But I'm the only who they dislike!

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Ever find yourself saying that? Like, somebody just doesn't like you, and you cannot figure out or imagine why they wouldn't, and they seem to like everybody else? What do you do?

there are plenty of other fish in the sea.

I love it when a number of people say how nice and great of a person someone is, and I can't get them to talk to me or get along with them.

Why is it that I seem to bring nastiness out in people who everyone else thinks is "the nicest person they have ever met"?

It's funny, when I told a school counselor about this very same topic, he said the same thing you did. "It's happened where I hear about this guy, and he has the reputation for being the nicest guy. Not to me he isn't."

And I myself have experienced the same thing. I cannot, and I mean cannot, even begin to fathom why things like that happen to me. Or to anybody else.

I think this might have something to do with being unusual. Some people will be nice to anyone who fits in with their idea of "normal". I am not trying to call anyone here abnormal (although I think being different is a good thing!) but Aspies generally think and act differently to the majority of the NT population.

I've met people like that as well before, and I think it's because 'different' people like me can put people out of their comfort zone, no matter how nice everyone says they are. They don't know how to react, so they react badly.

I find that I am liked by a lot of people in one place and then disliked by most people in another place. I think it has something to do with understanding and ease between people.

Of course, there is the possibility that this person is just superficially nice, following the social norms, rules and expectations to the point that they are perceived as extremely nice by people who also know these rules. However, when they meet someone who may not necessarily know or follow these rules, there is no "niceness" beneath the surface for them to use.

I agree with you about this. Some people do not know how to respond or feel a little uncomfortable around us, so it is natural human behavior to be distant, aloof and offputting.

I had a situation today which brings light to another element. A person's niceness can be due to human dynamic, the situation at hand, and the people that are in the room. I went to a political dinner today and ran into an acquaintance from high school whom I was on the basketball team with and has a prominent position in our community. Due to the fact of the people that he was with and the agendas that he brought with him, he was kind of a jerk with me today. Tranversly, when I ran into him a couple of months ago at Target, we had a long, in depth conversation about people from school and the state of the community. People can be considered nice, but certain situations can make the same people nasty or off putting.

Last edited by passionatebach on 08 Apr 2010, 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I couldn't have put it better myself:

I've been in this situation on two occasions in the past few years. In the first instance, it was my behaviour when drunk that freaked out a girl in my class so much that she told a mutual friend not to invite me to a leavers' party she threw at the end of that year. I didn't do anything obnoxious or make any advances towards anyone that St. Patrick's day when I got drunk at midday before everyone else did, but her brother recounted that he'd thought I was on drugs. Following that revelation, I no longer drink to excess.

Then a similar thing happened with a guy I fancied. To cut a long story short, when I developed this crush on him, it became obsessive in a short space of time and I started hanging around his group of friends. He was friendly to me initially, and I actually befriended a couple of people in that group. But it was really only my desire to get closer to this guy, or at least to be around him should a friendship fail to develop, that motivated me to befriend these other people, who I thought were ok, but not a big deal. Anyway, I started tagging along with them all the time, and at the same time, I began to clam up when he was around. Having known me for a year or so prior to this development, I think this guy recognised that my typical behaviour is not clingy or that uptight, and that he was the cause. His inflated ego probably aided the speed of his arrival at that conclusion.

It may be that the majority of the people I come into contact with don't like me, but these are the only occasions that it's transpired to me, in the case of that guy when he rejected my friend request on Facebook and left me out of conversations. Both of the people I've talked about in this post managed to be superficially friendly to me - the girl for the duration of our acquaintance, and the guy up till a point when he was seeing a lot more of me and fewer people were around, which meant there was more one-to-one contact. It worked in his favour that the remaining members of the group worshipped the ground he walked on regardless of anything he did or said; in the early days, I think he may have refrained from being mean to me partly because he thought one person (who subsequently quit the course) might disapprove. It may be that there were indications of discomfort and disdain in these people's behaviour towards me, but that they were too subtle for me to pick up on.

This girl has invited me to subsequent events, which suggests that she was trying to save face, trying to ease her conscience, or that she had actually changed her opinion of me. Whatever her reasons, I don't think either she or this guy was a truly nice person, and that the narrow-minded and conceited elements in their personalities partly account for their actions.

To the OP: If it isn't in these situations that you think people take dislikes to you, then maybe it's something non-verbal like eye contact or invasion of personal space. I've heard that this can be an issue with Aspies and it continues to be an issue for me on occasion. It may be something you've already considered. Of course I don't know, and I hope you don't feel patronized by the suggestion.

It's because people are shallow, and they don't like people, who are different.

I have a feeling honesty may have something to do with it. Even though it sounds counter-intuitive on paper I think a lot of people have a problem with people who are honest and upfront. Probably because a lot of people thrive on smoke, mirrors, gossip and lies. When someone comes along that doesn't abide by the 'rules' people have a distrust of them despite the fact that THEY are the honest ones.

I've found the best way to deal with people like that is to stop caring and stop trying to be extra-nice back to them. You cannot force someone to like you, and it can actually be very irritating to them if you keep trying.

The people that I stopped caring about were actually a lot more pleasant to me afterwards!

Happened to me a lot over the years, as well. Nice to know why it happens, though, that is really wasn't me, but the other person's problem.
When I meet people, they are sometimes a bit leery of me at first, some people just treat me badly and act as though I deserved it. Then as time went on, people would get to know me, and then they wouldn't be so stand-offish or horrid.
Happens to me here as well. With a couple of exceptions from kindly, and friendly folks here, some other responses, were short, some outright angry, which puzzled me exceedingly.
But over a lifetime, I figured out if people won't talk to me or tell me why they feel justified in treating me hatefully, then it's their problem.

At least here in reading what others say about a particular problem, it makes more sense to me, now. And in turn, I hope my response has been encouraging in some way.

Last edited by Tetraquartz on 08 Apr 2010, 4:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Isn't it strange how life works this way. Unless it is family, I have always run into "the more you care about them, the more they hate you." I have had this happen in quite a few friendships in my life. It seems that friendship is best conducted under superficial pretenses.

I think its a comment on the way society works these days, sadly. Everything is back to front

Yeah, that's been my experience too. When you finally give up and start ignoring them, that's when they start treating you better. What kinda pisses me off is, they act like they have no idea why you'd treat them like that, when they've been nothing but rude to you.

Maybe they're not "nice" people and it's just the opinions of their friends and hangers-on.

Too many people who were called "great", "wonderful," "lovely natured" and "friendly" by everyone else, seem to be aggressive and quite nasty. The so-called nice ones play games with other people. One of their tricks is by making everyone laugh, or buying presents, so that they win friends. Don't trust what you hear about someone else.

STOP IT, PEOPLE...YOU'RE SCARING ME

This has happened to me on numerous occasions...in school...at work...in social settings.

rosiemaphone wrote:

The acts of trying to get such people to accept us is something referred to as PEOPLE-PLEASING in some circles. I would engage in this for long periods of time in some cases before finally getting fed up. As I have gotten older, the time it takes for me to get to that point has shortened considerably.

When I do reach that point, as I have said in other threads, I cut those people off completely. while it appears that I am simply being mean (and that is a component of it), I also need to put some distance between myself and those people so that I can rid myself of the need to be accepted by them and learn to be okay with me as I am.

CaptainTrips222 wrote:


I just had this happen recently where two guys I know each invited practically everyone in the circle I hang with to a party, but somehow I got left out because there was "only so much space" or the just forgot. Even before this, one of them was kinda shady acting but I was tolerated. The other guy was somebody I had spent a bit of time around - even going out-of-town and hanging out together.

Well, I cut 'em off without so much as another consideration...stopped speaking and everything. Next thing I know, they're beating other people down to try to greet me and stuff...trying to strike up a conversation. I dismiss it all and find it QUITE ANNOYING.

These bu++plugs asked a friend of mine, whom they also know, why I cut them off. He originally said that I was being paranoid when I said they were being shady towards me, but I think he began to believe me when he got invited to both parties and I didn't (he and I hang together when we're around these people). He found the party thing a bit odd, and he went to neither of those events.

But, what he told them is this: He stopped because he reevaluated the relationship based on the evidence and made a decision based on that evidence. My friend added that it didn't make me a bad person for doing it. And he left it up to them to decide what the evidence was.

It's not even COMICAL to watch these guys trying to get at me. It's just sad and bothersome; it's obvious that I'm trying to get away from them when they approach me.

The blessing in my letting go there is that I was able to follow the Good Orderly Direction of a Higher Power to get with the people I needed to be with - those who love and care for me unconditionally even if I am "different."

In another instance, I had a co-worker tell me that she couldn't stand me when she first got hired. My rigid routines and actions were offputting to her - although I can't imagine why as I never bothered her with them. She has no interest in dating me (and vice versa), but she was put off by my statement that I would never date anyone on my job. It's selfish to her that I have no interest in a relationship of that magnitude at work or outside of it. but we actually have a decent workplace relationship now.