Mathematics is an indispensable subject of school curriculum and is important in daily living as well as in the study of other subjects. However, there is a common belief that majority of the students dislike mathematics, owing to an array of factors related to instruction and learners' cognitive, affective and psychomotor attributes, subject matter and the learning environment. This paper elaborates on the affective factors influencing learning of school mathematics as perceived by the learners. A questionnaire survey was conducted on a random sample of 51 standard IX students to obtain data on their mathematics related expectancies, task value beliefs, self-efficacy beliefs, epistemological beliefs, goal orientation, interest and anxiety. Among these students, 88% selected mathematics as the subject hated by them and only 6% report they like mathematics. Major reasons to dislike mathematics were related to difficulty in understanding the subject matter, and teacher or instructional related factors. When 20% rated mathematics as a very difficult subject, 54% reported medium difficulty, with only 10% considering it as an easy subject. Around 42% fail to identify the ways to solve problems provided in their textbook. A large division of students use blind strategies in learning mathematics and possess less adaptive self efficacy beliefs and epistemological beliefs. Implications are added.