I hate all my characters

Funny thing: I always seem to write characters I hate in my novels and stories. Why is that? I mean, even the characters that are supposed to be the heroes, I manage to make into disgusting idiots.

One reason could be that I fear that writing characters out of pure idealism would make them unrealistic and shallow, as if I were trying to tell the reader to root for this character, and no one else. And obviously I don't want to seem to want to rob the reader of their independent decision-making process.

Another reason could be that I have deep self-loathing tendencies that I insert in every character, because, essentially, all characters represent some part of my own psyche.

The immediate reason (which I nevertheless left for third) is that I'm a bad writer; though this is a bit too obvious.

Or maybe I'm being too empathetic with my characters - they look one way in my head and completely another way out on paper.

Luckily I learned from Stephen King's On Writing that you get to see your own stuff with significantly more objective eyes if you wait a few months after finishing it before you read it. So I guess I'll know sometime next year if my characters are actually disgusting idiots, or if I'm just a sociopath.

RK