One of the mysteries in life is why certain individuals make an effort to exhibit behaviors and attitudes that cause others to dislike them.
In American culture, being liked by others is one of the top values we have in our social system. So, if this is true, why do people of all ages and backgrounds sometimes seem so determined to be unlikable and unlovable?
One belief is that as social animals, we humans need to receive attention, positive if possible, from others in our world. Our parents usually start this socialization process early in childhood training.
They heavily reward the cute smiles, funny words, etc., which make their children likable to others and themselves. And, they also discourage attitudes and behaviors that they and others do not like to see in their children.
This process is carried forth by others in the child’s world: family groups, social institutions, the school systems and eventually the world of work. With all of this training, one would think that likeable and lovable individuals would surround us.
However, observation of our world tells us that this is not true. There can be many possibilities for this. One of the most obvious is that familiar saying: “different strokes for different folks”. What is likable to one person may be unlikable to another.
However, the basis that seems most prevalent in individuals is that they do not all receive the same type, degree and quality of training as they grow up even though the goal of the training may be similar.
Some parents have difficult material in their children with which to work and their own skills in this area of life may be lacking with the inability to alter it for their children. Naturally, this can be present in the many other areas of an individual’s life as he/she grows.
My teaching career began with 200 9th graders. That first year I wondered why some students worked so diligently to be unpleasant to me while others made effort to be disliked by their fellow students.
Being a symbol of authority and/or of parents would give me some legitimate rationale for being unlikable. But, why work to be unlikable to your own peers when for many teens, the peer group thinking is like an adolescent religion?
It seemed to me that the ones who worked the hardest at being unlikable were the ones with the weakest skills in how to positively interact with others in their world.
As a human, one of the most painful experiences in life is to be ignored. If we do not know the positive ways to receive attention from others, many will choose negative ways rather than be ignored.
As I left teaching and went into clinical counseling practice, I eventually realized that many of the people coming to me with interpersonal difficulties in their lives were similar to my 9th grade students. For a variety of reasons, these individuals did not possess the positive skills to love/like themselves and they experienced negative difficulties with others in their world.
Whether it was in teaching or counseling, I concluded that the individuals who were the most unlikable and unlovable in their attitudes and behaviors were the very ones who needed positive attention the most. Being lovable was most difficult for them and they exhibited unlikable behaviors just to be sure that they were not ignored.
My goal was to acknowledge this to myself and offer whatever I could to these individuals who needed the education, practice, and expression of positive affirmation for their human hood. Likeable people are easy to love.
It is the unlikable people in our world that offer us a true opportunity to care for those who need it most.
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