He likes me, he really likes me.Chris Szagola/CSM via ZUMA
This looked like good news in the Wall Street Journal today:
This seemed promising. Maybe I’m really more popular than I think. Anyway, it turns out that some researchers studied college freshmen for a year:
They found that participants systematically underestimated how much they were liked. In fact, it wasn’t until May, after living together for eight months, that people accurately perceived how much they were liked. So try to focus your social energy on spending quality time with friends and don’t worry too much about the outcome.
Well shit. Everybody I know has known me for a lot longer than eight months, so I guess my perceptions are pretty accurate after all. I would place myself squarely in the “tolerated” category, along with “but his wife is nice so we should invite them over.” I guess it could be worse.
