I’m Neither An Introvert Nor Shy; I Just Don’t Like You

If you wonder why I never look at you, never smile at your jokes, never talk to you, and never so much as acknowledge your existence on this planet, you need not wonder anymore.

The reason is simple: I don’t like you.

I suppose if I cared about your feelings I’d cough up some bullshit excuse and blame it on my social awkwardness. I’d tell you that I usually keep to myself and that it takes a long time for me to warm up to people because I’m saddled with a crippling array of personality disorders due to growing up in a broken home with cold and abusive parents.

But that would be a lie designed to spare your feelings. It would be the non-romantic version of “It’s not you—it’s me.”

But it’s not me. It’s you. It’s been you all along.

I disliked you from the moment I laid eyes on you. I disliked the way you look, the way you act, the way you smell, your phony toothy smile, your transparent schmoozing, your chameleonic tendency to alter your personality and interests to please whomever is around you, your philosophical shallowness, your predictably partisan political beliefs, your slavishness toward trends, your earsplitting laugh, and your obvious inability to be alone with your own thoughts for more than a minute without going desperately, droolingly insane.

And in the months since I met you, my disdain for you has only intensified.

I am neither shy nor introverted with people that I like. I am outgoing, generous, silly, compassionate, and enthusiastic with them.

I am not socially retarded. The problem is that you are personality-deficient.

So don’t tell me to smile. Don’t ask me what’s wrong. YOU are what’s wrong.