Not Everyone Can Like You (Nor Do You Like Everyone)
The infamous side eye photo of Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield (1957)
Not everyone can like you. I certainly don’t like everyone. This is a guide mostly for the occasion when you have to be around someone who clearly does not like you. For whatever reason whether it’s unforeseeable or known to you, the way you handle yourself will always be more important.
I worked with someone on my client’s in-house team that whenever my client, her boss wasn’t looking, would outwardly display distaste for me. We’ll call her Jane. Jane never did anything too harsh, but her Jekyll and Hyde demeanor was obvious to me. Little attempts at micromanaging my efforts or ideas, I was okay with it, because not everyone can like you. There are ways to flip the power back in your favor, without the opponent knowing it.
composure
The trusted C words are composure and confidence. Confidence is always silent and with that comes composure. The person who dislikes you feeds off your energy, so if you’re calm and composed, there is nothing to be used against you. No one ever told Jane this, so the one time she tried to place blame on me for a delayed deadline, I arrived with the necessary receipts without any fuss. There will always be a Jane in the workplace. If you do not react, they feel powerless.
grey rock method
It is called ‘grey rock’ due to the boringness of how it appears, a grey rock is just that. Nothing splashy like the other rocks, this one grey rock does not intend to stand out. Nothing splashy like the other rocks, this one grey rock does not intend to stand out. A psychology term, the Grey Rock Method is a tactic to be used to defend yourself from toxic interactions.
I first witnessed the Grey Rock Method in college during a night out with my friend Denise. As we were walking home together, a very drunk, overtly hostile woman stopped us to let us know how ugly we were. I can’t explain it more vividly than that. To grey rock a possible escalating situation or a harmful person, you must be disinterested and disengaging. Granted this woman who was blatantly bullying us, it was Denise who came ready with her emotional extinguisher and instead of engaging with comeback remarks or causing any scene, she looked at the drunkard woman – shrugged her shoulders like a sweet suburban child and said softly, “okay” and we both quickened our pace to cross the street safely. To this day, it amazes me how casually she removed us from the confrontation. It replays in my head like a good scene in a film where you rewind to keep watching it. Denise’s composure was silk.
