Friendly Neighborhood Jerkface

As I have mentioned at other times on this blog, I am great at convincing myself that people don't like me. But last year I came to a realization: this belief often leads me to treat others unfairly. It leads me to be a jerk.

If I am assuming someone doesn't like me, I'm going to harbor some resentment for them—even if I just made up that they don't like me.

An illustration of this principle goes back to my sixth birthday party. We were playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Since it was my birthday, I went first. I got the tail pretty far from the donkey, so all the kids laughed. But soon I noticed that the kids weren't laughing at the other kids, even when they put the tail farther away. Now I know this is because it wasn't funny anymore—the novelty had worn off. But I took it personally and hid under my bed. When the kids came to get me, I yelled at them (except for the boy I had a crush on). I was treating them unkindly even though they hadn't done anything wrong, simply because I had assumed they were laughing at me. But they weren't.

I have started to notice instances where this concept affects me as an adult.

As many of you know, I long had a tradition of unfriending people periodically on Facebook. I was on a three-year cycle: one year I'd unfriend one person, the next year I'd unfriend one person a month, and the next year I'd unfriend one person a week. 

Now, if someone unfriended me, I couldn't help but feel surprised or hurt. Why did they do that!? But I thought it didn't apply to me. If I unfriended someone, they wouldn't notice; and if they did, they wouldn't care. In fact, they might be glad.

Last year (2023), I was dutifully unfriending one person a month. But then I realized that I was often thinking of who I should unfriend next, and I was looking for reasons why I thought they didn't like me. Or worse, I was looking for reasons why I should resent them. That really was not fair for them. So, in August, I decided to quit my decade-long tradition. I may still unfriend individuals on an as-needed basis (if they hurt me, or if there really is no relationship at all between us), but I'm no longer systematically unfriending them. And I'm no longer looking for reasons to.

I suppose this thinking has affected my in-person life as well. I might seem distant or uninterested when people interact with me, because why would they want to be my friend? And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: why would someone want to be friends with someone who is distant or uninterested?

But I'm working on not being a jerk anymore, even if it was accidental all along.