I hate being hated

A lot can happen in ten years.

Imagine yourself ten years ago. Where were you? What did you believe? What was going on the world? Ten years ago…

• I had just finished high school and was beginning my studies for my marketing degree
• I was living in Surrey and depressed about it
• The twin towers still stood in New York
• I had less lining on my face
• I was ten years younger
• I was much more naive, immature and close-minded

A lot has changed. I’ve finished my anthropology degree (although I may have been on to something with marketing), I lived in Italy and I like to think I’ve grown significantly in maturity and in my world views.

Ten years ago I also did something to piss someone off. I can’t remember now what it is that I did, I do remember fighting with this person but it was something so petty and stupid that I honestly could not remember what it was if my life depended on it. Whatever it was, I’ve obviously forgotten it and have no ill will towards this person. We haven’t seen each other since high school ended, or maybe the year after and I haven’t spent one moment thinking of her since.

We have a mutual friend who has gotten back into contact with her and they have hung out a few times in the past year. I was told that she did make mention of me in the past, but I brushed it off but the message was clear, she still held a grudge.

Over the summer we had an exchange over Facebook, around the time our high school reunion was being planned. I tried to engage the people on our high school page about the relevance of reunions this day and age, this girl decided to make some insulting comments towards me and I responded. I’m not proud of the way I responded, or that I even responded at all, I felt stupid for engaging in something so stupid and deleted my comments right away. But the damage was done, she had seen whatever it was that I wrote (again, I’ve forgotten what was said in the exchange) and has remembered.

Within the last month she had seen this mutual friend of ours and made comment to her about how I wasn’t at the reunion, then proceeded to call me crazy and insane. My friend defended me to her, as most good friends would and we later joked about about it.

We joked about it because it’s funny to think that someone whom I haven’t spent any time thinking about still holds a grudge against me for whatever reason. It’s immaturity and the inability to move on. I let the whole exchange go two minutes after I heard about it and had a good time with my friend, but on my way home and alone with my thoughts it started to bother me.

It bothered me because I now know that someone out there hates me. If not hate, then strongly dislikes for some reason unknown to me. It’s not like I killed her dog.

I know it’s stupid and petty to be affected by the rantings of someone so immature but it does. To know that someone dislikes you for something that happened years ago and they can’t even bother to get to know who you are now is hurting me in ways that I never thought would.

I admit, I fought the first instinct to message this girl on Facebook. I wanted to set the story straight and somehow make her like me. Or at least remain as neutral on her feelings towards me as I have to her. But then I realized that at some point I have to learn to stop arguing with irrational people, that not everyone will always like me and for someone who has held this view for so long a message sent on Facebook is not going to change her opinion.

I know it shouldn’t bother me this much. Why should I care if she hates me? I don’t have any association with her and I’m pretty sure we’ll never see each other. It shouldn’t bother me.

But somehow, it does.