The sentence stumbles out like a shoe on the wrong foot.
It tastes of surprise and apology at once, a double note I wasn’t ready to sing.
I don’t like that I don’t like you.

I catalogue the small grievances: the laugh that lands wrong, the way you tilt your cup, the joke you tell when someone else’s story is still breathing.
I rehearse each slight like evidence, arrange them on a shelf so the feeling looks justified and tidy.

Then I check the ledger: whose tiredness am I mistaking for rudeness?
Whose fear is getting dressed as offence?
Sometimes, dislike is a mirror that refuses to face a thing inside me; envy, fear, a tired tether I haven’t named.

There are moments when dislike is honest medicine, like a boundary that keeps me whole, or a red flag raised in good time.
And there are moments when it is a thin coat of anger I wear because compassion is harder than being cold.
I practice distinguishing the two: whether the wall protects me or protects my pride.

So I try small things: I listen for the human syllable behind the habit, I offer a longer pause before the verdict.
I say hello even when the mouth wants to curl shut; I set the table for an ordinary civility.
If the dislike stands like furniture that won’t be moved, I move around it politely and keep my hands honest.

I don’t like that I don’t like you, but I can learn the difference between what needs changing and what needs patience,
and that is how I begin to be kinder to both of us.