something important

I discovered something important today.

I have never done well with not being liked. That's not the something important; I've known that for a long time, though it's been several years since I've had to deal with it. There was a guy in college who was sarcastic, mean, and condescending to me and several people I knew, and for a few months it became my sole intention to become his friend. Not in a kind "befriend the person who holds everyone else at a distance" kind of way. It was entirely because I couldn't handle the idea of someone not liking me. Growing up, I often took for granted the friendships that came easily because I was too focused on making people who were indifferent or looked down on me or flat-out disliked me like me darn it.

I found out today that someone doesn't like me. I think. It was secondhand information, gossip, the kind of thing that feels true just because it comes as a surprise and yet fits in odd ways. It may not be true, but that's never stopped me from believing something.

I try to be an even-keel person, and I think that makes me fairly well-liked, although it also means I probably don't take a stand for much either. I go with the flow. I try to make people happy. It works out, usually.

But today, I was confronted with the concept, once again, that someone didn't like me. And, as a creaking, rusting, haven't-been-used-in-a-while kind of feeling, the old hurt gripped my ribs a little bit, scraped against my lungs, grabbed at my breath. I ran through all the ways I could fix it, who I could talk to, how I could conjure up favor--talk to the person directly? Talk to a friend of theirs and find out what I did wrong? Take a poll of what's potentially unlikeable about me and work on fixing it? It was high school and college all over again.

And then a breath. I decided to ask a person I trust for advice, and then as I waited for a response, I breathed some more.

You are not defined by who likes you, my heart whispered.

You are defined by Who loves you.

It wasn't important that I thought about that--I am a lifelong church kid, so there's a guilty few-seconds-too-late spiritual glaze my brain puts on everything. But it was important that, for the first time in a situation where someone doesn't like me, I actually believed it. And my heart settled a bit. The hurt retreated into small corners. My trusted friend wrote me back with words of encouragement and sensible advice.

I cannot force someone to like me. I will wear myself out trying to make everyone in the world like me. Some personalities just don't connect. It happens. If I know I did something to hurt someone, I can fix that, but I can't fix not being the kind of person someone just doesn't like. And that's okay.

And then came the other Something Important, the one that stung and clenched in my stomach.

I like most people, but there have been a few times in the course of my life when I have been a fervent not-liker-of-a-particular-person. And that crushing, breath-stealing hurt I felt for just a little while--I have inflicted that on other people. How unspeakably evil of me. How dare I so willfully diminish someone else? I want to remember that feeling, and I want to remember how when I'm so comfortably liked that I tend to get comfortable with feelings of annoyance and eye-rolls and complaints about people who have done nothing but be not quite my favorite personality.

Important is understanding that all people have the desire to be liked and loved and understood, and that it's not up to me to decide who to extend that to, because it has been extended to me unreservedly.