A Spark by Innocent Mwatsikesimbe from The Vision, chapter 51

You can usually feel it when someone doesn’t like you, long before anything is said — no blatant signs, just instinct, and often nobody else in the room senses it.

Innocent treats that feeling as information rather than an injury, and the useful move is to keep the discovery to yourself. Stay quiet and “you give them no reason to be artful, allowing you to see their genuine actions and intentions.” You learn how far the dislike goes, and sometimes why. The reason may even be “a wrong on your part” you had overlooked — something you can put right.

But the inquiry has an end. Once you are convinced that nothing will make that person like you, the answer is to accept it and move on. Hate isn’t refused here for being wicked. It’s refused for being expensive, and life is hard enough already.