If so, why? Do you wish you didn’t hate him or her? Do you think your feeling of hatred of this person is entirely under your volition, or is it something you seek to change?
Please note the qualifiers. Persons you know only online (say through this message board) don’t count; nor do public figures you have never met, no matter how odious. And yes, that includes Glenn Beck AND Michael Moore.
Answering my own question…I hate my stepdaughter’s biological father. Only he’s more of a sperm donor, as he has never shown the slightest interest in being anything other than a jackass to her. Part of the reason I hate him is that I love her, and, despite being an adult, she is still covetous of his affection and sensitive to his disapprobation. But I also hate him because he’s pretty much the same guy now that I was in my twenties. He’s the incarnation of the part of me I despise, and he reminds me of that part of my past whenever I see or hear about him.
There are certainly people I heartily dislike, but I can’t think of anyone I really hate. Lest you think that’s a virtue, it’s mostly because real hatred requires a level of energy and commitment that I just can’t work up.
There may be people who hate me, but if so they do it quietly and/or from a distance, which is fine.
I don’t hate anyone. I’ve tried; I just can’t sustain that much animosity over an extended period of time.
I know one guy who hates me, but we haven’t had any kind of meaningful relationship since I was 17 years old. He was a friend that just dropped me without any explanation and to this day refuses to speak to me. I e-mailed him about four years after he stopped speaking to me hoping to at least avoid some awkwardness at parties, and he responded with such venom it was really rather shocking. He has retconned his whole past to imagine that we were never that close to begin with. The closest I ever got to an explanation was that he didn’t like my boyfriend at the time. It’s hard to imagine hatred would run so deep over a silly 3-month fling I had when I was 17.
Anyway, years later one of his friends asked me what had happened between us, and I told him something I should not have about this guy, which pretty much set the rift in stone. I think it was one of the only things I have ever done out of malice, and my one regret in the whole deal is that I let my hurt overwhelm me enough to hurt someone back.
My aunt visits him occasionally so I still have to hear about him. She says she’s seen him drop other friends who are going through difficult times personally – like one who had a family member dying of cancer – because he can’t deal with suffering or something. It was a very painful loss at a very vulnerable time of my life, but I’ve offered the olive branch and he won’t bite. It’s out of my hands, and I’ve ultimately concluded any person who would so ruthlessly cut someone out of their life with no explanation really isn’t the person I thought I loved anyway.
This. It’s just not worth the expenditure of energy.
I have some in-laws that have taken up sides during the divorce process, by I don’t have any way of knowing if they actually hate me, nor am I particularly stressed about it. I can’t think of anyone else on the planet that I’d have given cause to hate me.
Hate is a strong word. I don’t hate anyone I know, but there are people who behave in ways that I hate. So I’m hating the behaviour not the person.
My Brother’s wife. She’s one of those people who thinks every single word she utters is hilarious. She’ll say something and then do one of those laughs that assumes everyone else is laughing with her. She’s a terrible influence on my nieces. She talks to them like they are her sisters who she fights with.
My other brother’s girlfriend. She makes me feel uncomfortable. She’s bigoted. She’s got a nasty streak, particularly when it comes to my brother. She ridicules him behind his back to everyone. Including me. I don’t think she realizes that I don’t appreciate my brother being talked about like that.
As for people who hate me - I’ve only really experienced that on the Dope. Never IRL. People are never genuine enough for me to find out whether they dislike me or not.
There are some folks I’m really, really disgusted with (my son’s ex-wife for example), but I’d be hard pressed to find someone I really ‘hate’. As others have said, that’s just too much energy to spend.
I’ve no idea if anyone else hates me. I kind of doubt it, but the world is a weird place.
I used to hate several people, but now I’m retired, living comfortably and debt-free and they’re still trying to pay for all their toys and wallowing in their miserable existences, so it’s all good.
I have a cousin that is a total fucking douchebag. Just thinking about him makes me feel anger. Everyone else in my family feels the same way about him, even his own sister. We all keep hoping he’ll finally piss off the wrong person and meet his death, but so far no such luck.
This asshole only cares about two things in life: himself and money, which he worships. Among other loose screws in his head, he was apparently born without the ability to feel empathy. He’s going on 50 years old, and never once in his life has he paused to consider that his actions might hurt others, nor does he care; the only thing that matters to him is getting his own way. Of course, he doesn’t understand why everyone hates him; in his mind, he is perfectly normal and everyone else is fucked up.
We (my family) tried to endure his bullshit and put up with him as a necessary evil until almost seven years ago. During a family crisis - Cousin’s nephew killed his girlfriend and himself - Cousin pulled a couple of stunts that proved that he could have cared less about his nephew and brother (nephew’s dad, also now deceased). The most important thing to Cousin was, as usual, getting his own way. After that, pretty much the only person on the planet that would speak to Cousin, aside from his wife and adopted son, was his father. When my uncle died in '08, the one good thing to come of it was that we will hopefully never have to have any dealings with Cousin again.
It recently came to light that Cousin has been molesting his adopted son for years, and about a month ago he was arrested. While I feel horrible for the kid, I and my family are delighted that Cousin will hopefully be going to prison soon, and staying there for a long time - unless he gets himself killed by another inmate (crossing fingers).
As for the second question, I don’t think anyone hates me.
I have a life-long, low-simmering hate for the high school bully . It doesn’t impact my life now of course, but she ruined my high school experience and her actions help make me what I am today. Interesting she disappeared after school, she and her “gang” never showed up at any high school reunions. I only know if I ever heard of one of life’s cannonballs landing on her pointy head, I would gloat. And I believe in karma, what goes around, comes around, so there’s that.
It’s good to put ‘hate’ aside as it eats you up, but really - some people DESERVE hate.
Not really. There is an old coach that would qualify but I’ve found that hate usually morphs into pity. If I don’t like someone it’s because they’ve done something bad or are so obnoxious that they naturally bring grief upon themselves which makes me pity them.
Not going to beat myself up for having a negative emotional response to people who do petty and unethical things to other people while justifying it to themselves as it being all the other person’s fault.
There was one person that I could say I genuinely hated. It was a roommate who violated every principle of good manners and responsibility. Can’t say my attitude toward him has changed, but I don’t live with him anymore, so I just don’t think about him very much.
Nope. I feel my hatred was well-deserved.
Like I said, I feel my feelings were justified and that most people would have reacted similarly. So probably not. And I would not seek to change it.
Yes, I hate someone. My ex-best friend, who used her bipolar disorder as a convenient excuse for years of lying, emotional manipulation, and verbal abuse. I stopped communicating with her over three years ago but I still occasionally have nightmares about having to face her again.
There are other people I very strongly dislike, and a few who I even viscerally dislike, to the point where just thinking about them makes me want to punch a wall, but none of them ever got close to me and abused my trust by walking all over me and treating me like shit the way she did.
Edit: Sorry, I only answered half the question. I have given a few people good reasons to hate me (mainly ignoring them after claiming they were my friends because their clingy, borderline-stalking behavior was making me more than uncomfortable), but I don’t think any of them do. If anyone does hate me I don’t know about it, and I don’t want to.
I don’t hate anyone, it takes too much work and energy for no real payoff. Anger has never served me well, so I try my best to let go of it quickly.
I am sure some of my patients hate me. I refuse to prescribe them narcotics unless there’s a legitimate medical need for them, and that upsets some of them quite a bit. Oh well.
I can safely say that I hate an ex-boss of mine but the hatred is pretty low key. It takes a thread like this to make me even remember the SOB but when I do, all the hatred comes back. I wouldn’t mind crucifying that person, if the truth were told.
Two people exist in my life that I truly despise: My nephew’s mother and father.
We have had custody of my nephew for over 2 years. We had to take custody of him because his mother in the span of 1 year, lost her house, car, business, and all her savings because of her substance abuse. We got nephew when he was 9 and he was one screwed up kid, due to his mom’s neglect and mental abuse. His dad has been in and out of jail for non-payment of child support and physical assault. We don’t know if nephew has ever been on the receiving end of his abuse, but he’s seen him at his worst. He also is a substance abuser.
Both the mom and the dad have lied and stolen from our nephew… multiple times. They make promises to him that they don’t keep and continuously let him down. So I hate them for abusing a kid who is quite a smart, nice and considerate kid. Also, after all their abuse and neglect, nephew still hasn’t learned what truly awful people they are. So I hate them for him.
I agree with salinqmind, some people deserve hate.
I hate my ex-wife. Not the burning, laughing-if-she-got-hit-by-a-truck kind of hatred. It’s more pity and scorn mixed with simmering anger about how my involvement with her truly cocked my life up.
She took what had been a sweet, sensitive, slightly screwy 21-year-old kid, found every weakness and insecurity that he had, stuck a crowbar in those cracks, and leaned on it as hard as she could.
It’s only now, a year and half out of the marriage with me trying to adjust to a normal long term relationship for the first time, that I’ve come to realize what an emotional bonsai my relationship with her turned created in me.
I don’t wish her ill, but that’s because I’m a good person. If I were ever to run in to her again, I’d like to think that I’d react with polite indifference, but I can’t really be sure.