I still try to be friendly and kind...I am just a bit neutral in terms of moving beyond the basic niceties.
Really I am too busy and too tired from raising Baby C to put much of an effort into what I know will likely be a lost cause!
I can totally relate to this post, you sound just like me!! Maybe someone will have some tips for us?! Haha.
I think about this stuff quite a lot. Not about people liking me, or not, but about what people think and why they think things and what that means for other people and how people interact and... stuff like that.
Sometimes I notice that someone doesn't like me - I can't say I've noticed any actual dislike, but certainly an absence of liking! - and I don't mind about it. I think, to myself, that it is interesting what other people might base their opinion of me on. And sometimes I think about how I act on the outside at times (particularly around school pick up and that sort of thing, where I walk into school every day and am friendly enough but don't actually chat to anyone very often) and I think, fair enough that they don't like me. Their opinion is based on possibly 5% of who I am, so it doesn't matter. I kind of agree with them, actually, on the basis of that 5%. But then, I am fairly deliberate about what I choose to give or not give out, so it's no surprise to me.
If someone I loved didn't like me, someone who I felt knew me, or to whom I had made myself vulnerable by revealing truth and depth, then that would unravel me completely.
I do kick myself for years over things I could have said, but didn't, or could have said better, or should have noticed and responded to. Where I felt like the person on the outside - that other people see - should have more accurately reflected the care of the person on the inside, with just a bit more effort and awareness. That stuff chews me up inside.
Fab post, Bron, thank you :)
As I Work with behaviour did you know as adults we normally make up our mind in the first 12 seconds of meeting someone, whether we like them or not - a very small window. It is a tough area, I used to toss and turn wondering so many why's , now I really know that we just can't gel with everyone. We have to learn that for some reason or other someone doesn't like us and be OK with that and focus our energy on those that do. Nx
My hubby told me off for doing this very same thing the other day. I have this one person in my life who is the only person I have ever met who has been actually rude and openly hostile to me. And you know how I process it? I decide that it's because she's insecure and if I can just show her that she doesn't need to be insecure around me, then I can turn her around. WHY AM I WASTING MY ENERGY?!! It's not that I NEED to be liked by her ...
I believe the answer is that I simply can't help myself!
PS Bron, did you get my return email on Tuesday?
Gosh Maxabella...a lot of times I swear you are inside my head!! Thank you for sharing :)
I have more of an issue with wondering what people think of me, not necessarily if they like me as such. I get self conscience when I think about whether someone thinks I'm weird/different/shy/stuck up/stupid, (and I have been assessed as all the above), but I don't necessarily get work up about whether they like me.
I'm not really sure how I differentiate the two.
When I know that someone openly doesn't like me it actually doesn't bother me, but I don't really think about why.
See, right now I am wondering if you think I am weird for thinking this way!
And for the record, you are soooo not annoying and probably the coolest blogger I 'know'. x
The last time I felt that someone disliked me was via a comment I made on another blog - they did not like what I had to say and spent several hours googling my name and scouring my social media just to confirm that they did indeed hate my guts. Such lengths to feel such negative emotions! I generally respond with equal maturity by alternating between "why don't they like me?" to "I hate that person's guts"!
Oh, any time anyone is a little cold I head straight back to my schoolgirl days. It's horrid. I recently hadn't heard from a group of women I have been quite close to over the school holidays and my head was reeling... what have I done to offend them? Was it something I said? I made sure I sent off the overdue thank you notes from the Munchkin's birthday party pronto, just in case that was it.
Not pleasant and totally paranoid, I know, but it's good to know I'm not the only one.
I actually have friends in my life who I know don't really care for me, but I stil see them and listen to their digs at me and why I am not good enough in so many ways. More fool me. Every few years I let go of these people, but then I let newer versions of them back in. *slaps self on head* x
Dear B, this post surprises me! Firstly, you're not the type to be unliked for just being you! So it probably IS usually "them". In saying that, I've become one of those you call able to shrug it off and carry on with my life.... but I do have to say, I don't do it with a "it's probably them, not me" before I do carry on. It's more a respectful "ok then, nothing I do, say, act or be is going to win them over so I won't try". And *then* I go on my merry way! :) And ftr, although it is completely unintended, I'm sure I am seen as cool or aloof - I have realised this in my new 'career' as a school mum, only 6 months in.... But you know what? I'm shy, retiring and passive. I don't do big crowds if I have to mingle very well. The cold shoulder is far from my mind as I cower inside and wish the bell would hurry the hell up already. I'm trying hard to stand my ground and at least make chat with other parents while we wait but you know, it's not what I do well and it's me outside my comfort zone and that's as far as I will go - beyond that, I'm not there to make people like me (and I've already inadvertently ruffled a coupla feathers but meh... shrug!)
Point is, you can't please everybody so why are you even trying? Just be xxxx
I turn into an uber up beat chatty dork around people I know dislike me and in doing so seem to confirm to them the very reason they dislike me. It seems to make them feel all the more superior and I end up replaying the exchange endlessly afterwards. I so wish I couldn't sense their scorn.
Oh Bron. I've spent most of my 41 years working through this conundrum. You should do Deb Dane's next '30 day self-care blueprint' e-course. After that, you really will believe 'I am enough'. J x
I think it depends on who the person is. If they look uber cool and someone I really like then It niggles at me as to why.......but I've come to try and not let it bother me. Most of the time x
I haven't read all of the comments, so forgive me if I repeat the same message.
Insecurity is the driver. We need to practice managing this insecurity. Like any skill, we need to learn a new approach.
Practice thinking "Fuck 'em: it's their loss", and then smile and walk away.
xx
This happened to me recently it's so hard to wrap your head around it your forever thinking but what did I do wrong. My husband always turns around and says he loves me and that's all I need so sweet of him.
I so understand what you are saying. I am a chronic approval seeker. Drives me crazy. If I think anyone doesn't like me, which is often, I go out of my way to try and turn that around. Or I get outright bitchy and hate them back which is just immature and stupid because what if they don't really dislike me? I have a terrible tendency to put myself down in front of others in some strange way to make them feel better about themselves. That can't be an attractive feature either.
I love the line above "fuck em, it's their loss". I should do more smiling and walking away too!
V.
PS Farts are hilarious!
What Lucy said.
Listen to the compliments, & the love, & any affirmations.
& 'fuck em', it's their loss' to the rest.
It took me so long to start doing this. I have only literally started this year.
It feels good, & almost arrogant, & it's addictive.
You too can become this smug, I promise :)
For me, & now I'm speaking honestly & not arrogantly, it comes down to this;
I am a nice person, a really good person actually, & if someone doesn't like me for whatever reason that I no longer care to explore, well ... it's truly their loss :)
I used to hate how arrogant that sounds. Now ... I love it.
It's a self preservation thing really :)
xx
I'll give you a run for your money in the most annoying stakes. I so get this, like really get it and I am exactly the same. It irritates me and bugs me when I cant win someone over and I'm all "why dont you like me inside my head".
I will refrain from saying what I would normally say which is stuff em, their loss, because well it makes no difference really does it, deep down you still just want them to like you dont you.
xx
I am with you on this. I get hurt when people don't like me, but just like you I usually don't like them either. so why does it matter? no clue, just know that it does.
When people don't like me I just think "whatever! What's not to like, I'm fabulous!" - obviously there is something wrong with them" and then I just move on with my life and give them very little time if I have to interact with them at all. Life's too short for jerks.
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