For decades, self-help gurus, mental healthcare personnel, and people who did mushrooms one time at Coachella have all extolled the benefits of “loving yourself” – learning to like who you are, being happy when alone with yourself, setting boundaries, and more. The thing is, self-love is not what it appears to be; it dilutes what makes us human: being unhappy with who we are as people.
In this article, I intend to highlight why loving yourself is actually a trap. Some of these may be controversial opinions, but as a (formerly, as I’m legally required to state) licensed therapist, I hope to convince you to dislike yourself just a little bit more. Let’s take a look at why you shouldn’t love yourself!
You might be an unlovable piece of shit
You could be someone like Daniel. Daniel is a real piece of shit. He whistles loudly even though he can't carry a tune, he speeds through school zones, he never puts his cart back, and he says meaningless platitudes like “it is what it is.” (Aside: if you want to say something completely pointless like that, you can save both my time and yours by just saying “It is.”)
Daniel operates on a level of suckery usually reserved for mustachioed dictators and bespectacled serial killers. Would you love Daniel? I sure as hell wouldn’t. So why should he love himself? If I were his therapist (I'm legally required to state that I'm no longer a licensed therapist), I’d even tell him: “You are an unlovable piece of shit, Daniel. You’re just going to have to accept that, and hate yourself with the rest of us.”
It’s a bit cocky, don’t you think?
No one likes a cocky jerk. The guy that inserts himself into every conversation, regardless of whether he was invited or he’s knowledgeable on the subject. The woman who didn’t message me back on Tinder even though she liked me first. We all know the type: egotistical, full of themselves, probably on a date with some guy that's way richer and more handsome.
Well, another type of cocky jerk is the one that talks about how they like this about themselves and that thing they do is soooooo interesting. If you love yourself, that’s basically what you’re doing. You’re telling yourself that you’re cool, attractive, smart, etc. That’s braggadocious, and if you do it, you’re a cocky jerk.
You may make your partner jealous
If you’re in a relationship, and you love yourself, you’re basically cheating on your partner. Flat out. That’s it. Imagine what it would do to them, if they found out that you’re cheating on them with yourself? You can’t do that to them, you inconsiderate bastard.
But then again… if you are in love with yourself, you’re basically cheating on yourself with your partner… But I guess both of yourselves know, so it’s kind of like a throuple? Or a fourple, if your partner loves themself? So I guess yeah it works if you’re poly, but otherwise, loving yourself will send you straight to adultery hell.
Losing a loved one is one of the most traumatic experiences imaginable
Surely you’ve lost a loved one, and you’ve had to experience the weeks, months, and years of grief that come with adjusting to life without them. Studies show that this grief activates much of the same neural circuitry as physical pain, so that ache you feel when you miss the dearly departed is quite literally like losing a part of yourself.
So imagine what happens if you love yourself, and something happens to you? The amount of grief you’re going to go through when you lose yourself? You’ll be so distraught thinking about how much you miss dates with yourself, the quiet moments in bed in the morning with yourself, and all the wild sex you had with yourself. I don’t care what Lord Tennyson says; it is not better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all. No thanks.
Watch out, straights: loving yourself is gay
Let's say I'm a straight man (and this is hypothetical), and I love myself. That means I'm loving another man, and two guys loving each other is gay. I'm personally not into that, as a hypothetically straight male.
Now, as a hypothetically straight male, I have little knowledge of how this works with other sexuality/gender combinations, and I'm hypothetically not qualified to comment on that. I'm just saying all you hypothetical straights better watch out because self-love is super gay. Just to clarify, I’m hypothetically straight, and I don’t love myself.
You should not get into a relationship with a flawed person (just ask my ex)
Everyone has flaws, right? WRONG. Only me, and probably you, too. So if I/you have flaws, why should we love ourselves? As my ex astutely pointed out, flaws are something that exist in a binary state, and cannot be worked on.
Maybe you are bad with money. Maybe you have mismanaged ADHD. Maybe you order a jumbo, classroom-appropriate ant farm after downing a couple bottles of 2023 Vincini Petit Syrah one time, and it overdrafts your account because that was a $200 ant farm, and all your browser tabs are guides on how to find queen ants locally, and you wake up and you can't pay your shared milk delivery bill. Again, a flaw we all share.
If I'm already doing that, why would I love someone else who does that? That's TWO ant farms to find new homes for, at a loss.
Boundaries can be dangerous
Ever heard of the Berlin Wall? That’s a boundary that lasted from 1961 to 1989, separating East Germany and West Germany, and basically putting a boundary between Russian-controlled Berlin and Western-controlled Berlin. Over 130 people died trying to escape their section of the boundary placed on them, and innumerable family groups and communities were split because of it. Does that sound healthy? Boundaries can cause harm, and yet people talk about placing boundaries as a form of “self-love.”
Furthermore, I’d argue that you can’t place boundaries on the “you” that you love. OK, so you want to place a boundary on the “you” that you love, saying you can’t spend more money on frivolous bullshit. Who are you to tell yourself that? That sounds kind of controlling, honestly. How do you build a Berlin Wall around yourself? If you live in Berlin, Germany, or Berlin, New Hampshire, USA, it could work, but do you know how to build a wall? I doubt it, so you’re placing boundaries between you and yourself but without barbed wire, machine gun nests, and landmines.
Most importantly: Self-loathing is actually pretty badass
OK, hear me out: would we have all of Van Gogh’s beautiful art if he hadn’t cut his ear off and mailed it to some poor woman? Would we have Trent Reznor’s haunting cover of Johnny Cash’s original song Hurt if Trent didn’t spend the 90s in a whirlwind of self-hatred? We wouldn’t have Star Wars Episodes 4-6 if Anakin didn’t hate himself so much after what he did in Revenge of the Sith, killing all those younglings, losing his wife Padme, and betraying his boyfriend Obi-Wan. If Elon Musk had a shred of self validation, we wouldn’t have electric vehicles that kill their passengers, exploding neural chips that kill chimpanzees, or X Ash-12, who killed Musk's and Grimes' marriage.
I’ll take it even further: I think self-hatred is one of humanity’s greatest resources. Consider the adage “Treat others as you want to be treated.” If you hate yourself, then you want to be treated poorly by yourself (and maybe others). Thus, we can excuse treating other people poorly. Without this kind of mindset, we Americans would have never won wars like Vietnam, Iraq I and II, or Afghanistan. We wouldn't be able to justify things like treating immigrants poorly, or hating gay people (I am hypothetically straight, just to be clear), or bombing other countries because we have some bombs about to exit their warranty period.
Self-loathing serves a valuable purpose. It helps us to see our own flaws, and use the mismatch between how we want to be and what we feel we truly are to fuel our passions, whether that be acrylic painting, covering other people’s music, fencing, or ketamine, as in the earlier examples. Without self-loathing, we’d be happy with who we are, complacent in just existing; that would be a boring existence, and the world as we know it wouldn’t exist without a good amount of disdain for ourselves and everything we do.
If we spent our whole lives loving ourselves, how would we know what true love is? Can you even love your partner if you don't hate yourself at least a little bit? I'd posit the answer to both questions is a solid “no.
A little bit of self-hatred goes a long way. The next time a social media influencer tells you to love yourself, remember that confidence is arrogance, self-esteem is adultery, and the greatest achievements in human history were powered by self-loathing. Hate yourself a bit now, and you'll thank me later.