Thank you for sharing this nice snippet from your life.
I can quote my experience from 3rd grade here. After being an average student for first 2 years, I came first in my third grade with 73%. I was proud and shared the report card to my father. Unfortunately, at the same time, a girl from neighbor also showed her report card to dad and he saw her 96%. He looked at me with a sigh in his eyes and said its good but it is not anyway near to 96%.
I was literally pissed, that I worked my ass off, and my father doesn't care that I am first as well in my class. He cared about the difference in percentage. So, I decided not to give a damn about my father's approval and till now I still give a damn about it, as he always comes out with some really high bar.
I recently have learned the Mantra to compare oneself today with oneself yesterday, or the week before, or a month before, or a year before. You can always find a balance of good and bad with the passage of time.
Likes/Dislikes, unlike facebook clicks, are very personal and they vary with interactions, communications and level of trust in between you and your colleagues.
I would like to recommend this small exercise based on the game theory called "Evolution of Trust", https://ncase.me/trust/
At the end of this exercise there were three findings:
1. Repeat Interactions
2. Look for a possible win-win situation
3. Low Miscommunication
Definitely, as I said in the start, there is a lot more than a few factors that affect a colleague likeness/dislikeness towards you. The biggest lesson from above exercise in response to your questions would be:
"In the short term, your environment defines how people like you, but in the long term, it is you who defines the environment. So, do what you can do to improve conditions necessary to evolve trust, build relationships, communicate clearly."
If it is important that you want people to like you, then communicate clearly.
Ask them, "Have you ever thought, Why do you think any colleague should like you?". Tell them, what are the reasons you like them professionally and personally, and ask the favor back.
I do it every time whenever I have a question of like/dislike related to a colleague.