My good friend recently found herself in love again. Before this, we had earnestly discussed the notion of “liking” or “loving” someone. She’s someone who easily gets smitten, plunging into love without a second thought, with new crushes happening almost back to back. In my memory, she always seems to have someone she’s fond of.
I am quite the opposite. The word “infatuation” feels heavy to me; I rarely find myself infatuated or liking someone. I can count the boys I’ve liked since childhood on one hand. Triggering this kind of emotion seems quite difficult for me.
So, I began to wonder, why is it that for different people, the threshold to open up to “liking” someone varies so much? And why is it that some people find it particularly hard to love someone? Today, I want to discuss this topic with everyone.
What Does It Mean of “Hard to Love Someone”?
Before penning down this piece, I posed a few questions to everyone — “What does liking mean to you?”, “When do you think you have started liking someone?”, “What do you think makes it hard to love someone?”, and “When would you admit to liking someone?”. I’ve compiled some of the responses I received:
What Does Liking Mean to You?
► “Wanting to be close to someone. You initiate thoughts about them, can’t help but send them messages, wanting to contact them.”
► “Your heart races when thinking about them, longing for physical contact, hoping to know everything about them, finding them perfect, even their flaws appear cute.”
► “Desiring to connect with them, in any sense. Like boys teasing girls in childhood, not knowing how to express, but through teasing, it’s a form of connection too.”
► “It’s a craving to be with them, feeling joyful together, fantasizing about future scenarios, and can’t help but smile whenever they cross your mind.”
► “It’s a measure of feelings. A slight attraction is fondness, deeper is love. Fondness easily arises, but progressing to liking depends on the desire for a sexual relationship.”
► “Liking is wanting to give them all the good things you feel.”
When Do You Think You Have Started Liking Someone?
► “When your gaze begins to follow them.”
► “I am very passive. When the urge to talk or meet overtakes my inherent passiveness, making me initiate, that’s when I know I like them.”
► “When you start thinking a lot.”
► “When you desperately want to share your highs and lows with them, wanting to experience any special or meaningful events together.”
► “When initial fondness doesn’t fade over time, and evolves into sexual fantasies. Fondness can arise from basic charisma, but if after some time, your perception of them remains unchanged or even improves, your feelings will intensify.”
► “Wanting to see them anytime, anywhere. Sharing delicious food, beautiful scenes, fun encounters, and finding reasons to laugh together. Liking is wanting to share, wanting to know more about them, it’s wanting to become a small cat.”
What Does It Mean to Find It “Hard To Like or Love Someone”?
► “Even after meeting many people, that feeling doesn’t come for a long time.”
► “Reflecting on the few people I’ve liked in my life, it takes several years before someone new comes along. For a long while, whenever I think about ‘love’ or ‘liking’, the faces of the past reappear, even if it has been four or five years.”
► “Not knowing what one wants and knowing exactly what one wants. The former is due to vague standards, the latter due to high standards that are hard to meet.”
► “1) Difficulty in defining specific standards of liking; 2) Similar people doing similar things evoke different feelings; 3) Core needs feel abstract, not easily described or objectively discerned.”
► “Upon fondness, not actively approaching them, waiting for the fondness to wane (which usually does). If any turn-offs are noticed, swiftly distancing oneself.”
► “(1) Taking a long time to confirm (2) Others rarely meet your ‘liking’ standards (3) Once you ‘dislike’ someone, it’s unlikely to change.”
When Would You Admit to Liking Someone?
► “When there’s a possibility of getting to know and interact more, or when feedback from the other person is perceived.”
► “Honestly, when I feel the other person might like me too.”
► “Usually during a moment of special significance.”
► “(1) When sensing reciprocal inclinations from them (2) When given enough sense of security (3) When seeing potential for growth (all three must coexist).”
► “‘Time will give me the answer’. When I decide to take the initiative, usually when they have also shown some signs.”
► “Upon realizing my liking, I’ll admit to it.”
Why Is It Hard for Me to Love Someone?
High Guard Due to Rigid Personal Boundaries
Everyone has different levels of boundaries that they find appropriate and comfortable. Some have softer boundaries—they are more open to allowing and accepting closeness from others, both physically and emotionally. On the other hand, some have harder boundaries; they have a higher “guard” making it harder to get close to them.
In social situations, people with softer or harder boundaries are like two different default modes on a cellphone. Those with softer boundaries tend to be more trusting and open towards the outside world, and are willing to interact with others more. They assume by default that relationships can be formed with others. They would only avoid interaction if they strongly dislike someone.
Conversely, people with harder boundaries default to not interacting. They only begin interacting once they are clear about their special interest in someone. This difference in default modes means that the former will interact with more people, thereby having more opportunities to grow fond of someone through interaction and understanding.
Reluctance to Give a Chance to Those Not Appealing At First Sight May Relate To Romantic Beliefs
People with a belief in destiny tend to think that relationships are either “meant to be” or “not suitable,” and believe in love at first sight (Knee, 1998). They often have a rich and specific imagination of their partners, and finding someone who matches this imagination is not easy.
Those who find it difficult to like others may have this kind of romantic belief, making it hard for them to give a chance to those not appealing at first sight. This includes allowing more contact with themselves, and also considering them as a “potential partner”—even if some potentially attractive traits in the person require more interaction to be felt.
However, love at first sight is a rare occurrence for anyone, so people with a belief in destiny might indeed have fewer people they like.
Different Perceptions of “Liking” or “Love”
In discussing this topic with different individuals, it’s clear that when people talk about “liking” someone, they might not be expressing the same idea, and may be conveying very different concepts.
For instance, some people think not disliking someone and being willing to go out with them is equivalent to liking; some define liking simply as “wanting to sleep with” someone, though others say they might want to have sexual relations with those they emotionally dislike. Some differentiate between “favorable feelings” and “liking,” while others see them as the same. And even among those who differentiate between the two, the degree of favorable feelings defined as liking varies.
Therefore, those with a stricter definition of “liking” set a higher bar for entry into this list, almost ensuring that their list of likable people is quite short.
Difficulty in Feeling Excited Might Also Relate to Physiological Factors
We previously mentioned the concept of “Pheromones.” This substance, secreted by individuals and stimulating the hypothalamus, generates sexual attraction and a series of reactions, sending signals of closeness towards different people in different situations. In simpler terms, it’s a strong attraction we feel towards others.
Pheromones are related to the sense of smell but are more complex, often we feel attracted to a particular scent on someone but can’t describe it, which is usually the effect of pheromones. Sometimes, we might not even realize that our attraction to someone is due to their body scent (Grammera, Finka & Neave, 2004).
Furthermore, people have different preferences and sensitivities towards various scents. Some people have a more universal preference, being aroused by a broad range of scents, while others have more specific preferences, perhaps only being aroused by a very specific scent.
When discussing affection and excitement, many also think of dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical used for transmitting impulses between cells, a type of neurotransmitter. It mainly handles the brain’s desires and feelings, conveying excitement and happiness, and is related to addiction. The feeling of falling in love corresponds to a physiological level with a surge of dopamine in the brain.
However, there’s a significant individual variation in the dopamine system, such as sensitivity to external stimuli and overall activity level. That is to say, for some people, dopamine secretion is easier and more frequent, and vice versa. Research also indicates that those with lower dopamine system activity are less willing to expend cognitive and behavioral effort for potential rewards, especially when the probability of obtaining rewards is low (Treadway et al., 2012).
Love might also be such a case. If you make an effort, you might reap substantial rewards, such as the joy of mutual affection. But for those who are harder to stimulate, these rewards might not seem as enticing from the get-go, even if there are some ripples of excitement in their brains, these smaller ripples compared to others are not enough to motivate them to escalate it to “liking.”
Actually, You Might Not Find It as Difficult to Like or Love Others as You Think
As seen in the first part, several people had a consistent answer to the fourth question: they said, “Only when the other person also likes me, do I dare to like them.” In light of this, some might not find it difficult to like others but fear the potential emotional damage from unreciprocated love. Hence, they do not dare to reveal their affection, even concealing it from themselves, and easily assume “I don’t actually like this person.”
This is indeed an efficient defensive mechanism to avoid being hurt, but it might also be over-defensive. Over time, one might get used to this mechanism, mistakenly assuming that they don’t easily like others, and often missing out on potential love or affection.
In summary, people have diverse tendencies in starting interactions and relationships, which affect their capacity to develop affection for others. By knowing one’s own tendencies and understanding the different factors at play, one can better navigate these complexities in forming affectionate bonds.
References
Grammer, K., Fink, B., & Neave, N. (2005). Human pheromones and sexual attraction. European journal of obstetrics & gynecology and reproductive biology, 118(2), 135-142.
Knee, C. R. (1998). Implicit theories of relationships: Assessment and prediction of romantic relationship initiation, coping, and longevity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(2), 360.
Treadway, M. T., Buckholtz, J. W., Cowan, R. L., Woodward, N. D., Li, R., Ansari, M. S., … & Zald, D. H. (2012). Dopaminergic mechanisms of individual differences in human effort-based decision-making. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(18), 6170-6176.
