Apparently I’m Very Hateable

It’s a peculiar experience, being told (repeatedly!) that you are disliked before you even opened your mouth.

A surprising number of my now friends have confessed something to me over wine, and no, not those kind of confessions you filthy readers!… But rather, “I didn’t like you when I first met you.”

Not “I didn’t know you” or “I misread you”, no.

Flatly: didn’t like.

The reasons are always fascinating, “you seemed too nice”, “I thought you were fake”, “I assumed you were smug.”

Too nice is my personal favourite, a real character flaw.

The thing is, lovely ladies in particular, (men you have your own set of challenges!) we’re told to be warm, confident, articulate, competent, emotionally intelligent, good at eye contact, firm handshakes, strong but vulnerable, ambitious but grounded etc etc etbloodyc!

And simultaneously, be small, be quiet, be agreeable, be unintimidating, don’t make anyone uncomfortable.

Which is impressive, because those instructions directly contradict each other, what a joyous, never ending challenge for us ey! Even Sisyphus would be jealous.

So you grow up trying to calibrate yourself like some sort of emotional thermostat. Smile, but don’t beam. Speak, but don’t dominate. Achieve, but apologise. And on and on we go.

And eve if you do aaaaaaaall the things, you still get filed under Annoying On Sight.

When enough people later admit they disliked you initially, something shifts. You start scanning rooms, reading faces, interpreting neutral expressions as silent verdicts, the paranoia is suffocating.

Annoying on sight

I have, far too regularly and as recently as three days ago, convinced myself that strangers hate me before I’ve even taken my coat off.

It’s not drama, It’s pattern recognition gone rogue. Even my therapy sessions go quiet when I present the extensive evidence behind this assumption that haunts me. My poor therapist has her work cut out!

This all considered, made auditioning for the local theatre group last year feel mildly unhinged. Willingly(ish) going into a room full of new people. Literally asking them to judge me. Oof. Masochist.

Every old thought resurfaced, of course. Off the brain train went, “they’ll think you’re too much, too keen, too big, too old, too something, too everything”.

And I went anyway.

That’s the bit I’m quietly proud of. Not the performance but the entering.

Letting people decide what they like or don’t like without pre-editing myself into something more palatable. Showing up as me.

Here’s the twist: every single person who later told me they “hated” me at first eventually admitted the same things::.

“I was intimidated.”

“I thought you wouldn’t like me.”

“I assumed you had it together.”

Which is almost funny, considering how often I’m just trying not to bolt for the exit. Maybe we don’t get to control the first impression, or win the contradiction.

Maybe the real bravery is letting people misunderstand you, and showing up anyway. Again and again.

Tell me, have you ever been told you were misjudged?

And did you shrink next time?

Or did you go back into the room?

As I’ve written before, I often find the second time harder than the first. Going back into a room knowing people have made up their minds, yet still do not know you.

Peopling is hard.