A few years ago, a woman in my neighbourhood walked up to me as I was about to get into my car and said "Listen, I don't really know you, but I just don't like you."

My initial reaction was shock and hurt (in Swahili, it sounds even more hurtful). Somehow, I managed to do the culturally-correct thing, I said, "I hear you", bowed my head and entered my car. As I drove away, the shock and hurt melted into a mixture of amusement and admiration for this woman, her honesty and boldness. May be, I even liked her a little more than I should have (not in a sexual way, Silly!)

And you probably have experienced this range of feelings in one form or another. There are those people:

1) We click with instantly.

2) We get to really like over time.

3) We initially liked but over time don't like as much.

4) With whom we get on very well at a certain distance, but whom we couldn't possible live in the same house with.

5) We can find no particular reason not to like, except that they rub us the wrong way.

Many people I know on the receiving end of "not being liked for no apparent fault of their own" tend to explain this phenomenon as the other person is just jealous, insecure, angry, unhappy, bitter, prejudiced, racist, evil and so on.

I personally don't think it's that black and white. Raised the way I was, and believing that the greatest commandments of all are, "love thy God" and "love thy neighbour", I know in my heart that there is no other virtue higher than that of "loving all" irrespective of who they are. We may have differences and even not understand them (and their ways), but we should love them as they are also created in God's image.

But do we have to like them as well, especially when being around them (to use Paul Begala's colourful language) is like a "cross between a hemorrhoid and a toothache?"

A number of dictionaries define "like" as 1) a feeling of fondness 2) to find pleasant or attractive; enjoy, 3) to be agreeable to.

I prefer to think of "liking" someone as a choice that we make logically and rationally; a decision we come to after a positive assessment of the person as worthy of our respect and affections. So while we may love someone (because they are the image of God and because Christ commanded us to) we may not necessarily feel that they are worthy of our respect and affections. Just feeling that someone is not worthy of our respect and affections interferes with our efforts to love them as Christ commanded us to. We sincerely try, but we just can't. It's unusual, but sometimes the guilt of not being able to like someone can make us hate that person for making us feel the way we feel.

It's so very hard to assess someone as worthy of our respect and affections if we haven't genuinely made an effort to get to know them or if the person is of no interest to us. Furthermore, it's very hard to positively assess someone when our perception of them is already subjective rather than objective. But it's especially hard to like someone when we impute to them a negative or hurtful thought or feeling (real or imaginary) regarding something which we cherish as a part of our Self -- and identity.

It's like liking them requires us to give up that which we value as a part of our Self. Even the thought of that person is threatening because it feels like an attack on our very Self. And it makes little difference whether or not that person is indeed a threat to what we value as a part of our Self. So long as we have any "self-preservation" instinct left in us, and as long as we attribute the depreciation or extinction of our "Self" to that person (by their ideas, words or actions), we do not like them.

In short, what we don't like about someone really says more about who we are, and where we are at in our life's journey than it says about the person we don't like.

Africans have a saying "Extravagant indignation is the luxury of those with a long list of wrongs done to them".

That said: there is no proof that the more we know about someone the more we like them. Sometimes the more we know about someone the less we like them. Whether we develop liking for a person or not depends on the true relation we develop with that person. That requires an open mind, a certain level of curiousity (sense of wonderment), and a willingness to allow ourselves to be vulnerable -- there is a possibility that our efforts will not be acknowledged or that we'll even get hurt/rejected.

Footnote: I don't believe people who say "I just like everyone". They are either lying to themselves, lying to others, sleep walking through life, living in their own fantasy world or they are not human. As long we are in this school of life there will always be teachers and some of them we will not like (even if it's just for a moment). That's just the way it is.