A blog by Pepetoe.

“The need to be liked is rarely about others. It’s about the version of ourselves we think needs permission to exist.”

Today I’m writing about something that really hits home for me. As someone who has always prided herself on good grades, fast-paced jobs, being “successful” in every way possible, and basing an uncomfortable amount of my worth on that idea of success, the thought of someone not liking me, or worse, actively hating me, never sits well. Whether you’re a high-achiever or not, that feeling when someone doesn’t like you just… isn’t nice, is it? Maybe a few of you reading this have cracked the code and genuinely don’t care when someone metaphorically (or literally) sticks their middle finger up at you. If that’s you, congrats. But that’s not me, and honestly, it’s not most people.

Looking back at school, I wasn’t a “popular” kid, but I was well known in my year group and beyond. I did sports, I could chat to pretty much anyone, and teachers generally liked me. But all of that was overshadowed by the amount of drama I always seemed to be involved in: friendship issues, boy-related nonsense, the usual teenage chaos. I was even named “Most Dramatic in the Year” in our 2021 yearbook. And I say “victoriously named” because at the time it felt like another title to add to my shelf, another medal I’d won. In hindsight… maybe not the most flattering award.

But overall, I was liked by a lot of people. And yet there were still a few people who genuinely put their everything into hating me and making my last couple of years at school pretty miserable. I’d lie awake wondering what I’d done to deserve rumours being spread, snide comments, whispered conversations behind my back. It was the idea that someone didn’t like me, and I wasted so much time and energy trying to understand why.

When I left school, my friendship group shrunk dramatically: from more than twenty girls to about five of us, one of which being my sister. It’s true what they say: when you leave school and sixth form, you naturally drift apart from most people. But even so, when my twenty-first birthday came around, I still invited all the girls I used to be close with… and received zero responses from any of the fifteen of them. To me, it felt blatantly rude. But still, my mind spiralled: Why wouldn’t they come? Did they hate me? Did they not care? Had we drifted without me realising? Why wasn’t I told?

And that’s where this whole theme of “not being told things” comes in, or more simply, uncertainty. One of my biggest pet peeves (or maybe fears?) is not knowing something that everyone else knows. It doesn’t matter if it’s something small like family plans for Christmas, friendship drama, who’s dating who… or something bigger. During COVID-19, for example, I struggled massively with all the unpredictability and not-knowing. Maybe it’s anxiety. Maybe it’s FOMO. Maybe it’s both. There’s a lot to unpack here, but at the core, I think it all ties back to uncertainty, especially uncertainty around whether people like me. And this was enhanced in the pandemic because I couldn’t exactly go ask these people off-screen what they thought about me.

I’ve tried to just put it aside and “not care” who likes me and who doesn’t, but it’s never that simple. We all have this craving to be liked. We thrive off belonging. Some of us thrive off being needed or useful. It’s normal. It’s human. We seek external validation because it helps us fit in, and because fitting in makes us feel safe. So when I sit here preaching things like “do it for yourself, not them” or “other people’s opinions don’t define you,” I genuinely believe those things… but in this particular context? I think it’s a little bit bullshit.

Why? Because our thoughts, opinions, and beliefs aren’t entirely our own. They’re shaped, at least partly, by the people around us. If you keep hearing you’re clumsy, or lazy, or a “wreck,” eventually you start believing it. If enough people say it, it must be true, right? And to some extent, maybe it is. When both loved ones and enemies say the same thing, part of your brain registers it as truth.

But this is where I return to my usual preaching: we have to look past that. Maybe you are “lazy” sometimes, but that single trait does not define you. When we hear criticism, especially repeated criticism, it’s easy to assume that all of us is inherently “bad.” And that’s simply not the case. Criticism and hate have weight, of course they do, but we have to take them with a pinch of salt.

My point is this: yes, to some extent, we do have to listen to what people say about us (good or bad), because it does influence how we see ourselves. But at the same time, we have to stay grounded in who we believe we are. Not one part of us is inherently bad. No one is born a bad person. We all make mistakes and mess things up, but those moments don’t define us.

Those negative comments people make about us may hold a sliver of truth, but that doesn’t mean they are the truth of who we are. Listen if you need to, but stay true to yourself. Stay kind to yourself. That’s the only version of you that matters.

Now Here’s the Part We Don’t Often Admit: We Don’t Just Want to Be Liked, We Want Permission to Exist

There’s something I’ve realised recently that feels a bit uncomfortable to admit, but it’s true, and I know a lot of people will relate: this whole obsession with being liked isn’t just about popularity or validation. It runs deeper. It’s almost like we’re looking for permission. Permission to be ourselves, permission to take up space, permission to exist without someone rolling their eyes at us or deciding we’re “too much.”

When you grow up being the high-achiever, the fixer, the one who keeps it all together, you end up learning that your worth comes from how well you perform. How good you look on paper. How many people think you’re doing “well.” And when even one person doesn’t like you? It feels like the whole illusion collapses. Suddenly you’re sat there thinking: If they don’t like me, if they’re saying these things about me, then who am I allowed to be?

And that’s what I struggled with the most. It wasn’t just the dislike itself, it was what it represented to me. It felt like rejection of me, not just my behaviour or choices. It was like someone reached into the middle of my identity and stamped a red X over it. And the crazy thing is, half the time the people whose opinions I was losing sleep over weren’t even in my life anymore. But that didn’t stop the sting. And it still hasn’t even now.

The truth is, when someone doesn’t like us, it can feel like we’re being told we don’t have the right to exist as we are. Dramatic? Maybe. But when you’ve spent years shaping yourself to be “enough,” it makes sense. You start believing the room only has space for the version of you that everyone approves of, and anything outside of that makes you feel unsafe.

But the more I’ve gone through, and the more I’ve learned, lost, cried over, healed from, the more I’ve realised that we can’t keep living like that. We can’t keep outsourcing our self-worth to the people around us. Not everyone is meant to understand us. Not everyone is going to like us. Not everyone is going to clap for us, or root for us, or believe in us. And that doesn’t suddenly make us unworthy.

People have said things about me that have stuck to my skin like glue, and some of those things may have had truth to them. Some were complete bullshit. Some were projections. Some were misunderstandings. Some came from people who barely knew me. Some came from people who I thought knew me really well. But for so long, I let those comments make me question everything about myself. As if who I am is up for debate based on who’s talking about me that day.

But here’s what I’m trying to teach myself, slowly, painfully, and clumsily. I don’t need to be liked by everyone to be allowed to exist as myself. I don’t need someone’s approval to continue being the person I am trying my best to be. I don’t need to shrink myself just to fit into someone else’s idea of “acceptable.” And neither do you.

You are allowed to take up space without checking if everyone around you is comfortable. You are allowed to have flaws without considering yourself unloveable. You are allowed to learn, grow, mess up, apologise, try again, without earning your place through likeability.

The permission you’ve been waiting for? You can give it to yourself. And maybe that’s what growing up really is. Realising that you don’t need the world to like you in order to feel like you belong in it. You just need to like yourself enough to stay standing, even when someone else has decided they don’t.

Xo Pepetoe

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