How should we begin this… Recently I had an interaction online that went like this, over the course of many months: (Let’s not try to doxx them. I like them, and they have been friendly towards me, but I think our (very faint to begin with) relationship has probably broken down by now.)

  • We met in person, and followed each other online.
  • We each post stuff on our own.
  • I reply to their stuff sometimes. It turns out that the way I did so was… annoying. Wrong, Unpleasant. Something to be disliked – initially just a little, but it probably built up over time.
  • I did it again, this time tipping them over a threshold. They sternly though extremely politely told me that, we had enjoyable interaction in the past (particularly in person; less so online), but if I keep doing this thing, they will block me.

Now, absolutely no shade against this person. They are extremely kind to spell out the exact social faux-pas to me, in a way that someone else would very likely not have done. If it were someone else, I would’ve already been blocked without any such explicit feedback. So, much thanks to this person.

But what exactly happened?

My reply was of course not “good reply game” type of reply; otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation. However, I’m not sure exactly what I did wrong, apart from “generally being a negative person, bringing negative energy to those who come into contact with me”, and from “Eason making their problem someone else’s”.

There’s a jumble of so-called “catastrophising” and self-blame in my head that’s a mess and not that I could neatly serialise into words right now, so just use your imagination and imagine how it could be. However, besides the generic, “probably irrational” negative thoughts, there are real, unsolved conundrums, which is what I’m writing about now: the negative spiral of being disliked. It goes like this:

  • Be negative, due to whatever reason.
  • Socialise.
  • Be disliked socially, because you were being negative and spreading unpleasant vibes around.
  • “Oh no, people don’t like me!”
  • Become more negative. Go back to step 1.

I’m not in a good mental state right now. If anything, I think I may be under acute brain injury from a sudden, severe, bout of insomnia. Over the past ~9 days, only once did I sleep for more than 7 hours continuously. For every single hour-of-day, there’s a day in the past ~week on which I was awake at that hour. On Bluesky, I said it was the worst I have ever experienced. This isn’t an excuse for poor behaviour, but since this blogpost is about me (hello), I hope to describe the situation/context that I’m in.

I’ve also mentioned in the past several times, this idea of being a Monster. Roughly:

  • You are unhappy. You are hurt.
  • You think negative thoughts about yourself (“I won’t do well”), about others (e.g. “they are lame/immoral/apathetic”), about the world.
  • Some people care about you, and/or would like to help you. These people approach you.
  • You snap back at these people. They are fake, superficial, misunderstanding, and in general very much a counter-example themselves of the point (of good vibes) that they are making.
  • The helpful, caring people are (understandably) hurt. They may be angry at you. Why the fuck did you snap back aggressively? They are the most caring people towards you. But anyway, you, being the Monster (imagine a cage in which you are trapped; the cage is your “Problem”) that you are, hurt whoever comes close.
  • People become afraid of you. People are scared of Monsters.
  • You remain a Monster.

None of this is conducive to you improving your circumstances. Notice the phenomenon, especially stereotypically exhibited by men, of “bottling up emotions”, “not asking for help”, and most notably, withdrawing from society when being hurt/unhappy/lonely.

You can very much consider this entire blogpost just long-form negative self-talk – which it is, but which it doesn’t have to be categorised as such. I see real conundrums here. Real unsolved problems, contradictions. People paint this rosy picture of (shall we call it) a “path to rehabilitation”, and yet here I stand, at the supposed beginning of such path, only to find that it’s a mere painting on an impassable wall.

How is one supposed to be liked, rather than disliked?

  • If you’re in a good mood:
    • congratulations, you give off good vibes! People like you.
  • If you’re not in a good mood – rather, in quite a bad one:
    • If you’re interacting with people who have less care towards you:
      • Ew, go away! Don’t make your problem mine! 🤮
      • It’s much better, for your objective social standing, that you SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BOTTLE UP YOUR PROBLEM!!
    • If you’re interacting with people who care about you (e.g. your mother):
      • They are being fake. They don’t get it. They preach methods that they themselves cannot sustain. Look, you’re gonna do a thing with them, and they will be pissed off. So where did the “care” and “supportiveness” go? All vanished into thin air. The relationship is damaged.
      • Over time, they become someone who have less care about you. This is something that you fear so strongly, and yet it’s bound to happen anyway, just as a matter of when. You have lost yet another resource for helping yourself staying alive in this cruel world. You lost a friend, and perhaps gained an enemy. When the time comes, you will be left behind.
    • If you’re not interacting with anyone at all:
      • Well, good luck. There’s the negative voices that exist oh so naturally. The voices will continue to exist.
      • You can maybe do “meditation”. It’s unclear whether that would simply be coping or self-deception. “Buddhism is an ideology of losers.”
      • You can go to the gym. This one actually emperically works – your body is a machine, and this machine is stupid. If you work it, it will excrete substances that affect your brain chemistry and how you feel afterwards. However, such positive, healthy, and helpful activity as “going to the gym” would hence gradually become tainted with the negative association of “I am here because I was shit. I feel shit, and I cannot relate at all to the other people in the gym who are fit, seemingly happy, confident, and positive”. Do you really want that?

Overall I’d say I’m pretty angry at the world. Not at anyone or anything in particular, but at the relationship dynamics per-se. You can say “at physics”, if you like: the way things are; the way things are known to work. I suffer, and there is no way out of this hole. Every step brings me further from joy, from other people, and from humanity. I am disliked, and that causes me to do things and be in situations that will cause me to be more disliked than I was before. It’s a negative spiral. Let me quote my recently discovered favourite verse of the bible, Matthew 13:12:

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

It’s Chinese new year’s eve today (28 Jan 2025; last day of the year of the dragon). If you’re indeed lucky (or smart), you would never find yourself in a negative situation in the first place.