The reason why House is not hated isn’t because House is ‘House’ but because he takes an interest in the people around him.

We can argue that House is egotistical and only thinks about himself. What some of us don’t understand is that House’s need to know everything and understand everything also helps him when building relationships and sustaining them.

House is obsessed with ‘The puzzle’, which is a generic term for everything within his life and outside his life; his friends, relationships, work. This obsession allows him to feed the need of the people who surround him, whether it is the patient of the week, his fellows or his friends; Wilson and Cuddy. Their need is what every human requires within their life, it is their ultimate desire, to feel important.

House’s friendship with Wilson was not through force like most friendships are concieved in. On our first days in school for instance, we do not have any specific choice in who we make friends with first; we ultimately are stuck with the person whom we connect with on a very basic level, which is whether or not they seem approachable and aren’t going to stick our heads down a toilet. House befriended Wilson, not because he was alone and needed to connect with someone for the sake of it, House observed Wilson from afar and deduced that something was not right (Wilson had been handed divorce papers.) House did not act upon this until later on when in a bar Wilson lashed out at something that was irritating in such a minute level, which led to his arrest. House knew the reasoning behind Wilson’s actions and did a good deed in helping him out. Wilson was released and gained a new friend as did House.

With House’s relationships, we will start with Stacy. House approached this relationship from a completely different angle to how he befriended Wilson. House met Stacy through a joint activity weekend between their separate professions. Why did House connect with a lawyer? House detests rules and boundaries, so why would he fall for someone who is the instigator of all of these things? It was in fact Stacy’s fire and inner passion that sparked a flame within House. House has always been a jerk that has been established on many occasions. House was attracted to the fact that Stacy was as stubborn as he was and that she would do whatever she could do get whatever she wanted. The only flaw Stacy had, which attracted House to her, is that Stacy can be a stubborn human being and be nasty to people but can also be a nice and decent altruistic person. Something, which House wishes he could have the confidence to show to the people who surround him in his life

Cuddy may have just been a ‘fling’ in House’s college years, and later on his doctor when he had the infarction in his leg, but it was only until Cuddy hired him and gave him his own department that Cuddy realised that House needed her. House had been rejected by numerous other hospitals previous to him being hired at PPBH, so he must have known that Cuddy would be the one Dean of Medicine/Administrator he could count on as his last chance of a career. That is the first thing we should note about their relationship—House knew that Cuddy would be there for him. House’s obsessiveness may be construed as a bad thing, when actually it isn’t when forming new relationships or affirming old ones. House can be as ‘evil’ as he wants to be, and can cause distress to Cuddy or annoyance to Wilson and act like an egotistical dictator to his team, and still get a way with it. Why? Because House, in his own ‘House-ian’ way is telling them how important they are as people. With Cuddy House may talk down to her, call her names and demean her to others, both covertly and overtly but then reforms his previous actions through his obsessive observations which he makes of her. One classic example is from the Season 2 episode ‘Forever’ this scene is very poignant in how we interpret their relationship, and argue it to other people. Only during this scene does the murky fog that hangs heavily on their relationship lift and we see through House’s eyes, but only for a second before the fog descends once more over their relationship. From this scene onwards we know the reason why House can be who he is and still sustain numerous relationships with other humans, because with no hidden agenda but to satisfy his need to know everything House makes the people around him important and wanted in their own unique way. House isn’t after grandiose gestures after every time he does a good deed. House is not about receiving compliments or thank you notes. In the episode ‘Joy’ House behaved the way he did because he knew what Cuddy was hoping for could not become this fairytale she had so convincingly portrayed. House was afraid to tell Cuddy this truth blatantly to her face for fear of doing something terrible and with no actual meaning behind it and so began the back and forth banter we saw in the episode. It was only at the kiss scene that we saw a conceited House. Even though he had won the battle he had felt like he had lost it, and didn’t realise why he felt this way until he rode to her home. House desperately tried to repair most of the damage he had caused since he finally realised that he acted the way he did for fear of losing the one person who he actually belongs with. House didn’t kiss Cuddy to satisfy himself or to have one-up on his boss—House kissed Cuddy to make her feel wanted and to stop her from feeling alone after a huge blow to her life which ultimately shattered her perfect picture she thought she had finally finished by adopting the baby. We can also see this through the appearance of Cuddy’s old med school desk in ‘Let them eat cake’ House doesn’t leave a note, or make any indications which link him to this mysterious gift; only Cuddy would know who it is from, with the only clues she has which is there was nothing that would suggest who it came from or the reasoning behind it. Through these subtle clues Cuddy knew that House would be the only one. This feeling of importance, that House remembered as far back as their college years together that this piece of memorabilia was important in some way completely erased everything House had done to hurt Cuddy previously within the episode.

Now, finally I will talk about the Boss Employee relationship that House has with his team. Any employee who was treated by their boss or annoyed by their bosses antics in such a way like House does would have most certainly left their position a long time ago. The only thing that keeps them their, after the fact that House is a genius who always saves the person in then, is the fact that House ultimately does not enjoy the act of saving a life but in fact finds satisfaction in solving the puzzle. House’s ability to speak to his employees in a meaningful way without resorting to platitudes and helpful critique, this is also the next reason why they cannot leave his orbit. Whatever House says always has a meaning behind it and is always important whether it be to the situation or the teams’ own lives. They stay with him not because he is a lifesaver or an incredibly intelligent human being, they stay with him because of the insight he has within their own personal lives and selves. Their need to understand also feeds House’s need to solve things. I see it as each them being a rubix cube to House, and every now and then with every turn, they learn something they didn’t know about themselves while House has the opportunity to step closer to the answer.