Why we reject people who like us.

I always find the peculiar dance of getting to know someone such a fascinating subject.

Just as Groucho Marx said he could never join a club that would have him as a member, we so often find ourselves attracted to people that are indifferent to us, or who are simply unavailable either emotionally, physically, or spiritually. We become drawn to the vulnerable, because the vulnerable are that much nearer extinction and the corresponding inaccessibility.

Similarly, we're repulsed by those who seem to want or like us, because any sense of self disgust means that anyone liking us likes someone we can't stand. So, we end up being rejected by the people we love.

Or at least at first. And this is why it's so often a dance towards intimacy, or at least a journey through a maze.

Something interesting happened for myself a few days ago, when I told a friend that I liked him/her. I'll be vague about this person's identity, because he/she may read this, or others who read this might identify them.

But what was strange was how this person's demeanour changed instantly. It was as if lightening had struck. And it's interesting, because I've found this kind of thing to happen before. Just as Frank Sinatra sings about "Then I went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid like I love you", a person can feel a sense of repulsion when feelings never felt before come to the surface. People can become actually physically sick when they feel loved. I know I can, and have done. Coming from a family that had big problems expressing simple love, and where the primary members - the parents - had little true intimacy, a loving situation actually felt so alien to me that I didn't know how to interpret it at first. I still have that problem, in actuality.

And that's why many people remain in abusive relationships, or go back to them. They feel that any new, real love is so weird, so alien, that they interpret it with fear and repulsion. So what the lover can often find is that the lovee (if there's such a word) will strike out at them, rather than actually give love back.

In that respect, loving someone, I've found, can be a rather hazardous business.

Yet I've found similar feelings myself. I've been very aware of rejecting people who've professed their liking of me, or their assurance of my worth. Isn't that odd? But it all stems to my conditioning, by my family, that I had little or no value. My father's abusive behaviour towards me when I was a child - by ignoring me for months on end - and similar stonewalling, invalidating behaviours led to my own self worth and esteem being reduced.

Then, of course, if we behave in a servile, humble manner, we may well repel people even further. But it has to be understood that being rejected by the emotionally immature isn't any big deal. But unfortunately that's the trap we fall into so often.

Then a stalemate happens: as our agenda based love bears no fruit, we end up hating and resenting the one that we "loved". But the thing is that it wasn't love at all. It was role playing between two fearful children.

It's a cliche, but love has to be given freely in order for it to be truly effective. We have to recognise that the actions aren't the person, and the core of a person is what we love, and not their behaviour.

But even then there's a caveat: primarily, we have to love ourselves first and foremost. Any adult has to be able to be a self contained individual, with some kind of spiritual connection. Then the emotional/spiritual demand of another human being is removed, along with the perception of it.

Writing this, I'm aware that I had some kind of emotional/spiritual expectation of this person. Letting him/her "go" is the real act of love for me now.

And incidentally... I like and love myself immensely. I have great value; I'm a creative, intelligent, attractive man, and am a pretty amazing guy...

Anyone who would tell me or show me otherwise is someone I no longer have time for.

As a comic footnote, I read something recently that a woman wrote. She said "If you love them, let them go free. But if they don't come back, track them down and kill them"

I thought that was rather amusing in an ugly, old me kinda way...

But there are some peculiar resonances to being rejected. What's significant is that a charge can remain. That's one of the really powerful things about creating an enemy, or is certainly a very important component in sexual tension. I sincerely believe that one of the fundamentals of a sexual relationship is some kind of contempt, somewhere. Power does come into play in a sexual relationship. It's a barometer, in fact, of power in some respects. Which is why people get into the argue/fuck scenario so often. They associate anger with genuine emotion, so they can only guage the other person's credibility by seeing the degree of their anger. So, some people - women especially - will manipulate a man into become angry so that she can be sure of his feelings. But sadly, she'll only feel contempt for him, not find genuine intimacy, then feel frustrated all over again. So, the cycle of abuse/intimacy continues.

And that's the cycle I'm endeavouring to free of. Intimacy can come without abuse, if we can lower our defences adequately.

In his book "Blink", Malcolm Gladwell states the four main reasons that relationships don't work. These are the destructive behaviours between people that lead to the kinds of friction that cause relationship breakdown:

Stonewalling: when one or both parties blanks the other or "sends them to Coventry"

Criticism: when one or both parties berates the other, or negates their opinion/ value or whatever.

Defensiveness: when one or both parties becomes hostile

Contempt: when a display of contempt for the other person becomes apparent.

All the four above behaviours are what I recognise both my parents having towards each other. Also, they're what I recognise in behaviours in any relationships I've had that have failed in the past.

So what does that tell me?

That I display none of the above any more, and that I don't accept any of the above any more from others.

But this does tie in with the subject of this post quite well, doesn't it? When we're not used to anything but the above behaviours, the unfamiliarity of them makes us feel uncomfortable.

And it's the discomfort that needs to be processed into an affective relationship, both with ourselves and others. So that means liking those who like us.

What's inevitable now, I suppose, is that I'd be described as being too rational, impassionate, or just too calculating a person as a result of this epiphany.

But then who said you could win at this game of relationship?