I've known since I was a kid that I'm not everyone's cup of tea. Sure, I had friends (one of whom just left after dinner, in fact) but there were also those who made no secret of their deep dislike of me.
It's a hurtful realization but an important lesson: Nobody is liked by everyone.
I was talking with a friend about how we (women particularly, I think) can look at someone else, think to ourselves, "I think I'm just as happy to be me, with my life, thank you" and yet still feel that horrible, stupid pang when people seem to prefer this other person to us. These don't even need to be people we like, mind you.
Which just makes the reaction even more maddening...
Which just makes the reaction even more maddening...
The reality, of course, is that people are all marvelously different, so everyone effects every one else in a different way. People you like have detractors. People you don't care for have supporters. Heck, Paris Hilton has a twitter following.
There is just no telling who will like whom and why.
And yet, we often feel some degree of failure when it turns out that we are NOT the single dazzling exception to this rule.
What is up with that?
2 comments:
yup.
and yanno, I'm mostly over worrying about it anymore. It surprises me, sometimes, when someone doesn't like me and makes it somewhat clear that they don't...but I'm okay eventually. And really? I don't *want* to be everyones friend. Does that sound stuck up? It's not, really. It's more about the fact that good friendships take time, and I only have so much in my "bank"...and I have almost zero "personal" time these days. (And you know that when I connect, I like to keep connected...but there are often drops in conversations of a week or more, before I collect enough time to reconnect)...There will be a time sometime in my life when I have more free time...but I'm okay with not filling it with tons of people. The few friends I have, I enjoy, a lot. :)
nilla
n-
I haven't evolved quite as fully as that, I'm afraid.
I'm stuck part-way in between caring and not being fashed one way or t'other.
Not that I want to be everyone's friend - that's not what I'm saying.
(Which is good cuz it's not something I do easily or well, anyhow.)
But I think there's a difference between wanting to "have lots of friends" and simply wanting to be sufficiently likable person that people would actually pick you for their team - in the top five, not as the last person left unselected…
I don't mean to reduce it all to school yard antics but it was the first analogy that came to mind and then it stuck… :-)
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