Why don’t you just admit that you don’t like someone
Without having to first get angry or offended or conceited or quarrel with them
Why don’t you just ADMIT that you have a PREFERENCE
Without denigrating someone
Without puffing up like a fucking peacock
Without even a tincture of hostility
Just an EXTREMELY CASUAL PREFERENCE
Not unlike preferring SUVs over sedans
Indeed,
We seem to lack this ability
We seem to be unable to be NEUTRAL
When you meet someone, reciprocity bias kicks in, and you want to give them twice what they gave you. They were courteous, you want to really not offend them. They looked at you funny, and you want to judge them or tell them
And when you think of someone, see someone, you can’t just neutrally admire this bizarre creature in front of you
You have to instantly SHOEHORN them into some category
Either them with you or against you
Either them like you or unpleasant and uncool and stupid and kinda unfriendly
Some of us are so full of this deep hostility that it consumes them
They don’t even realise it’s hostility
They don’t even realise it’s just their insecurity and fear
Some of us are wiser and learn to be sweet and kind and loving
Which is a great attitude to have
Except,
There’s nothing wrong with having a preference,
And when you DO stand by it, express it, some people will get upset
And it’s ok
You can still love them
As they tell you to fuck off
We are far too insincere, and vacuous, obtuse about our own PREFERENCES,
Far too coy,
We refuse to admit that:
-This person is TOO STUPID for us
we can’t communicate can’t cooperate and can’t NOT get annoyed by them, over the long term
-That this person is too BORING for us
YES they have nothing to offer to us, NO you are not stoked to hang out with them
-That this person is TOO LOW CLASS LOW STATUS For us
again they have nothing to offer to us, and no you wouldn’t hire them, or want to work for them, or with them
And did you notice?
Even in merely writing it, it sounds like a VALUE JUDGEMENT, and emotionally charged
Except it’s not
Those are facts
Facts of preference
And often quite measurable facts as well
Will you be wrong? Of course you will. Maybe SEDANS are superior choice to SUVs
But it doesn’t matter. It’s your preference. Your life
There’s a lot of people I “don’t like”, that means:
-I refuse to get upset at them, I refuse to even bother to think about them
-It’s just likely that they wouldn’t be the top of my phone list
-And, for all purpose, I could say that I “don’t like them” — that time spent with them, “pleasure” of meeting them would feel inferior, wasted, a negative in my life
-And yet I could still love them
But perhaps this could only happen AFTER I admitted that I don’t like them
Because now I no longer pretend
No longer pretend to like what I don’t like
And now all that’s left is what I can actually like, and love
Which is their innocence
If nothing else
Their humanity