134: 5.2 An unlikable acquaintance

In my first year of university, I was quite active in societies. It happened during a random talk I attended - nothing particularly fitting my interests, but I went anyway because of peer pressure. A group of them were talking in the corner of the room. There was him at the centre of this conversation. He is an acquaintance of mine, and I use the term acquaintance quite firmly because he is not my friend. In a minute you'll figure out why.

"There are only 2 reasons why someone would dislike you," he exclaims. "One possibility is that he or she hates you because he wants what you have and another possibility is that he hates you because he or she wants to be you." Everyone around him nodded, in awe of his "philosophical" revelation. Unfortunately I wasn't one of them. Upon hearing his statement, I raised an eyebrow and thought is this guy for real? Does he really think so highly of himself so much so he neglects the fact that people might really dislike him because of his character (or bluntly, lack thereof). He tried to explain the reasoning behind his belief, but by that time I had completely lost interest and walked away.

I attended another discussion later that same year. The topic was what motivates someone to vote for person A versus person B. At the time, I was pretty much politically blind, and had no idea what I was doing there to begin with. They were talking about looking at a politician's track record, background and their delivery on promises. Then came my turn to talk and I just plainly (and maybe stupidly) said, "I would vote for someone nice and someone I can trust. Someone who represents me should be someone that I can bear, or even like as a human being." Then, I talked about attending a talk given by a Malaysian politician and how I disliked that he used the word "I did.." when describing every success that he achieved. It was like he had to support, help or team who worked with him. There was no ounce of humility in his tone, and that really got to me. I didn't trust him thus he didn't succeed in earning my vote (not that I registered to vote anyway). But when I shared my thoughts with the group, they looked at me like I said something off-putting. One of them even suggested, "Maybe you should look at the track record of someone too before you vote for him or her." Needless to say, I didn't manage to win them over with my speech.

But for the record, a person's character plays a vital role in winning people over - both in small situations like friendships or even in larger contexts, like in the popularity contest of politics. And one  doesn't need to be envied to be disliked. All it takes is to be a bit of an ass.