Everyone hates me

Oh yes. This sucks. I’ve had this happen to me a number of times, but the hardest and most confidence-busting experience was when I was 17 years old. I moved from a small town in Washington State to the huge city of Istanbul, Turkey. With this came a number of trials, but one of the biggest was a rather large non-contracted agreement between every girl in my grade to hate me.  I’m not the kind of person that assumes people don’t like me. In fact, I usually believe that most people enjoy my company. Well, there was no disputing the fact that these ladies could not stand me in the slightest. Felt great. I spent a lot of time wondering what I said or did wrong to make them hate me so much.

I still can’t really tell you why they disliked me so dang much. I could take a couple of guesses though. Luckily I had a mother that boosted my ego daily, so I could just be under the impression they were all jealous. At the time, I thought that was a ton of lies from Mother Reid. Now I can see she was probably onto something.

I first got the hint my second weekend in Turkey. I got invited by a few kids to watch a movie and hang out at a girl’s apartment. They had never seen me in any other mood than being depressed and quiet. Imagine their confusion when they see me hyper, loud, and excited for the first time since I had lived there. I was kind of bouncing off the walls I suppose. I was used to people finding it endearing and joining in.  Back home, people thought I was fun and I was never concerned if they could or couldn’t handle me acting crazy. Apparently these kids found me much more tolerable when I was insecure and silent. To give an idea of how I was acting, I would yell, laugh obnoxiously at anything I said, and say anything I was thinking. To me, this was normal behavior and well tolerated.

That Monday I experienced my first silent treatment. I would rather inhale through my nose while getting a swirly than be ignored. Being neglected is a real fear of mine and being alone makes me feel real insecure real fast. What I should have done was ignore them back and just assume they were jealous. Instead however, I spent much of my energy figuring out ways I could get them to not hate me. What a waste of time. These girls don’t like themselves. Why would they like a girl more confident and prettier than they are.

Let me tell you a bit about these girls. There are two that especially made it a goal to make me unhappy. Unfortunately, I let them succeed somewhat. Good for them for achieving some basic goal setting. Both of these girls were not dealt the cute cards. One had the light red, frizzy hair gene. Along with this, her teeth could have benefited from some serious orthodontia and her face from Pro-activ. She thought it was cute to wear jeans with a ton of holes in them and orange shirts that didn’t compliment her pasty skin. She exerted zero effort when presenting herself to others- that was apparent.

The other’s name was Olga. Olga. The name itself could engulf a small country. She was a tall, intimidating Russian with fierce blue eyes and dark hair. Olga wasn’t all in all an unattractive girl. She likely could have done herself up really well and even looked quite pretty. However, she too exerted no energy when presenting herself to others and I promise you she never skipped a meal. (Bless her heart).

While looking back, I think about how clear it was they hated themselves and in turn hated anyone that had remotely any self-esteem. I doubt they were praised and complemented like I had always been growing up by parents and peers. I doubt they ever looked in the mirror and thought, “Today’s going to be a good day.” I would be shocked if they could think of a number of qualities they liked in themselves. Poor girls. These assumptions alone lead me to believe that it wasn’t so much personal as it was when they saw anyone happy, they felt it was their personal mission to destroy their happiness. What a sad aspiration.

One night in particular will be forever engraved in my memory. Sad though it was at the time, it has built my character to who I am today—and I’m not just saying that. It was near the end of my junior year. The junior class was sent to southern Turkey for some sort of “bonding” week. At the time, I was dating some sort of piece of work and had no great friends of my own. I actually looked forward to this time as an opportunity to get to know some girls in my grade and perhaps make some great memories. Well. That didn’t happen.

My mistake to think I had anything in common with these ladies. Their jokes were crude, and they used the “c word” as a common word in their vocab. Their bodies were shaped like care bears and showed zero hesitation in displaying them regardless. I didn’t understand them. I guess I didn’t try though either. After three days of trying anyway I could to understand my current company and starting to give up, I got confronted by a rather large sum of my female junior class. Each were drunk, and each had their own bit to say.

We were all on a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean. People were celebrating life and drinking the night away… why not. I, not being a drinker wasn’t all too phased by this, but wished of course I were somewhere else. I swayed with them on the rocking boat trying my hardest to embrace the obnoxious overly loud music. This was when I was universally yelled at by each individual girl.

Some Jewish girl with dark hair, pre-nose job began the festivities. “Sarah, what is your problem?” She glared at me, her eyes glazed and hair in disarray. Yay for liquid courage. My natural inclination was to say, “What,” but I just stared at her blankly while she laid into me. Curse words were tossed around. I remember hearing something like, “B**ch” and other words I don’t even like to blank out. She was then followed by five or six other girls, each listing with detail reasons as to why they couldn’t stand me. Things were said that weren’t true, and each time I tried to get a word in, I was engulfed by the wrath of some ruthless teenager unwilling to allow me to defend myself. I should mention that during this, they were interrupted by my then current boyfriend who dished it back out to them. I can’t imagine the horror I would have felt had it not been for his defense.

The night of the "teenage sacrifice" as I like to call it. Can't believe I'm smiling. 

I’m fairly sensitive in general, so when this happened I had some sort of mental breakdown. There’s something very unsettling about being aware that everyone you’re in the same vicinity as can’t stand you and has zero hesitation in vocalizing it. I questioned many things about myself, such as if the things they were saying were actually true and if I was as horrible as they had described. I felt weak and helpless. I couldn’t imagine facing anyone in that grade again. I was horrified and felt as alone as I ever had.

From that day forward I had to endure many more silent treatments, and a few yelling sesh’s. Rumors continued to go around, none of which I honestly remember any details of. This period in my life honestly kind of blew.

Nonetheless, I did recover. Quite splendidly in fact. The biggest accomplishment the Jewish girl had was a well needed nose job, and Olga flunked out of fashion school—a school in which you need to know how to color within the lines. It may sound as if I’m bitter, but I’m honestly not. I feel bad for these insecure girls with no real future to look forward to other than maybe marrying a 70-year old millionaire. And who knows, maybe they’ll be okay with that. I spent my high school years thinking there was something wrong with me because of the intense disliking each girl had for me. It wasn’t until I went to college where I realized I was actually well liked. The key difference was these girls liked themselves.

I’m dead serious when I say that I look back and think, “I’m really glad that happened.” A couple things: First of all. These girls were atrocious. They weren’t fun. They weren’t attractive even. Not like I could have benefited by borrowing clothes. They were unhappy and were rude to everyone even, or perhaps especially their best friends. Not having a friendship with them, though lonely, was a tremendous accomplishment on my part. They would have encouraged the absolute worst in me and made me feel crappy all the time.

Second. I don’t want to come across as the cliché, “I learned a ton,” girl but honestly. So much was learned from this experience. I grew so mush stronger. I cried myself to sleep the night of the female blockade. Never again will I waste a tear, a second thought to people that don’t deserve my time or my grief. I never thought I would be able to look back without feeling some sort of horrible emotion followed by tears swelling into my tear ducts. I look back now with an actual fondness in my heart. Fondness that I did have one loyal friend at my defense and fondness that this is so far behind me.

As much as it does terribly hurt, being disliked is really not the worst thing in the world. Is Donald Trump everyone’s favorite? President Bush? Even MLK was hated by many. No, but they are all a success and as far as I can tell, made their mark in the world and are happy kids. What can be learned here is to learn to like yourself and be happy with yourself.