i often find myself wanting to be universally liked before i remember that actually, not only are there certain kinds of people that i don’t care about the opinions of, there are certain kinds of people who i actually *want* to dislike and resent me and i would be deeply uncomfortable being admired by.
when you’re expressing a part of yourself that you’re afraid might make people dislike you, consider: what is the sort of person who would dislike me because of this? would i want to associate with that kind of person? very occasionally the answer might be yes, but often you’ll find that as soon as you concretely imagine the sort of person who is alienated by you (or unconventional trait X), you will find that it’s the sort of person you don’t want to associate with anyways!
“be yourself” is not just good advice because it’s personally comforting - it’s also good advice because being yourself is a good way to filter out people from your life who aren’t ready for what you’re bringing to the table. stop thinking “do they wanna hang out with me” and start thinking “do i wanna hang out with them”
