Interesting, I somewhat of an opposite reaction, although I am certainly not a mathematician. Once everything became definitions, my eyes glazed over - in most cases the rationale for the definitions was not clear and the definitions appeared over-complicated.

It took me some time, but now it's a lot better -- like a little game I somewhat know the rules of. I now accept that mathematicians are often worrying about maximal abstraction or addressing odd pathological corner cases. This allows me to wade through the complexity without getting overwhelmed like I used to.

My dad always told me growing up today math was like a game and a puzzle, and I hated that. I also hated math at the time. It felt more like torture than a game.

I didn't fall in love with math until Statistics, Discrete Math, Set Theory and Logic.

It was the realization that math is a language that can be used to describe all the patterns of real world, and help cut through bullshit and reckon real truths about the world.