Alright my lovely mutuals, I'm pulling you aside for a sec.
Every day I come on here and see so many of you talking badly about yourselves. Every day I open this website and see lovely, kind, passionate, creative, talented people calling themselves unlovable, unworthy, unwanted, and so many other nasty things that they don't deserve. And I get it. When you grew up being made to feel like you were all these things, not internalizing that thought is goddamn hard. But I'm still here to tell you all a story.
Last semester I knew a guy who was, frankly, the biggest Negative Nancy I've ever met. I don't remember a single time he had something nice to say about anything. Personally, I thought he was a bitch and had to bite my tongue really hard to keep from arguing with him. Sometimes I failed.
But guess what? The guys in my group loved him. They thought he was the funniest guy on earth, did activities with him, invited him to visit each other's places after the semester ended and everyone returned home. In fact, he was better liked in that group than I was—he was consistently included while I was slowly iced out, because I guess having one random girl there ruins the feeling of boys' night. (Which I understand, I just think they handled it poorly.)
Another time, in the intro group I mentored, there was one of the creepiest men I've ever met in my own age range. I won't get into the details of his creepery, only that he made me and several other girls severely uncomfortable every time he'd had a few drinks, and sometimes even sober. The kind of person where you really, really ask yourself how anyone could possibly stand their company.
But guess what? For the longest time, the whole group still enjoyed his company. They thought he was fun, they included him in conversations and on the dancefloor at parties; and even after he'd crossed the line so many times that we mentors were considering kicking him out, the very girls who had brought it to us were willing to give him another chance after he'd apologized. In my opinion it wasn't even an apology. But people were still willing to keep including him.
And those are just two examples. I've met many, many people. And I can give you many, many stories of people who were mean, selfish, immature, or objectively terrible who others saw, flaws and all, and still considered worth their time. Who still had friends, even close ones (and yes—often perfectly lovely people), who looked past their bullshit and enjoyed their company.
Now let me ask you a question.
Do you seriously think you're less worthy of people's love, time and attention than people who don't even try to be likable, considerate, or remotely kind?
There is no magical threshold for how amazing, charismatic, and super speshiful you have to be to be liked by others. If you feel like you always have to be perfect, always interesting, never make a single mistake, to be liked—you're probably with the wrong crowd. If the people around you make you feel like that: You. Are. With. The. Wrong. Crowd. There's nothing wrong with you. And finding the right people is hard, especially as an adult with limited time and energy, but you have to hold onto the knowledge that this isn't all that's in the cards for you. You're not hopeless.
Or maybe it's not even that. Maybe you just lack confidence. And listen, I get it. I, too, grew up as "the friend nobody liked" for many years. But you know what helps? Pretending to have confidence. If you go into interactions convinced that nobody cares anyway, or that you're annoying, or whatever else you tell yourself—that belief will show, and other people will pick up on it and think the same. You gotta stand behind yourself. That's the whole trick all the above-mentioned people used to get a foot in the door—they believed they were worthy of everyone else's time and energy, so others believed it too.
And I know this speech won't make deeply ingrained feelings of inadequacy or loneliness go away overnight. It won't change old patterns. But maybe it'll give you food for thought. Because if you care about your surroundings, and you try to be kind, and you have things you love and care about—what more can anyone expect from you? What more can you expect from yourself?
