Why do people generally hate Maths?

You're mis-understanding the point. I know you can, and I have done in maths, but for most people, why would they need to? Why would they care? They'd probably do it the long way or ask online if it really meant anything to them.

For real world problems, I've never had to use any particularly taxing maths skills. So for a lot of people, they lose interest straight away. You might as well tell them to memorise a phonebook just in case they plan to go into marketing calls. It becomes a pointless task for them, so they stop trying. When they stop trying, they stop succeeding, and so they hate it.

Maths certainly has a purpose, else we wouldn't use it. If someone wanted to go into economics or accounting, then they have a slightly different view of maths to start with.

I'm going into engineering - Give me a something as mundane as a £1 fluid lighter and I'll have hours of fun with it (true story, I actually did when I started to tear one apart)

But for the most part, I think people are discouraged because they cannot see the application. As mentioned above, the schools largely teach you to answer questions instead of understanding the skills. I've sometimes asked maths teachers to run through a problem... I'd get stuck and their response would be akin to saying "It's this, just because it is". They know their stuff, but they don't know what they're teaching. It doesn't make it engaging and there is little practical work to do with it. A friend of mine did A-level further maths and just finished her masters degree in statistics - Clearly, she gets maths. For mere mortals such as myself, I cannot see the obvious point in it, so I get distracted and stop learning it. Engineering will be different I hope, I hope they will have a relevant problem to solve with each tutorial. No more, "just because". Honestly, in all my A-levels maths (I did several years and dropped out a few times before getting my AS) the most exciting part was when they described how second-differentiation could be used to show an engineer when a space rocket was out of fuel. Obviously, we didn't do a practical. In about 2.5 years of work, those 3 seconds were the only time that I had a real world example given to me.

But for the most part, I think people are discouraged because they cannot see the application. As mentioned above, the schools largely teach you to answer questions instead of understanding the skills. I've sometimes asked maths teachers to run through a problem... I'd get stuck and their response would be akin to saying "It's this, just because it is". They know their stuff, but they don't know what they're teaching.

because they're black!

Because they have a 'lack of understanding' about what mathematics really is. Most people only go so far as seeing maths as a cool set of tricks for finding out the area of a shape, or working VAT on a shopping bill.

Few people get to a level where they truly understand what they are doing when doing maths, and that they are not just applying a set of magically-obtained rules about seemingly unrelated mathematical concepts.

Maybe, just maybe, I was joking and there wasn't really any need for you to prove yourself to me by informing me that you're about to study Law?

Why so touchy? It was only my opinion.

Why do people in the western countries generally hate Maths? I only know a minority of people who really like maths and find it interesting. But why is there such a dislike about maths in our society? Is it because people have poor numeracy skills resulting in them finding it difficult and boring?? Or is it because of people's lack of determination to practice and do well in Maths? So they give up easily. Why is it genuinely more acceptable to be bad at maths but not in some other subjects like English? And if you are good at or like maths, you are considered as a geek of some sort?