The most painful thing ever said to me

One of the most painful statements anyone has ever made to me is that I have a "desperate need to be liked." I realize this is hardly the nastiest thing someone can say to another person. In fact, if this is the most painful criticism I have ever received, I should probably count myself lucky.


When I heard this, or rather read it in an email, I was taken aback. The pain came from two distinct elements: 1) that being liked was not something that I wanted but needed and 2) that that need was desperate. In general I think I take criticism well, even very personal criticism. But there was something about this particular barb that cut me to the quick. This was a couple years ago now but I have kept that email in my inbox and that particular phrase in my mind ever since. Sometimes I read it and I am amazed that while the pain isn't as acute, I still feel my stomach burn and a warmth in my chest that is only slightly attenuated relative to the first read.

As you can probably imagine, this was the last in a less-than-amicable email conversation that marked the end of a friendship. The real pain of this observation was that up until that point I think it was actually true. I had never had that pointed out to me and it has since shaped a lot of my encounters, in many ways for the better. I do want to be liked. I am willing to grant that much. However, I think there was a desperation such that I was prone to dragging along battered and threadbare relationships that should have just been laid to rest. I would behave unlike myself because the idea of burying that relationship or acknowledging that that person did not really like me enough to fight for its survival was unacceptable and felt like a deeply personal flaw. 


I think that the desperation to be liked in the past has at times subverted my ability to be myself around different people simultaneously. I remember in high school and college having different friend groups that I was afraid to have mix because some part of me might be revealed by one party to the other in a way that contradicted somebody's sense of who I really am. The jig would be up, so to speak. The email I received opened my eyes to the idea that I was working really hard to cultivate several personae rather than simply behaving naturally as the person I really am. When I speak to my friends I now employ a relationship litmus test: could I say what I just said to all of my friends or would it sound like it was coming out of someone else's mouth and that I am just trying to fit in with this particular group? Perhaps the very act of putting in effort to ensure personal authenticity is in itself distinctly inauthentic. While I suppose that may be true at first blush, I liken it to the modification of most bad habits in that the actual forward motion is inescapably unnatural until it eventually becomes natural. For a lifelong smoker, its awfully unnatural for him to go to the store and buy gum instead.  But no human is born with a cigarette in his mouth so some amount of effort is required to go back to that original state.


Despite the initial sting, I'm really thankful for that email. It reminded me that if I am trying so hard to be liked than I am probably not being the person I really am. As Kurt Cobain wrote, "I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not." And if you know me well, there's nothing more authentically Arjune than wedging a Kurt Cobain quotation or reference into just about anything.