Why do you dislike another person?

Shakesbear

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I was wondering what makes you dislike someone? I don't mean because they support a different footie team, or drink red wine and you drink white - but in a way that it is hard to rationalize and maybe even explain. I have come to a wall in a story I am planning. The wall is a woman who is disliked by many because she is a social climber. Is this what dislike can be built on? Can dislike turn to hatred? I've thought about this for too long and can no longer judge what is and isn't believable so any input would be gratefully received.
 

backslashbaby

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I try to tell myself that folks are free to live as they please and it's none of my business, but God yes. Social climbers can be petty, terribly materialistic, offer unwanted tips on life and how to live it... ugh. They usually use backhanded compliments and/or gossip about other folks and try to put them down constantly.

A lot of times their cruelty has ripple effects that can make someone hate them, I think (they ridicule a friend away from her true love because he's 'from the wrong side of the tracks', maybe).

If you make no bones about hating folks, they are easy to hate for just being plain obnoxious, too.

I've never met one that wasn't manipulative as hell. That gets easy to hate ;)
 

alleycat

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Well, we could discuss this for hours (and may).

Here's just one example from real life. I used to know a woman who was attractive, intelligence, articulate, and personable. All good. Almost everyone liked her when they first met her, then their opinion of her would slowly change. After six months or so, many people actively disliked her.

I think the main reason was people came to feel she wasn't really who she seemed to be; she was being false with them and/or putting on a front (more than most of us do). She might tell someone that their new dress was beautiful, then later tell someone else that she couldn't believe anyone would wear a dress like that. Of course, the person she told this to had probably also heard her gush over the dress with the other person. People start to wonder "What's she saying about me behind my back?"
 
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Pretty much what alleycat said.

People who wear two faces; one for when they're speaking to you, and another for when they're speaking about you.

Such people always show what they are in the end, and they rarely have genuine friends; usually it's just sycophants who are willing to keep their friends close and their enemies even closer.
 

alleycat

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Or you could just use "irregardless" in a sentence.




(Wait for it . . . )
 

Puma

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I'm probably not going to be much help because what so often happens for me is an instant dislike (maybe distrust). There'll be something about the person that throws up a red flag. It's not a physical something, probably more a body language type of thing, although often I read the caution from a person's eyes.

In your situation, social climber who's disliked - she probably doesn't hesitate to step on someone's toes to get what she wants; she's probably coarsely abrasive in ridiculing people who don't have clothes or things that are chic; she looks down on and talks down to people; it's always me first. She'd be very open (and arrogant) about talking about things she has (including private school for the kiddies, expensive cars, etc.); she'd be good at name dropping and work her way into situations where she'd be noticed by people at the level where she wants to be. I suspect you know the type - always easy to spot. Puma
 

CACTUSWENDY

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Work ethics could be of low grade. That's a bad thing in many companies.
 

PrincessofPersia

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Or you could just use "irregardless" in a sentence.




(Wait for it . . . )


Tsar-Nuclear-Explosion.jpg
 

PrincessofPersia

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I'm probably not going to be much help because what so often happens for me is an instant dislike (maybe distrust). There'll be something about the person that throws up a red flag. It's not a physical something, probably more a body language type of thing, although often I read the caution from a person's eyes.

It's the same for me. It's kind of a snap judgment for me. But I'm almost always correct about the person. If my initial impression is that the person is a w@nker, pretty much 10 times out of 10, he'll turn out to be one.
 

Kenn

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I show respect to everyone, but I don't like people who fail to reciprocate it. I don't like arrogance and I don't like selfishness. I think I speak for most people. Social climbers tend not to be liked because, by definition, they are selfish (and can be arrogant).

How do you draw the distinction between dislike and hatred?
 

KQ800

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Something that always gets me frothing is when someone arbitrarily decides that you are wrong about how to do something or what you are doing.

Example: Person enters your office, and proceeds to turn all the pens in your penholder/mug the other way up, not only without asking how you prefer to keep them but also while explaining that "You don't keep pens with the wrong side up. They should be like this."

This can turn me into a fanatic pen-holder-defender in less than two seconds.
 

Zelenka

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I'm probably not going to be much help because what so often happens for me is an instant dislike (maybe distrust). There'll be something about the person that throws up a red flag. It's not a physical something, probably more a body language type of thing, although often I read the caution from a person's eyes.

In your situation, social climber who's disliked - she probably doesn't hesitate to step on someone's toes to get what she wants; she's probably coarsely abrasive in ridiculing people who don't have clothes or things that are chic; she looks down on and talks down to people; it's always me first. She'd be very open (and arrogant) about talking about things she has (including private school for the kiddies, expensive cars, etc.); she'd be good at name dropping and work her way into situations where she'd be noticed by people at the level where she wants to be. I suspect you know the type - always easy to spot. Puma

I have to go with Puma on this one - sometimes it's almost instinctive with me. There is just something about a person that sets my teeth on edge (or in the case of my current situation at work, makes my skin crawl). Often later on I can pin it down and usually it's a kind of arrogance I'm picking up on. I don't like people who sneer down their noses at other people's interests or opinions without even giving it a thought, who think that whatever qualification / experience etc they have makes them better in every way to their colleagues, especially those coming in at the bottom and thinking they know more than the people who've been here for years.

I actually dislike feeling that way though - generally I try to get along with everyone, don't like conflict, and try to be as nice and helpful as I can. Sometimes though, it's just too hard.

(I wish I was just writing about this situation, not sitting at work with it right now...)
 

Switch-Phase

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I find I automatically want to cut down people who speak with a haughty air to everyone while actively displaying a complete lack of knowledge about the subject at hand. Like this one girl who said "Well I'm a natural pagan, but even NORMAL people like you can do this."

Like screw you, paganism is a choice, not a birth right or species. And second, just because I haven't told you what I believe in doesn't automatically mean I'm without equal capabilities. If you're so magic why don't you stop bothering me and go summon a boyfriend? Oh wait you can't because none of your "spells" ever work.

Not that there aren't pagans I respect, but it's condescending people like that who dawn a label and add bs to it while judging everyone around them. They completely miss the point of their own "way of life". Most of the time I keep silent and nod the way one generally does when someone's just said irelevant to the subject.. But it still irks me.
 

Mr Flibble

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I find I automatically want to cut down people who speak with a haughty air to everyone while actively displaying a complete lack of knowledge about the subject at hand. Like this one girl who said "Well I'm a natural pagan, but even NORMAL people like you can do this."

Like screw you, paganism is a choice, not a birth right or species. And second, just because I haven't told you what I believe in doesn't automatically mean I'm without equal capabilities. If you're so magic why don't you stop bothering me and go summon a boyfriend? Oh wait you can't because none of your "spells" ever work.

Please do not hate all pagans because of this! I'd hate that too, and I am a pagan! Hey, every religion has their weirdos...


Dishonesty will make me hate someone every time. Particularly if it is a personal dishonesty/two-faced-ness. Promising things and never delivering is a personal bugbear too.

I can;t say there's many people I hate. Although I reserve a particluar antipathy (read need to annoy the shot out of) a certain ex-wife of my mate. Who blamed her leaving him on me saying 'Hi' to her and then spending some time talking to my mate rather than tell her how great she was....which she relayed as 'Julia was a real bitch to me and disrespected me!'. My mate;' response was 'Nah, if she;d had a go, you'd have scars'. Of course it turned out she left cos she was knobbing the barman...
 

Smish

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Rudeness. I used to have a colleague who wouldn't hold the door for anyone. It was bad enough when he'd let the door slam in my face, but I once witnessed him let the door slam in the face of an elderly man with a walker.

This man would also leave his dirty dishes in the sink for others to wash. Oh, and he'd walk around the office in his socks... and he had incredibly stinky feet.

And once, we had a cake for a colleague, and he took the knife that was being used to cut the cake, and licked all the icing off it. And then didn't replace the knife, of course, so someone else had to go get a clean one.

Ugh. I hate that man.
 

IceCreamEmpress

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Many people who are social climbers are also users and fakes who are untrustworthy and break promises. Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, for instance. It's a strongly believable type.

My guess is that it would be harder to make a social climber sympathetic--you would have to give that character a backstory that made the social climbing understandable, like having parents who had a really tough time financially because they weren't part of their locality's social elite, and vowing as a child to do whatever it took to get in solid with the movers and shakers in order to provide security for their family.
 

Nivarion

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I hate people who go around talking about stuff stuff like they're the big shit authority on the subject, when really they haven't got a clue.

One example is a new co worker at one of my jobs. He's been there about a week, I've been there a month and a half. On top of that, Its an industry I've worked for over a year, and its his first job in it.

So one could reasonably say that I've got more experience than him right?

Not according to my co worker here.

The other day, while preparing a dish for a customer (I'll not say what it is, for all I know he's an AW'er.) he comes over and tells me that I'm doing it wrong. I then point at a picture of said dish, not five feet from us that shows it exactly how I'm doing it. He still insists that I'm wrong, so I pull out the recipie book that we're supposed to follow and show it to him. He then insisted that me and the book are wrong. He's been doing them his "right way" which is of course, wrong.

Guess he knows more than Me, the shift manager, the store, district, state and corporate as well. Go figure.
 
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shadowwalker

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I hate manipulators, so a social-climber would definitely fit in there, as do perpetual victims and know-it-all's and the extremely ambitious and passive-aggressives and... well, you get the picture. You want something from me, tell me. If I can give it and want to, I will. If you try to trick me into it - forget it (along with any future requests).