Hate: A Strong Word I Don't Understand

Sometimes I have to roll around in an idea before it seems like something I should talk about. I need to let the juices marinate and wait until the idea is properly saturated with uncertainty, indecision and anxiety before I make anything happen with it. Of course, this should not lead you to believe that I think before I speak, because if I did then I wouldn’t feel constantly embarrassed about my recurrent verbal diarrhea. But despite this rolling around, marinating and saturating process that I’m accustomed to, I’m going to jump into this thought, perhaps prematurely.

This past weekend was a big weekend. It was my last weekend of being unemployed and it was the debut of BareTV, an improvised talk show that I helped write sketches for. This weekend I also relearned that there are some people out there that don’t like me and probably will never like me.

I know, what the hell, right? How can you not find me a.) hilarious, b.) endearing, and 3.) awesome? I realize that my inability to comprehend why someone may not like me makes me sound like I am the most egotistic person alive, but I just have an insatiable urge to please people, and thus have them like me. Needless to say, when I find out that someone does not like me, after extraordinary efforts on my part to appear worthy of their friendship, I am obviously stunned. It’s as if there must be something wrong with the world if someone doesn’t like me, so I go out on a search for the cause of this imbalance that has resulted in someone turning down membership to the Quinn Fan Club. Why do I think like this? Because I’m an insecure narcissist? Absolutely.

During this extremely long, unpaid sabbatical of mine, I have lived in what I like to refer to as a bubble of isolation—others might call it depression. I’m not ashamed to admit that there have been entire days in recent months where I did not leave the house, change out of my pajamas, let alone shower, or have face-to-face communication with a single person. However, now that I have found a job, and most importantly, someone to pay me for this thing I do with words, I have found myself standing outside of my cozy bubble of isolation and feeling somewhat exposed. Ultimately, I think unemployment caused me to digress socially, making me painfully awkward in social situations and oblivious to social cues, especially those that mean shut up. So when I found out this weekend that someone I had tried very hard to…impress (is that the right word?) didn’t like me—in fact, she hates me, and perhaps the only thing that would make her happier is if more people hated me too—I was irrationally devastated because if I had picked up on the cues, which I now realize were plentiful, perhaps I wouldn’t have been as shocked and upset. This person isn’t cruel about it, she’s older than I am so her hatred for me is on a much more mature level, which makes it less obvious to me and makes my reaction to her dislike even more pathetic and childish: “But why? I don’t get it. It’s not fair!”

I wish was brave enough to not care about what people thought of me and whether or not they liked me, but that’s not the case (although I am extremely good at pretending otherwise). I’m sure this all comes down to some inherent need for validation that stems from my childhood and the many times I was the last person picked for kickball, but whatever.

In a general sense, I am willing to accept and understand the fact that not everyone is going to like me. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that in order to be successful, especially as a writer, pissing people off until they hate you seems to be a popular road to take. But writing words for people to read is different from being in a social situation with someone, bringing you’re A-game and finding out that someone still doesn’t like you.

The most disappointing part was that my reaction to finding out this person truly didn’t like me was to take one too many shots of Rumple Minze and proceed to make a fool out of myself for the rest of the night. Again, I blame unemployment for turning me into a lovable, pitied pariah for whom this type of reaction is expected and forgiven. But the next day, as I nursed the ‘I swear I’ll never drink again’ type of hangover, it made sense why this person might not like me, and also why I shouldn’t care (I know, a moment of unexpected clarity during what was otherwise a day full of agonizing brain fuzziness).

The important part is why I shouldn’t care, since the other part is obvious by now. I shouldn’t care whether or not this person likes me because lots of other people like me, I think. I shouldn’t care if this person dislikes me because their reasons for disliking me are not legitimate. I shouldn’t care because having them like me won’t make a difference at the end of any day ever. But still, I care—with every irrational, self-absorbed bone in my body, I care. And maybe I care because I’m starting a new job on Wednesday and I really want everyone to like me. Maybe I care because life would be easier if they liked me. Maybe I care because maybe I care about a lot of things that don’t matter.

There’s no resolution here, just the fact that there is someone new who openly dislikes me and I care enough to write about hating that I care about it.

On the upside, my self-esteem isn’t as bad as you, or I, thought it was because, as this experience has made clear, I apparently think I’m too awesome to hate.