Deny Them Your Suffering
It is natural to find yourself in a situation where some people hate you for reasons of their own. They might dislike you for picking a side. They might hate you for not showing them the same courtesy they believe they deserved. They might even hate you for genuine reasons because you are, in fact, a bad person. Regardless of their reasons, you would rarely agree that hating you is the right thing to do or that you deserve their hatred.
You need to understand that a group requires a common villain to hate. They need common ground to share with each other, and generally, a common person to hate suits everyone. It doesn’t offend anybody’s sensibilities. They simply have to agree on whom to hate. So, if you are hated by the group, chances are it is really just the group leader who hates you, while the rest are merely following the leader.
Imagine being in a group and having multiple people to dislike. A group cannot afford to have multiple opinions. Because having multiple opinions means allowing room for disagreement. And disagreement cannot survive where consensus and compliance are mandatory. Which is why the best conversations within a group are often about the people they all collectively dislike. It is one of the easiest ways for a group to survive.
The most sensible way to deal with hatred is to not indulge in it. It is tempting to give a comeback, to show them that you don’t care, that they don’t matter. But if all of this is true, then it doesn’t warrant a reaction from you anyway. People who hate you want to see you suffer—not just fail, but suffer. More than your failure, they want to see your suffering in the failure.
In your childhood, bullies didn’t enjoy pushing you around, throwing you to the ground, and beating you. They did it because they wanted to see you suffer, so they kept beating you until they were satisfied that you were suffering enough. The same childhood logic carries forward into adulthood. People never really grow out of their baser emotions; they simply learn to manage them better. And sometimes, not even that.
Failure is inevitable in life, and so is suffering because of it. If you know that their satisfaction comes from your suffering, then the easiest way to reverse it is to enjoy the failure. Treat it as an embarrassment, own your mistakes, and look forward to correcting them. To not suffer is impossible. To suffer, rise again, and attempt once more is audacious. The bully hates the person even more when he stands up one last time to fight, even if his nose is bleeding.
People mistake anger for strength, but that is weakness. Try controlling your emotions and you will realise what real strength is, how much effort it takes to conceal your emotions and still remain respectful towards others. A person who chooses when and how much to react is strong by every standard.
Don’t give them the satisfaction of seeing you struggle to adjust to failure. Accept your mistakes gracefully. The smile on your face when you navigate through failure is important. Be patient for the tables to turn in your favour, and when they do, maintain the same poise you showed when they were not.
Do not rush to show your emotions to them. They are the gateway through which they learn about you. Give them no opportunity to learn about you. Keep them guessing about where it hurts and where it doesn’t. Make them earn your reaction, every single time. You react not to their provocation but at your own will, by your own choosing and on your own accord. Be agnostic to their feelings for you.
There is a reason they say that hating someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Without your participation, they are forced to live with that poison on their own. Let them. That is your last laugh.