If she weren't so adorable, she wouldn't get away with this borderline slander.
Student 1: Hey, Goob, what's up? Cool binder!
Student 2: Hey, Goob! Wanna come over to my house today?
Goob: [voiceover] They all hated me.
Student 2: Hey, Goob! Wanna come over to my house today?
Goob: [voiceover] They all hated me.
This is for when a character prone to shutting people out, rejecting them, or eventually accepting then proceeding to abandon them anyway, either has an imaginary version of everyone else in their mind as being the ones who did it to them (basically mistaking this for an All of the Other Reindeer scenario), or pretends to.
Sympathetic versions of this might overlap with Never Be Hurt Again, if their tendency to shut others out is rooted in previous rejections or disappointments. Less sympathetic versions of this might overlap with Never My Fault, with the character often having some form of victim complex or only wanting to hang out with other people on their terms. Either category could be used as An Aesop about never assuming the worst of people.
Compare Premature Aggravation, getting offended by an insult the other person hasn't even uttered due to overthinking. Can be a form of Psychological Projection or Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. It may involve a Self-Serving Memory. See also Poor Communication Kills and Mutually Unequal Relation.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
- Elfen Lied: It's not without merit, but Lucy has a serious problem with this: when Kouta lies to her about his cousin's gender as to not hurt her feelings and she learns the truth, she draws the conclusion that he hated her all along and wanted to see her suffer, just like every other filthy, rotten human. Cue her slaughtering everyone in her path as she hunts down Kouta's family to punish him for his 'cruelty'.
- Heart Catch Pretty Cure episode 16 features Takagishi Azusa-a drama club leader who, despite her bossy tone and closed-minded reactions to others' ideas, still gets invited to fashion club meetings and decides not to join them, but then proceeds to non-ironically mope about how they "abandoned" her.
- Multiple characters from Neon Genesis Evangelion, but especially Shinji, who claims nobody wants him both before and after being swarmed by adoring fangirls he barely reacts to and is never shown thinking about again, and Asuka, who in episode 9 stomps on her classmates' love letters yet in episode 22 screams over perceived rejection from guys who were too old for her and from guys who were understandably afraid that holding her would end even worse for them than choosing not to would have.
- SSSS.GRIDMAN: Akane Shinjo has little use for people, and when the transforming kaiju she created (named Anti) repeatedly fails she begins abusing him and cursing him for his uselessness at his given task i.e. killing Gridman. When Anti switches sides thanks to Rikka's kindness to him, Akane accuses him of abandoning her. This is partially explained by Akane's belief that as Anti's creator, she is literally his God and so expects his loyalty no matter how badly she treats him.
Comic Books
- Wonder Woman Vol 1: Priscilla Rich is infuriated after she turns down "Darling" at a benefit and then he offers Diana a ride home. She sees this as him betraying and rejecting her and robs him of all the money the benefit made and frames him and Di for it in retaliation after first considering killing him for it.
Fan Works
- Early on in We Know You're Watching
, Max listens in on Chloe and Rachel having sex, but after accidentally alerting them to her presence by stepping on a loose floorboard, she assumes that she's jeopardized her friendship with the couple. The truth could not be any more different; Chloe and Rachel both have feelings for her, and deliberately encouraged her voyeurism to try and gauge whether she would be interested in joining their pre-existing relationship. And even if this wasn't the case, it's doubtful that Chloe and Rachel would react as badly as Max fears, since the fic is an AU where Max stayed in contact with Chloe and supported her emotionally following her father's death, something Rachel very much appreciates in the present day. In this case it's a Justified Trope, since Max is a naturally anxious person who's still new to romantic stuff - on top of already being an introvert - and voyeurism is generally disapproved of by most people.
Films — Animation
- A subtle version occurs in The Incredibles. When Mr. Incredible (a.k.a. Bob Parr) dismisses Buddy Pine, he remarks "Fly home, Buddy — I work alone." Later, when Buddy, who has grown up to become the villainous Syndrome, recalls the event, he does get the words right, but completely changes the details to make Mr. Incredible seem like far more of a jerk than he actually was. The scene took place in a bank; Bob had the villainous Bomb Voyage in his grasp; and his tone, though dismissive, sounded more like he was distracted than actively malicious. But in Buddy's Self-Serving Memory, he and Bob are standing in a darkened room; Bomb Voyage is nowhere to be seen; and Bob glares directly at him while delivering the line in the cruelest way imaginable. It emphasizes how Buddy refuses to admit he did anything wrong: yes, Bob could have been nicer (and had done his best to politely—and repeatedly—turn Buddy down when he tried the same tricks earlier), but Buddy was a child and had no business trying to fight adult villains — to say nothing of how his presence allowed Bomb Voyage to plant an explosive on his cape and indirectly led to the ban on Supers after the resulting disaster.
- Meet the Robinsons: Bowler Hat Guy claims that "all of the other kids hated [him]", but the flashback to this supposed hatred and mistreatment shows other kids complimenting him and asking to hang out while he ignored them.
- In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Forgotten Friendship, Wallflower Blush, a shy and timid student at Canterlot High who's shown to have been on the fringes of the events of the previous films, unseen, starts to perceive her struggles with making friends or even being remembered as deliberate rejection from her peers. When she finds the Memory Stone, she exacerbates her problems by erasing people's memories of moments she finds embarrassing, making it even harder for people to notice her. When she starts taking the lack of recognition from Sunset Shimmer, under whom she serves on yearbook staff, especially hard, she embarks on a revenge campaign by erasing all memories of Sunset post-Heel–Face Turn from the entire student body, hoping to leave her a friendless wreck like her. When the Memory Stone is destroyed, restoring everyone's memories of Sunset, Wallflower recognizes what she did was wrong and is remorseful, though it's not clear if she really understands how much projection she was doing, and starts to make friends on her own.
- Toy Story 3: Lotso, Big Baby, and Chuckles used to belong to a girl named Daisy, who lost them during a road trip. After making a trek all the way back to her house, Lotso found that she had replaced him with another Lotso-Huggin' Bear doll (or, more accurately, her parents got her another one to make her feel better). Feeling betrayed, Lotso snapped and convinced his friends that Daisy intentionally replaced them all and never really loved them. Woody calls him out on this.
Woody: Wait! What about Daisy?
Lotso: [beat] I don't know what you're talkin' about.
Woody: Daisy? You used to do everything together, remember?
Lotso: Yeah... then, she threw us out.
Woody: No! She lost you.
Lotso: She replaced us!
Woody: She replaced YOU! And if you couldn't have her, then no one could!
Films — Live-Action
- High Fidelity: Rob remembers his breakup with his high-school girlfriend Penny as her pushing him away for trying to feel her up, and then her having sex with another guy three dates into their relationship. What actually happened, as she points out to his face when he brings it up on their date, is that he broke up with her over her wanting to wait to have sex until after they turned 18, and that what happened with the other guy was barely consensual and turned her off sex altogether until after college.
Penny: And now you want to talk about rejection? Well, fuck you, Rob! [storms out of the restaurant]
- In The Last King of Scotland, Idi Amin demands that Nicholas, who he named his personal physician, give him advice on running Uganda, despite Nicholas having no training whatsoever. When Nicholas tries to take him to task for his poor choices, Amin just shifts the blame and claims that Nicholas didn't give him the exact advice he did give.
Idi Amin: You are my advisor. You are the only one I can trust in here. You should have told me not to throw the Asians out in the first place.
Nicholas Garrigan: ...I DID!
Idi Amin: But you did not persuade me, Nicholas. You did not persuade me!
Literature
- Marco Inaros from The Expanse raised his son Filip to believe his mom ran out on them both because she hasn't got what it takes to stand up for her fellow Belters against the imperialist "Inners", when in fact Marco forbade her from seeing her beloved son ever again after she got rightly angry upon learning Marco tricked her into killing people with what seemed like an innocuous programming challenge, something she might have never found out about if not for Marco celebrating its results like a sports fan celebrating their favourite team's victory (ie. by getting drunk and loosing his lips).
- In The Heroes of Olympus, when Nico di Angelo vents to Will Solace about how, as a child of Hades, he's a pariah by nature, Will calls him out on this. While it's true that a lot of people are put off by his nature, there are also people who want to befriend him that Nico hadn't kept in mind, because he rejects them first.
- In the Wayside School series, Kathy is The Bully of Mrs. Jewls's class. She thinks that all of the other kids hate her, but in truth, whenever another student tries to be genuinely nice to her, she thinks it's a trick and assumes the worst for no reason. Then, when something goes wrong, she claims "I was right!" To give one example: Allison once offered her a homemade cookie, but Kathy refused to eat it, saying it wouldn't be good. Then, two months later, she decided to finally try the cookie (which had been sitting in her desk all that time). When it turned out to be stale and dusty, Kathy took this as vindication of Allison's "meanness" toward her, instead of a sign of her own lack of foresight. As to be expected, it's very much Played for Laughs.
Live-Action TV
- In 13 Reasons Why, Hannah craves love and acceptance from her classmates but due to getting bullied and her own insecurities, she tends to push away her friends, often mistaking their behavior for insults or rejections even if they were trying to be sincere or non-malicious. Her tendency to lash out at her friends drives them away and leaves her without support, worsening her downward spiral into depression. One of the most prominent examples is when she breaks down and rejects her crush Clay after they kiss, due to the fact her classmates have spread nasty rumors about her sex life and she's scared of what everyone will think if they get together. Hannah demands that Clay leave but when he does, she mentally asks "Why did you leave?" because what she really wanted was for him to stay and comfort her. Clay only realizes this after she has committed suicide.
- In season three of Angel, Wesley becomes alienated from the other characters after, due to a prophecy preying on his mind, he abducts Angel's baby son Connor, making it possible for one of Angel's most dangerous enemies, Daniel Holtz, to take the baby and slash Wesley's throat. A few episodes later, when Gunn challenges him over his decline in morals and affability and asks him what happened to him, his response is "I had my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me", which is a slight understatement of how much his own actions had to do with it.
Puppet Shows
- In an early Sesame Street Muppet sketch, Ernie is on his way to borrow Herbert Birdsfoot's vacuum cleaner. On arriving, Ernie muses that he might be interrupting Herbert's bath. Ernie then imagines Herbert getting angry with him, and telling everyone else never to lend Ernie anything again. When Herbert answers the door, Ernie tells him he can keep his vacuum cleaner.
Theatre
- The Mrs. Hawking series' eponymous character is convinced that everyone she ever comes to care about will hurt or betray her in some way, so when they inevitably do make a mistake, she acts as though it was a personal attack and refuses to accept any sort of apology, saying that they clearly hate her (despite repeated efforts to prove otherwise). This attitude ultimately creates a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, because the people who do genuinely love her eventually get tired of her stubbornness and give up on trying to reach out.
Video Games
- Dragon Age: Inquisition: Sera makes some valid points about both Dalish and city elves rejecting elves that are insufficiently "elfy", but she is very quick to write off all other elves as being "elfy" even before they demonstrate such behavior. Sera then acts like she was the one being rejected when other elves understandably react poorly to being judged before doing anything objectionable.
- Spider-Man (PS4): As his Sanity Slippage continues, Doctor Otto Octavius begins claiming everyone is against him. He even begins rejecting the advice of his trusted lab assistant Peter Parker. By the end of the game, he directly accuses Peter of betraying him. In a twist, however, Otto isn't completely wrong: Because of Peter's Chronic Hero Syndrome, he's constantly showing up late (if at all) to their lab, forcing Otto to do experiments on his own without Peter there to focus on safety.
Web Animation
- Dingo Doodles: In "D&D Story: Ep 17 - Splitting the Party [Fool's Gold]", Erina gets angry at Sips for deciding to leave the party to deal with recent revelations, feelings abandoned. Moments later, Erina does the same thing to Gothi, possibly in an attempt to prevent Gothi from leaving her first. Whenever she talks about it later, she mostly focuses on Sips's "betrayal" and refuses to admit her own actions.
Western Animation
- Amphibia: According to King Andrias, he had two friends, a pink frog and a green toad, who betrayed him by stealing the Calamity Box and causing Newtopia to fall from grace. But later we learn that what actually happened was that the frog, Leif, saw a vision of Amphibia's destruction, and she stole the box in an attempt to prevent it from happening rather than to save the other worlds. It was still seen as a betrayal by Andrias, though, as was the toad, Barrel, hesitating to stop Leif when he had the chance.
- The Fairly OddParents!: In "Hassle in the Castle", Timmy meets some of Cosmo and Wanda's worst godkids, including a girl named Mary Ann who says they "deserted" her when she took their wands. When Cosmo and Wanda appear, they reveal that she'd abused their magic and caused World War I.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Nergal Jr. writes in his diary about how alone he is and how he wishes somebody would reach out to him, only for his thoughts to be interrupted by a classmate shyly asking him to walk home with her after school. Nergal Jr. immediately rejects her, yelling, "Can't you see I'm trying to write my dark thoughts!"
- Moondancer, from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, is a more sympathetic example. While name-dropped in the pilot episode, she isn't shown on-screen until "Amending Fences". It comes out that she was really hurt by Twilight blowing off her party and leaving town without saying goodbye, and her desire to Never Be Hurt Again drives her to shut out her other friends.
Moondancer: I just need to be alone so I can study without some crazy pony trying to make friends, all right?
Moondancer: Then you left town without saying goodbye even though we were supposed to be friends! I was humiliated! I felt like I wasn't important! I never wanted to let myself be hurt like that again! Those three finally convinced me that I had value! That other ponies might like me and want to be my friend! And you! Didn't! Show! Up! - Over the Garden Wall: Wirt thinks of himself as a loser in his hometown, and pines for a girl named Sara whom he thinks could never like him. When we actually see his hometown in a Whole Episode Flashback, it becomes clear that his version of events are colored by his anxiety and low self-esteem - and Sara in particular even seems to like him. The finale implies he's getting better.
- Ready Jet Go!: The kids don't hate Mitchell, they just don't like that he wants to expose Jet's alien identity. But they still offer Mitchell chances to hang out with/help them, which he keeps rejecting. At the same time, Mitchell thinks no-one wants to be his friend and is quite lonely. This makes him a quite tragic character, ruining his own chances at friendship. Luckily, Mitchell does actually become friends with Jet, Sean, Sydney, and Mindy towards the end of the show.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Catra often pushes people away, refusing to join Adora in the Rebellion and treating Scorpia terribly until she deserts. This causes her to suffer and she gradually becomes a paranoid wreck, angry at everyone for leaving her alone. In the fourth season finale, Double Trouble plainly lays it out that Catra's the only one at fault for her position, albeit via a massively cruel Shapeshifter Guilt Trip.
Double Trouble: People have hurt you, haven't they? They didn't believe in you. They didn't trust you. Didn't need you. Left you. But, did you ever stop to think maybe they're not the problem? It's you. You drive them away, Wildcat.
- The Simpsons: In "Bart vs. Thanksgiving", when Bart returns home after running away, he holds back at the last minute from entering the house after having an Imagine Spot of his family rejecting his apologies and blaming him for everything that's gone wrong in their lives. Eventually, after hiding out on the roof, he talks to Lisa and realizes his family will still happily accept him.
- Star Trek: Lower Decks: Ensign Mariner has this problem.
- After treating Boimler like crap for much of the first season (albeit, what she thought was a Vitriolic Best Buds friendship), she gets pissed when he accepts a transfer to the U.S.S. Titan, calling him a "backstabbing little weasel" and threatening him with bodily harm. She's still mad at him come season two, but after he gets transferred back to the Cerritos they talk things out and make up.
- This also applies to Mariner's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis, Jennifer the Andorian. Mariner has a crush on her, which manifests in one-sided Belligerent Sexual Tension, which causes Jen to dislike her, which leads to Mariner disliking her back.
