#46 I Probably Didn’t Like You at First

If we are close colleagues, or friends, I probably didn’t like you at first.

The first time I met Ingrid Domingues, Filip Månsson, Cecilia Brunemark, and a long list of others, I did not like them. Not in a dramatic way. Just a sense that something was off. Too sharp, too slow, too confident, too... whatever.

If I had trusted that first reaction, I would have made a huge mistake. Not just because they turned out to be absolutely amazing human beings, but also because Ingrid, Filip, and Cecilia were instrumental in building inUse, and Cecilia is absolutely crucial at Ambition.

It’s strange, but the people I don’t like at first are often the people I end up valuing the most. The ones I return to. The ones I build with. The ones I trust.

It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. I can trace it back to fourth grade, to teachers I instinctively resisted. Not because they were bad, but because they pressed on something in me. They challenged me. They demanded attention. And somehow, over time, those became the teachers I learned the most from. It followed me into work too. When I instantly like someone, things often stay pleasant, but the relationship rarely deepens. The relationships that last tend to begin with some friction, some small mismatch that makes me think.

Music has always worked the same. Songs that I love on the first listen are quickly forgotten. They are too easy. They don’t ask for anything. The ones I still listen to years later are the ones that confused me first. The ones that felt slightly wrong. A melody that didn’t resolve. A voice that irritated me. Something that made me think: why do people like this? And then, given time, it opens up. I start hearing the shape of it. The craft. The intention.

I’m certainly not a researcher in psychology, but when googling I find a few interesting ideas. Apparently, Daniel Berlyne wrote about curiosity as something triggered by novelty, complexity, and conflict, and how those qualities can be motivating in themselves when they are just challenging enough to make you lean in. Paul Silvia’s work on interest sharpens that point. Interest tends to appear when something is both hard to process and still feels learnable. When you believe you can make sense of it if you stay with it. Arthur Aron and Elaine Aron add another layer with self-expansion theory. We’re often drawn to people who expand us. People who bring new perspectives or capabilities into view. It can feel like friction at first precisely because it disturbs your default self.

And then there’s a simpler possibility that I find oddly comforting… You can just learn this preference. If “a bit difficult at first” has reliably led to depth, trust, and growth, your brain starts treating it like a good signal. Something like Robert Bjork’s “desirable difficulties”, only in relationships.

First impressions can be useful, but for me they’re terrible at predicting depth. They confuse unfamiliarity with incompatibility. They reward smoothness and punish difference. I don’t want a life built only on what goes down easy.

If we are colleagues or close friends, chances are I didn’t like you at first. And if I did? Well. We’re still here, so it seems to have worked out anyway. 

Ingrid, Filip, Cecilia, and everyone else I’m close to, thanks for making my life so much richer.