All my friends love and admire her. How can I get over this?

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Hello Hera

I’m an artist in a community of other artists and I have a lot of mutual friends with someone who is very successful and established in my field. She and I have interacted a few times, and it’s pretty clear to me that she really doesn’t like me (through things she’s said when it’s just the two of us, etc).

I also have evidence to suggest she’s blocked me from certain opportunities a couple of times. I know I can’t do anything to change her mind, but having so many mutual friends with her, who really love and admire her and think she can do no wrong, makes me feel isolated and horrible.

I don’t know what I could’ve done to upset her or not like me, as I’ve always tried to be friendly and warm. I’m sure there’s part of this I’m projecting on her as well, I don’t want to see myself as a victim of the situation. How can I get to a place where I don’t care about her not liking me, and do I even bother trying to get my friends to understand my experience with her is not like theirs?

Thanks, 

Rookie

Dear Rookie,

How to deal with someone that your wider social group reveres, when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt they dislike you but you can’t say anything about it without seeming paranoid and delusional, is a highly specific but fairly ubiquitous problem that many people will face at least once in their lives, whether you’re part of a middle school Spice Girls tribute band or on the faculty of a prestigious university philosophy program. 

There are so many potential explanations for this behaviour it’s almost not worth speculating on, but too fun to resist. 

Maybe you once insulted someone you didn’t know was their friend or relative, and they’ve been nursing a secret grudge ever since, that you will never, in a thousand years, understand the origin of. 

Maybe they have a profound aesthetic disgust for the kind of work you make, and are taking it way too personally.

Maybe you annoy them on an interpersonal level. However, if you don’t regularly struggle with this kind of thing and have a lot of friends in common, there’s probably something deeper going on. 

Maybe they have a crush on your partner or ex, or their ex had a thing for you, or some kind of ambient sexual jealousy they’ve reconstituted as an intense personal hatred. Approximately 80% of inexplicable art feuds boil down to someone wanting to fuck someone else’s boyfriend/girlfriend. 

Maybe you represent an archetype of a person who makes them feel insecure, and this has nothing to do with you specifically. 

Maybe they’re totally oblivious to your presence, and this entire situation is entirely in your own head. 

Honestly, unless you’re a naturally paranoid person who secretly believes everyone is out to get you, I think you can trust your gut on this one. Especially if they find subtle ways to put you down when the two of you are alone.

In general, it’s better to know when someone hates you for no discernible reason, so you can stay out of their way. Obviously, this is more difficult in a small arts scene, when you have a lot of mutual friends, and the hater is in a unique position to fuck with your livelihood. Sadly, there is not much you can do about this. 

Ninety percent of people in the arts are the nicest people you will ever meet. But fighting over ever-diminishing resources makes some people insecure and territorial. The craziest people in the arts world are either those suffering from extreme resentment, or those who have built their life around cultivating their place in an elite hierarchy, and are on every funding committee, festival board and judging panel known to man. The more wrapped up they are in this one facet of their lives, the more progressively demented they’re likely to become, and this is how vague personal dislikes get elevated to the level of existential threats. Getting overly enmeshed in this world is a surefire way to curdle your brain.

This isn’t unique to the arts. Anyone who is overly invested in any sort of reputational prestige slowly becomes insufferable over time and bogged down in maintaining their seat of power in a diminishing ecosystem. It can happen to anyone, from those who maintain the office store cupboard to those who run charitable organisations for the blind. 

I know it hurts when someone who all your friends adore transparently hates you, and you can’t say anything about it for fear of sounding delusional and paranoid. But it says more about them and their insecurity than it does about you. Any attempt to expose this person’s dislike of you or win your social circle over to your way of thinking is only going to drag you down into the swamp with the crocodiles. The person who complains the most always ends up looking the craziest, even if your paranoia is fully justified. Especially if the only evidence you have is a vague but unsubstantiated coldness. 

Complain to a few extremely close friends if you need an outlet. But the best thing to do is acknowledge that, wherever you go and whatever you do, there will always be people who dislike you for no reason, and as far as humanly possible, it’s best not to take it personally.

Keep treating this person with the utmost courtesy and respect whenever you have to be in a room together. Bamboozle them with unsolicited kindness and unconditional positive regard. Don’t get enmeshed in any sort of cold war or start talking shit behind their back. Some people live for this kind of drama, and by reciprocating their negative attention, you’re giving them exactly what they want. Counter any subtle dig with genial, good-mannered stupidity, like a bumbling Woodehousian patriarch. Astonish them with your benign and credulous nature. Honestly? Have a little fun with it. If they really hate you, it’s guaranteed to drive them insane. If they’re easily flattered, you may eventually win them over. 

Let them shoulder the entire burden of their dislike of you (because it is a burden, whether or not they are able to admit it). Let “not my problem” and “none of my business” be your mantras. This is a case of who cares least wins. There’s nothing that depresses a hater more than knowing their quest for a nemesis is entirely one-sided. 

Be kind to those in your arts community, and always speak positively about others behind their backs. Resist any temptation to engage in mean gossip or factionalism. Don’t seek deeper understanding. Some haunted wells aren’t worth getting to the bottom of. 

Above all, try to divorce the “arts scene” from the art. Avoid the former like the plague, and devote all of your attention to the latter. Spend as much time as you can with normal people, who like going for walks and talking about what to have for dinner. In the end, the work is the only thing that matters. Hold your head high, and let your art speak for itself.