ihaveaproblem

Wow! Fantastic advice! I agree with everything you said. I have tried the trick of being especially nice to this person in an effort to get myself to think positively about him/her. I'm afraid I have a hard time keeping this up. However, I am definitely not mean and I definitely help him/her out with work-related stuff all the time so at least these feelings aren't affecting my professional behavior. I think you are right about projecting inner qualities onto someone or being envious of qualities they might have. I think I am doing both of these with regards to this person. I need to stop comparing myself with people or feeling I have to "compete" with them. I think this is my major problem with my negative attitudes. Thank-you so much! I feel much better.

i do talk to this person and so it's not like i don't know what their personality is like and I still feel this way (they have a lot of annoying personality traits). This is a general fault with me. I am most definitely not a people person. I am shy and don't like to interact with people in general although I love to talk to specific people. So I have a personality where I either really like a person or I "hate" a person. hate may be too strong a word but the feeling is strong enough that it affects my life. Unfortunately, these feelings I get are almost instantaneous when i meet somebody for the first time. I don't know why I'm like this. I've really tried to change it and think positively about all the people that I have these sort of feelings for but it isn't working. There have been people that I have gotten to know better and have liked after an initial dislike but these have been very few. As I've said before, I get along on the surface with everybody. I never start fights or say anything mean but I also tend to associate with these people as little as possible because I feel better when I'm not around them thereforeeee I probably do come off as being quite aloof. I'd rather be thought of as aloof though than mean and hateful. Anyway, just getting my feelings off my chest has been helpful. Thanks for the advice

So I've been feeling like this for 3 years now and finally I have to write about it or I feel like I'm going to explode. How normal is it to hate the person you share a working space in? I work in a lab and I hate my benchmate!!! Even though s/he has done absolutely nothing to warrant my feelings. I had no problem with the person who shared the space before him/her so I know it's not just a matter of sharing space with anybody else. I hate this specific person. Is this type of feeling normal? It's so bad, that it cuts into my productivity because I will find excuses to leave the room when s/he is around. I think I've hidden my feelings pretty well. I don't talk to him/her much but I'm always polite etc. I feel really bad about this, because honestly s/he is a nice person. S/he has some habits that really annoy me but I don't know if it's because of the habits that I dislike him/her so much or if it's because I dislike him/her so much that everything s/he does annoys me. My work is quite stressful so s/he may be a convenient scapegoat for my stress but at the same time half the stress is caused simply because of the way I am feeling towards this person! I think I would be so much happier if I didn't feel this way and also way more productive. I realize this is my problem not theirs so if anybody has any advice to give me on how to deal with these feelings, please let me know. Moving to a different workspace is not possible. Thanks