Yeah, I have that sometimes. It feels sociopathic, almost, but even if someone really rubs me the wrong way on a first impression, there's no reason to escalate unfriendliness. Just stay courteous, and don't burn a bridge. And I genuinely do care for each individual, as a fellow person, but all too often I find myself hating people. Reconciling these two inclinations in an optimistic way has been challenging, I'm nowhere near finished. It should be simple, right? I don't always practice what I preach, so that's some work to do, too.Sometimes I’ll get a call or email from someone five years after the last contact and I’ll think, oh right, I hated that person. But they would never have known, of course. Let’s see if I still hate them. Very often I find that I don’t. Or that I hated them for a dumb reason. Or that they were having a bad day. Or much more likely, that I had been having a bad day.
So funny you said that. I was engaged in a minor internet feud with someone about 3 years ago and he is a popular figure. He was generous enough to PM me recently and we discovered that we were both wrong about the reasons we hated each other. Turns out I respect him and we like each other. <insert ASCII shrug>