You Like Me, You Really Like Me!

Posted on | June 4, 2010 | No Comments

I’m meeting my pen pal today. In fact, by the time this scheduled post has published, I will have probably already met her. And I’ll know whether or not I was nervous for nothing.

Through my job, I found out about this pen pal program at one of the local schools. The middle school students are paired with adults in the community and write letters (real, honest-to-goodness, put a stamp on them letters) back and forth to each other. Towards the end of the school year, there’s a big book fair and breakfast at which the pals can meet each other for the first time.

It’s my first year as a pen pal, so perhaps my nervousness can be explained away by not knowing what to expect. Still, I surprised myself – I didn’t think I’d get nervous at the prospect of meeting a 14-year-old girl. I know that part of it is that I’m not quite sure what will happen, but the other part is something very simple and very humbling: I really just want her to like me.

Our desire for acceptance is a vulnerable thing and one people don’t often admit to. We don’t like feeling or appearing insecure in any way, but we do still have that tiny part of us that secretly wishes everyone like us. It’s not exactly practical. After all, we don’t always like everybody ourselves. But no matter how often we tell ourselves it doesn’t matter or that it’s not important, deep down inside we really do want to be liked.

I mean, of course we want to be liked. I can’t think of anyone I know who purposely wants to be disliked. From trying to fit in at school or work to hoping we can impress a new friend or lover, being liked gives us the sense of being “in.” It means we’re a part of something, whether it’s a group of friends, a professional organization or a relationship. And we all want to be a part of something – we want to fit, we want to belong. It also reinforces our sense of self-confidence. Presumably, we like ourselves; but if other people like us too, then we must be doing something right.

In an ideal world, we’d all be so wonderfully self-assured that it wouldn’t matter whether someone else liked us or not. Alas, we do not live in an ideal world and so it does matter.

I know that wanting my pen pal to like me probably makes me seem somewhat insecure. If I’m the self-confident adult I try to be, why would it matter if one 14-year-old girl liked me or not? After all, from my experience, getting a 14-year-old to like anything can be a battle. God knows when I was 14, I was a teenage nightmare. It’s entirely possible she won’t like me simply because she’s 14 and has decided she doesn’t like anything.

Appearances of insecurity aside, I hope she does like me. I don’t know why it matters. I just know that it does.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

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