I dunno if I'm the only one who has ever felt like they are not likeable or didn't just click with people.
For the longest time I thought I was not likeable, that I was off-putting, I just had this feeling that people didn't particularly like me. I didn't know what was wrong, I just felt like people didn't like me. The thing is they don't hate me but they didn't like me either, like I was just a background character in someone else's movie.
I think when you grow up in a place where you are constantly criticized, or compared, or told you are annoying, or too loud,or too much, you kinda make you feel like you are not likeable, that you are not enjoyable to be around, that people don't like having you around, then you start to question yourself, asking what's wrong with me, why do people not like me.
Well when I was still in primary school, it wasn't so bad, fine I was a shy kid, didn't talk unless spoken to. Everything was candies and sunshine till we move from a remotely posh area to a more ghetto place and also started secondary school at the same time. In the new environment both at home and in school It became more obvious to me that I wasn't likeable and the feeling just got stronger because I couldn't fit in, I didn't move like them, act like them, think like them, I was different and no matter how I tried to fit in I just couldn't. I didn't have friends (till now I still don't have friends in that neighborhood), I felt like I'm outside looking in, like an outsider. I sucked at making friends so that just made it worse and further enhance the feeling like there was something about me people didn't like for some reason. I just thought maybe there's something wrong with me, why can't I be as social as other people.
You know those people who just seem to have a charming personality, people just want to be around them, I was never that person. At school, I only had one friend, who later became my best friend, and I'll wonder what she ever saw in me to want to be my friend, because I always thought people don't like me, so why did she.
The biggest blow that made me just give up was the time, my secondary school boyfriend, that time, stood up in front of the whole class and said I was boring and I just kinda overheard, well I want to think it was a joke or something because everyone in the class laughed it off, they probably don't even remember something like this happened, but I did, and I never forgot. That just exacerbated the feeling of not being likeable. I thought yeah I'm not likeable because I'm really boring, shy and quiet (and I really was)
After this I just gave up trying to understand why I feel people didn't like me. It was not just a feeling, it was feelings with evidence, I could physically tell that people didn't particularly like me or want to get close with me. I stop trying, avoided social interaction because I felt like there was no need trying since no matter what I do I just didn't fit or flow with or with people.
This has also gotten to affect they way I see myself sometimes, I genuinely feel like I'm not a real person, like I'm invisible, because I've always felt no one is definitely interested in me, almost like an NPC. Something genuinely doesn't click when someone says that they miss me, or they want to talk to me or something because WHYYY!!! People don't usually pay me any mind at all.
I'll say it's fine now because I realize that I just draw conclusions that everybody didn't like me because I grew up in a place where I didn't fit in, where I was made to think that I was not likeable. Currently even though I say I don't care anymore if I'm likeable or if I fit in or not, ever so often I still feel people don't like me even when we are hanging out. Till this day I still question my brother (who is my best friend sometimes) if he actually likes hanging out with me because few years ago he wouldn't be caught dead hanging out with me ( we have a large age gap)
Until recently, I found out that I was actually likeable (at least to one person), a very good friend of mine, he said I was fun to hang out with, and I was in awe. Anytime we hanged out, sure I was having a good time but I wasn't sure if it was mutual. But he said I was fun to hang out with, not once not twice, multiple times (even when I didn't ask) and he was genuine every single time ( God I hope so). It was so crazy to me that the same person my God forsaken secondary school boyfriend said was boring, the same person people excluded for some reason, is the same person that is well received and so understood by this one person and he doesn't know it but it really means a lot that my presence means something to someone.
Thank you for reading 馃槉
The first image is mine, the others is sourced.