Catcher in the Rye Blog

27. The desire to be liked by others is healthy.

I definitely agree with this statement. The drive to get approval from others can motivate people to make better decisions and mold into the vision of society. That can be good depending on how you view it. If you think that being liked requires conforming, it could be a negative. On the other hand, the desire to be liked can cause you to make better decisions that others would approve of such as staying drug or alcohol free. As humans, we all care about people in our lives and we wanted to be cared for. Being liked by others has practical uses as well. If you are liked by others, you form friendships, and friends are a support system. Maybe you would say that is too distant of a connection, but in a way getting people to like you is a way of building your support system. In Catcher in the Rye, Holden doesn’t seem to care much about whether or not people like him. He lies all the time and avoids getting too close to people. His nature didn’t help him when he had to deal with the loss of Allie because he didn’t have people that were close to him.

Even though the desire to be liked by others is healthy, I feel as though teenagers, sometimes go too far. This need for approval can push people to change who they are in order to be liked by certain people. Some people get upset when people dislike them because they feel as though everyone has to like them, which is nearly impossible because not everyone has compatible personalities. From my own experiences and from what I have seen in my friends this desire is healthy to a certain extent, but in the teenage years it dominates motives too much. At this point in our lives, self-confidence can be a big issue at times and without appreciation from peers, people are unable to value themselves. It’s not just important to have other people like you, it’s important to like yourself. Also related to that, comes the matter of relationships. Some people think that it is very important to have a boyfriend or girlfriend and that something is wrong with them if they don’t have that.

Overall, it’s all right to want friendships and relationships because it’s a healthy desire. The important thing is that you should want them for the right reasons. Wanting to be liked by others is completely normal and it is something that everyone feels and experiences, it just shouldn’t be taken to an extreme point because anything to the extreme is unhealthy.