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Edited on Thu Jul-10-08 04:32 PM by Tab
< i apologize for the lowercase - my shift key is screwed up>
is it reasonable to want to be universally liked? no. understandable, but unlikely to happen for anyone.
it it reasonable to want some people to like you? sure.
can you accept that you have friends and family that like you? great.
are you bent out of shape that there's a possibility that someone you just talked to may not like you? if you obsess about it, that might be a problem. i would like everyone to like me, but i understand that won't happen. likewise, i interact with lots of people every day - some i like, some i'm neutral about, and a few i don't care for. that's just me and where i am and them and where they am, and i guess we don't intersect.
i'd say it's only a problem or a sign of loss of self esteem if you obsess about it.
real self esteem means that you understand that someone doesn't like you, you may not understand why, but you're not going to let it color your life. it may make you sad, depending on how important that person potentially was to you, but you are okay with it - whatever the reason, it's not working out - but you're still a good person and can keep going on.
if you're really just craving the need for people to like you AND you're going further than you might normally (e.g.: sleeping with someone just to hope that they will like you) then that would be low self-esteem, but even if it is, it's not irreversible. and perhaps it is a sign that you don't like yourself very much, but recognizing that is a good thing - it means you're tapped into your feelings, you're attuned to what you feel is wrong and WHY, and you want to change it. what would suck is if you had no clue, but then you wouldn't be posting here. you know something's wrong, you have some insight into it, and you're asking for help.
there will be a light at the end of this tunnel. don't focus on the people you want to win over, pay attention to the people who accept you and love you already.
on edit: i screwed up the formatting.
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