If you dedicate your existence to being likable, however, and if you adopt whatever cool persona is necessary to make it happen, it suggests that you've despaired of being loved for who you really are. And if you succeed in manipulating other people into liking you, it will be hard not to feel, at some level contempt for these people, because they've fallen for your shtick. Those people exist to make you feel good about yourself, but how good can your feeling be when it's provided by people you don't respect? [...]