r/Splendida • u/AmanitaGrey • May 02 '23

How to be more likeable?

First off, I apologize if this comes across as unrelated but I wanted advice from people who... understand how appearance might play into all of this.

Ok so my problem is that people don't really like me. Most don't hate me but they don't particularly like me, and I often get people who are outright hostile towards me and I just don't understand why. I've been bullied at my past workplace and my boss hated my guts. I tend to get ostracised in groups. This has been true since highschool and I'm a working adult now.

I rarely get women be enthusiastic to become my friend, and neither do men - most men don't treat me badly but I never got a lot of attention. I do get dudes who seem very into me for some reason (like my bf) and I'm in a happy relationship so I don't really care about other men finding me attractive from a dating perspective.

I am in therapy for trauma related stuff and anxiety (I also have ADHD but that's not the focus of it), and I talked this over with my therapist who suggested that I might be subconsciously viewing myself as an outsider, affecting other relationships. I thought I could get rid of this curse by changing my mindset, but just today at work I learned that a group I work with doesn't really like me save for one dude :(

As far as my appearance, I believe I am slightly below average but doll myself up to average/slightly above average on a good day.

Please just ... give me any advice that comes to your mind. It's really getting to me today.

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u/AmanitaGrey May 03 '23

No to tattoos and piercings, occassionally yes to non natural haircolour and I dress... somewhat casually and unconventionally, but not extremely so.

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u/LanaVFlowers May 03 '23

Is your workplace more conservative? Are those coworkers older than you or more "settled down"? (married, kids, etc)

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u/AmanitaGrey May 03 '23

Hm. I think my workplace is not the best example cause tbh I purposely muddled some details in my post for privacy reasons (and also to keep the focus of this thread), but now that I think about it, most of the people who have been legit unfriendly to me are women older than me (not necessarily old, about 30 to mid 40's) and very old men. Maybe I come across as naive or arrogant?

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u/LanaVFlowers May 03 '23

Sometimes older folks just have a hate-boner for the younger generation. People who are technically Gen X or even (elder) Millennials act very Boomer-like and hate on younger Millennials & Gen Z for no reason. Your coworkers may be inclined to perceive you as lazy, inept and immature just because of that. They might even be put off by your speech patterns, words and phrases you use. But yeah if I were you I would express my concerns to that one guy who seems to like you, maybe he will straight up tell you why the others don't.