Katie at Sass And Balderdash wrote a post about disliking people who everyone around you likes: “The person in question may be completely innocent of doing or saying anything off-color, but they’re just not your cup of tea. In my case, I call these “chamomile characters,” because try as I may, I’m just not a chamomile fan.”

I have encountered this more than the opposite. Sometimes, I like something or someone who everyone else thinks is rubbish, but it’s usually the other way around. I don’t like most mainstream stuff, not because I’m a snob (alright, maybe I am a little snobby–there’s no way I’m ever reading Fifty Shades Of Grey or Twilight), but because that lowest common denominator type of Hollywood Blockbusters and Top 40 music just doesn’t hit me in the balls. There are exceptions, of course (I dare anyone to say Gangnam Style isn’t ridiculously catchy), but generally, I find the things that everyone likes to be lacking in flavor. Kim “famous for no reason” Kardashian and her entire clan can eat a dick. Leonardo DiCraprio is an awful actor and I hate everything he’s ever done, except Gilbert Grape where he looked like this:

Same goes for Ben Affleck. Aside from John Goodman and Alan Arkin’s performances, Academy Award winning Argo is a terrible movie. Male made me watch it and I hate him for it. I haven’t liked a Stephen Spielberg film since Empire of the Sun; his endings are beyond saccharine. That Blurred Lines song is lame. I thought the third Lord Of the Rings movie went on for about an hour too long and walked out of the theater; I’ve still never seen the ending. I have never watched American Idol, not even once. I don’t have cable, which means I don’t even have access to network television anyway. Michael Bay is a travesty. I’ll never watch a movie based on a board game.

There’s a lady at the dog park who just started coming in the last few weeks. She’s very nice and friendly. I’m okay with nice and friendly to a point, even though I am not generally nice or friendly to strangers. I’m not rude or unfriendly, just standoffish. This woman has crossed the line with her friendliness. Yesterday, I walked into the dog park and she waved and yelled my name while I was still twenty feet away. I involuntarily cringed.

She is too goddamn nice. That’s her only sin. How can you dislike someone for being too nice and too friendly? Well, if you’re me, it’s apparently very easy. I really can’t stand her. She seems needy to me like the new kid at school who is trying way too hard to make friends so she doesn’t have to sit alone at the lunch table. Nobody likes people who try too hard, especially me. As any parent might say, just be yourself. It could be that her true self is just overly attention grabby and annoying, but it seems to me that she’s trying too hard. If she had even slightly more restraint, she might not bug me, but when she yells my name from twenty feet away, my first instinct is to cringe and run. Back off, lady! I just met you.

Yesterday, another regular asked me what her name was. I wasn’t sure to whom she was referring, so to differentiate between needy lady and everyone else, I said, “You mean the lady who is just too damn nice?” To which the regular replied, “Yes! Se’s actually the reason that I started coming later in the evening, hoping to avoid her!” We bonded over our dislike of the woman whose only real transgression is being too damn friendly.

So, yes, I can very much relate to disliking things and people who everyone else likes. It’s my typical modus operandi. That’s what I do. I don’t mean to do it, but it’s innately built into my character.

A word of advice, if we just met, don’t be so damn friendly.