Opinion piece
I know there are people who don't like me. More than that — I'm fairly certain some people find me genuinely irritating. Too loud for some, too sensitive for others. Someone out there probably thinks I talk too much, and someone else just doesn't click with my personality. And honestly? I've made peace with all of that.
Which is a little funny, because I still handle criticism pretty badly.
It's something I'm actively working on — not letting other people's feedback burrow so deep. If someone criticizes me, I can spend hours replaying it in my head. Did I say something wrong? Was I really behaving that way? Am I actually that annoying? And even if they're wrong, why did they think that about me?
My brain is fully capable of investing an extraordinary amount of energy into a single offhand comment. But it matters enormously who that comment comes from — because sometimes a negative opinion leaves me completely unmoved. Sometimes it even brings a quiet sense of relief.
This might sound like a contradiction
If other people's opinions affect me so much, how can I also say I don't care when someone doesn't like me?
The answer is actually simple: there are people whose approval genuinely matters to me, and there are people I'd rather not impress at all.
The opinions of my family, my close friends, people who have known me for years and whose judgment I trust — those land differently. If they tell me I've got something wrong, I'll sit with it, even if it hurts to hear at first. I'll probably turn it over in my mind longer than I should.
But there are also people I simply have no interest in winning over.
Not because I think I'm always right and they're wrong. But because there are fundamental values where we just don't align. And when someone judges me through a lens I don't share, I genuinely don't see the point in trying to make them like me.
That might be one of the most liberating things I've learned in recent years.
For a long time, I believed that if someone didn't like me, it meant I had done something wrong. As if it were my responsibility to be acceptable to every single person I encountered.
But that's an impossible standard to hold yourself to.
You can't live your life constantly trying to guess what version of yourself everyone else wants to see. One person thinks you're too assertive; another thinks you're too passive. One finds you too emotional; someone else calls you cold. You're too much for one person and not enough for another.
If you turn every piece of criticism into a self-improvement project, you'll eventually become someone nobody recognizes — including yourself.
Not everyone has to like me. I don't like everyone either.
That's not a tragedy. It's one of the most natural parts of sharing a world with other people.
In fact, I think there's something quietly reassuring about the fact that not everyone likes me. It probably means I'm not contorting myself trying to please everybody.
I'm still learning how to hold criticism in the right way — to let the useful parts in without letting the rest take up residence in my head for days.
Maybe one day I'll get there: someone says something cutting, and I don't spend the next three hours mentally rewriting the scene. Until then, I keep reminding myself that someone not liking me doesn't mean something is wrong with me.
It might just mean we stand for different things in this world.
Does caring about some opinions but not others make you a hypocrite?
No — it makes you discerning. Giving weight to the opinions of people you trust and respect is healthy. Letting the judgment of strangers or people with opposing values derail you is not. The key is knowing the difference.
What's the difference between useful criticism and criticism you can let go?
Useful criticism usually comes from someone who knows you well and shares your core values. It points to specific behavior you can actually reflect on. Criticism you can let go often comes from someone whose value system is fundamentally different from yours — no amount of self-adjustment would satisfy them, because you're simply not trying to be the same kind of person.
Is it possible to stop overthinking criticism without becoming defensive?
Yes, and the article points to exactly that balance — staying open to feedback from people you trust while not treating every negative opinion as a verdict. It's less about building walls and more about learning whose voice genuinely deserves space in your head.
