Liking people vs being liked

Time and time again I'll see some anime protagonist struggle to try and be liked by his peers, but personally I feel like it's usually harder for me to like others than to be liked. It would seem I'm judgmental, I'm not the only one. I'm just curious which side is more common, and would like to see opinions. So, which is more difficult, respecting others or getting others to respect you? Apologies if the question is vague.

I think it is somewhat of a hard question to answer.

Liking people cause more you are with someone new you try and see the flaws with that person.
Being liked I think can be easy and hard at the same time. On one instance you can give the impression what that person wants to see. On the other trying to be something to be liked might actually cause the people to see you as a "tool" or a "phoney."

I am not going to try to think hard on this one. The question sounds very straight forward to me, and my answer would be that it is much harder for others to respect me. There are countless of people in this world that I respect and like. I like some more than others, but ultimately, I respect them all. On the other hand, I am not even sure if there is a single person that I know that respects me. Sure, my family and my few close friends tell me that they like me, and I am sure they do. At the same time, however, I know their feelings towards me can be shattered at any moment. For me, it's just the way human bonds work. It takes utmost effort to create and maintain bonds between humans, but it can be broken so easily. Long story short, it doesn't take too much effort to respect others, but it takes a lot of effort to be respected.

Depends on the person and environment.

With the person it depends on how open then are to others or how closed off they are in their perceptions in relation to others. There are too many reasons, both simple and complex, as to why people like or dislike others. How you were raised can play a factor to a minor/moderate extent.

Enviroment can have an effect as well. Population of an area, socioeconomic status, crime rate, safety in relation to health (can you drink the water in your area? is there pollution in the air? etc). If you are not happy with where you are living you will not have a great outlook on things.

For me personally I would perfer to get along with people and to be liked, but if I am not I won't cry over it. I figure that not everyone will like me or want to be my friend, so all I can do is my best. I can get annoyed by people (I'm a loner type of person and enjoy my seclusion), but I don't ever truly hate a person. I sort of feel like hate is a useless thing to have with me 24/7, so I will get pissed in the moment, but let it go after.

So I guess for me, I would say liking people is harder not because I dislike them, but because I do my own thing and don't need a bunch of people around to be happy. I'd re-word it and say I don't enjoy being around a lot of people, because I need my "me time".

Not-liking people and disliking people aren't exactly the same thing. I don't think you don't need to worry about coming off as hateful when you say you have a hard time liking people, your... like-o-meter I guess... could simply be at zero, as opposed to a negative value which would constitute actually disliking people.

The problem is that I don't truly dislike people though. I feel like a person is a person and that I should not let my judgements get in the way of interaction with them. I may not like some people as much, but again I never hate a person. I'm a type of person who could care and cry over a stranger, I also wouldn't wish ill on someone, regardless of what they've done to me. When I said I don't like people it was because I have times were I get uncomfortable being around people. Regardless if they are my best friend and I love being around them, I can only do it for so long. I like going solo and doing my own thing.

The only person I can be around for long periods of time would probably be my boyfriend. He also knows me well enough that he'll make plans to get out of the house I give me some alone time, which I really appreciate.

Liking and respecting are not the same thing. It is fully possibly to have one without the other.

-Hating your teacher, because he is a hard ass, but respecting him for it.

-Loving your other teacher, because he's so easy going, but not respecting his authority because he never uses it.

With such, infering 2 different questions. One regarding "Liking a person (in general)" and one regarding "Respecting a person (in general)".

It is easier to like someone, for the only perception involved is your own. For getting people to like you, it involves adding up to what they perceive to be likable traits, to which, different people's favored traits can collide with each other, making it difficult to remain on the good side of both.

Even to put forth effort into liking is easier than putting forth effort into being liked. Attempting to be liked takes charisma, wisdom, patients, effort, understanding, and the right people. Attempting to like others takes a willingness to find traits in others you can like. Not saying it's possible to like everyone, but most cases of people not liking each other is a fixation on negative traits, and you can't force another to look at your positive ones out of a desire to be liked.

Pretty much adding up to, changing yourself is easier than changing others.

As for respect. It is something that is far less conscious. One doesn't normally question rather they respect another or not. Making it even rarer for it to be expressed. Unless you pay attention to certain behavior patterns, it's possible to be oblivious to how much someone respects you. As well, the scale of respect seems to be far more varied and more easily adjustable to a negative position. To add to this, I don't think invoking respect in yourself towards others' (general existence) is easily accomplished.

In this case, I'd say it's easier to gain respect, from others, than to gain respect in another. Commit respectable acts, which are often already established by societies, and you can gain respect. But you can't just "will" respect for another, it is something that the person must earn. As well, "respect" from others is far more fragile than "like" from others.

to shorten...

liking another > being liked
respecting another < others respecting you

Yeah, I realized my question was somewhat vague when I posted it. I guess it'd be best to say "having your presence enjoyed in a respectful manner" and "enjoying others presence in a respectful manner". As in, you like them or are liked, but not because "I like watching this guy be a dumbass" or anything.

I think both can be equally hard. It's hard to like people, but it can also be hard when someone gives you unwanted advances.

It's harder to be liked of course. People choose who and what they like. But they don't get too choose if they are liked.

Being liked is not something that can be guaranteed by your actions alone. There are numerous outside factors you can' control like the other person's personality, experience and judgement.

It's better to be feared than loved- Machiavelli

Whether being loved or being respected, each has its own difficulties and conditions, mainly because the stuations are not synonymous.

As for the title, it may/should be easier to act (love or respect) than to make others act this way toward you.

For me, being liked isn't hard, because I always act natural and also neutral, I never pick fights and always say the right things to people, but in a way that doesn't hurt them.

Liking people however is very hard for me, because I am not the person to easily accept someone, no matter how much I wanna like them, time doesn't allow me that. I guess liking someone is just different for me, I rather accept them in my life and just live my days with them.

Hm... Don't you think it's a bit the same from people ? That they are in fact accepting you more than truly liking you as you do with others ?

I think liking someone is like trying to make them accept you, it's kinda weird but it is somehow true. More like a husband and wife, before marriage they were just trying to fall more and more in love, but once they got married they just lived their days together, as if they finally accepted each other.

Hm...

It is said the perfect/true love is not so much acceptance than the perfect dedication.

I have no problem whatsoever for others to like me or not. I don't care much and it really is depends on who is that you want to be liked. If it's me and it's a girl that I like, it really just depends on the situation. I honestly have trust issues, so it's harder for me to like people. But who am I to say that liking someone requires trust when it doesn't matter either way when it comes to that. I think my point on what I'm trying to say is that liking people is an envious thing. Something that it's not in my nature.

I'm surprised (as it stands for now) that the poll is almost half and half

you can control who you like, you can't control who likes you (you can put on a "likable" face, but it's their decision to like you or not)

Since you have less control over other people's feelings, I'd assume being liked would be more difficult

+ you can like and not like certain things about the same person, so depends on what you are looking for (bias in your assessment of people and what traits weigh more)

+ to OP, animators intentionally script characters to have that kind of conflict. It makes for development, opens up for comedic jabs and all that anime goodness :P

Is who you like a choice?

In the sexual sense, things like homosexuality aren't choices. Couldn't you say the same for something non-sexual?

I feel like I try to like people sometimes, and at other moments it seems as though people just can't help but like me ;D

Lucky you.

I'm a loner but I work to become more sociable. People go round in circles toward me. Sometime they fear or dislike me, sometime they get curious and treat me like some extraterrest tourist or some fresh earth-immigrant -- even though I can say my look is super-duper-plain (-_-;)