Tom's Love Quest

Inspired by audio journal episode:  AJE-2010-05-06-11-12.

I encountered anxiety while writing this piece lately; at times, the words just weren’t coming; classic writers’ block. Sometimes, I beat this by just writing anything, impromptu, even when I did not yet know what to say.  Or, failing that, I set pieces like this aside for a week, a month, or sometimes a couple years.  In the interim, I read, consider, and gather more life experience.  Then when I return, the words often flow more freely  This process often reveals defective premises in my thinking, and when eliminated, the writing comes easier once again. 

Indeed, the topic of avoiding needless rejection has challenged me in just this way recently.  But after some journaling, brainstorming, and considering my own colorful history of rejection (both giving and getting it), as well as the circumstances that typically surround it, I’ve dissolved the writers’ block, and wrote down some helpful insights to me, that I’ve discovered on my love quest.  So I offer these here, hoping that they’ll help you, my readers, to enhance your own dating experiences. 

Romantic Rejection Is Harmful!

Rejection really hurts, and things that hurt are typically harmful.  So, rejection is NOT harmless, precisely because it hurts so much.  It traumatizes.  While it rarely results in visible bruises or any immediately-obvious physical tolls whatsoever, being told NO too often wounds the self-esteem.  It can permanently cloud an otherwise positive outlook on life.  Too many refusals over too short a time, encourages us to chronically doubt ourselves.  This consistently negative history of recurring rejections instills fear in us against trying again, by undermining our self confidence and resolve.  Perennial rejection can set us to wondering if our dreams of happiness in love are worth the pains of the pursuit.  In the worst cases, we may answer this question with a resounding NO; foregoing fulfillment in love forever.  We give up the dream.  In this way, rejection keeps us from what we want, and not getting what we desire is perhaps the biggest source of pain and dissatisfaction and curtailed longevity in life.  We’re forced to bear the pain of not getting everything we want, and it’s this burden that makes us humans humans, and not gods; for the gods never pine, since anything they desire is within their easy grasp.  A god does not know the pains of unfulfilled desires.  But we humans know it all too well. 

Chronic denial of our dreams, even if we’ve become resigned to the notion that our dreams will never come true, can sour our moods, make us overly sensitive and reactive to rejection, trigger weight-gain and other symptoms of depression, interfere with sleep, and thus, sap our good health.  Constant deprivation can anger us and so, drive us to commit violent crimes in extreme situations.  Specifically, unrequited love needs remind us that we’re outside our desired social circles and that there are no places that accept us fully where we wish to dwell.  This cements the idea that we either do not deserve, or are just not good enough to love dream girls.  Since this blog is written in the context of a love quest, what us love seekers want most is to date the ladies we most desire; we most wish to win the love quest. 

But repeated refusals by our preferred women leave us drained, unhealthy, and thus, less productive in the game of life than we’d otherwise be if we were fully gratified.  Frequent rejection starves us physically and emotionally.  Also,  we’re likely to encounter harsh judgments from women due to our resulting reduced economic efficiency; which further exacerbates the problem.  If they think we’re earning less than we should be, they reject us even more.   In this scenario, loneliness begets more loneliness, and we’re compelled to shun and hide our insecurities rather than embrace them.  It’s a repeating cycle that holds us down in the dumps, sometimes for entire lifespans.  So clearly, lots of rejection can be a cumulative and bad thing, and ideally, we should avoid it where possible to protect our physical and mental welfare. 

Some Rejection Is Necessary, But Be Careful!

But to get what we want (in any endeavor, not just dating), we must risk some rejection.  There’s no way around this.  Indeed, unless the lovelorn man isolates himself from women totally, he’ll be unable to completely duck rebuff without entirely giving up his dreams of loving a desirable lady.  Some learned writers suggest that rejection is to true love as a nut’s outer shell is to its tasty core.  That is: To be loved, you must first endure a period of rejection, and so, to enjoy those delicious kernels, you must first get through the nut’s hard and inhospitable encasement. 

But just as we respect the potential of getting burned when nearing a hot stove, so too should we deeply consider the potential for rejection to hurt us.  A rebuff from a desirable lady can scar the soul just as profoundly as a burn from the stove can scar the fingertip. Though it may not show any physical injuries, rejection is nonetheless, quite dangerous.  So we ought not be caviler about it.  We should avoid shrugging it off as “no big deal” because in fact, rejection is a very big deal. We should instead, respect its potential harmfulness, and approach situations where it’s most likely to occur with  great caution. 

Rejection: A Needed Step Toward True Love 

Why must rejection come before true love?  Because put simply, no one likes everybody.  So, as he quests for love, a man will virtually always first encounter women who think him strange, weak, immature, shallow, and so on.  Whatever the adjective, there’s bound to be at least one lady out there who would describe each of us with it.  While as mentioned, there’s no way to completely avoid all negative judgments, one can sidestep some of them.  He can very often, read her heart without risking the humiliation of asking her for a date, and hearing her tell him NO.  One can in fact, determine the temperature of the water by sticking a toe in; he need not dive in head first to learn it.  More on this below. 

So many startup businesses fail because people invest too much into them without figuring out first if there’s a big-enough market for what they’re selling.  They dump all their money into the venture without any real idea what their customers are looking to buy.  Nor do they care much about that when the zeal of becoming self-employed swamps their thinking and corrupts their judgment.  They just want to get that new business up and running; taking a build-it-and-they-will-come attitude.  But had they invested a little restraint and careful effort up front, had they taken more of a build-a-little-and-we-will-see-if-they-come approach, then they would have been able to tell how well their product would likely be received, before risking too much.  Carelessness and impatience lead many a business into excess spending, and then, to ruin.  Unfortunately, as we’re tempted to do in the quest for successful business, so too do we pointlessly and excessively risk our emotional wellbeing while seeking true love. 

Play With the Odds, Not Against Them 

While we’ll likely never be able to completely eliminate rejection as a major spoiler in the love quest, we can take steps to minumize its pain and humiliation.  Consider that to make most any business profitable, we must take some risk, just as we must on the love quest.  But just as excessive risk can spell financial ruin for a budding enterprise, so too can careless gambling permanently hobble us in the quest for true love.  For example, asking a woman out when she’s clearly communicated with body language and other nuances that she does not wish it, on the off-chance that she’s changed her mind or that we have a better approach this time than last, would constitute such a needless rejection risk. 

Off chances are just that; they usually don’t pan out.  Ignoring the long-shot nature of long odds can not only subject us to needless humiliation, but can make us appear dumb, inept, and obnoxious, and the lady will like us even less than she otherwise would have, had we followed our instincts and left her alone to begin with. 

True.  She could be playing hard to get, and so, perhaps her rejections are fake.  Maybe she’d really rather we keep pursuing her.  But it’s not a good idea to take on the task of figuring out her true intentions if she’s not forthright with them at the start.  For one, if we guess wrong, we could offend her beyond our ability to make right again by apologizing.  Second, if she hides her true feelings, then getting straight answers from her could be difficult as the relationship progresses.  She may have chronic difficulty communicating her feelings; making for a painfully uncertain and drama-laden future with her.  People, who lie or intentionally misrepresent what’s in their hearts, court lots of irritating drama.  This manipulative concealing may show that she has a tendency to be careless with a man’s feelings as she is intentionally misleading him about hers.  So to avoid uncalled for pain, drama, and rejection, keep clear of these so-called game players by taking NO to always mean NO.  More on that below. 

That Bogus Hard-To-Get Test 

Sometimes as mentioned above, women play hard to get to test just how attracted to them a man really is.  They reason that if he keeps coming, despite the repeated rejections they dish out, then his feelings must be genuine, deep, and therefore, lasting.  But then, these same women are miffed when, after the relationship blossoms, the fellow frequently ignores their feelings.  Their test, rather than proving his undying interest, only showed him to be a bully because these sorts of tests attract men more interested in conquest than true love, and so are lousy indicators of the depth of a fellow’s attraction. 

In fact, many caring guys with deep feelings will back off when rejected, out of respect.  Indeed, how quickly a man takes no for an answer might be a better measure of the depth of his feelings; namely deference and considerateness.  So watch out for men who persist, even after being rejected, because this could indicate that he doesn’t value women’s wishes much.  This could be right dangerous to ladies who love him. 

No, the better approach for the fellow wondering whether he should press on through her rejections, is to take at face value what she says, and don’t try to read between the lines.  If she says no, she in all likelihood means no, and this should not be challenged.  To do so creates fertile grounds for needless rejection to sprout.  While on those rare occasions when NO can actually mean YES, we’re nonetheless happier taking NO to mean what is almost always does:  NO!  This keeps dating simpler, and could very well keep us guys out of jail!  Challenging a woman’s rejection is never a good idea, because women are highly sensitive and easily scared off these days by men who attempt to overly dominate them.  It’s critical therefore to avoid such appearances, and make sure to always treat her face-value wishes as supremely important.  Respect her always; even when she says no. 

Knowing Better 

We embarrass ourselves more than we might otherwise, by risking rejection when in fact we should have known better than to try.  It’s that should-have-known-better part that intensifies the guilt and shame feelings that accompany rejection, and makes women think us stupid. 

To minimize those nasty stingers, heeding her body language is highly important.  If she acts disinterested, she virtually always is disinterested, and in most cases, one need not go as far as asking her for a date to learn this.  Why not?  Because our conscience speaks this to us though feelings of fear and anxiety.  Contrary to common view, fear has wisdom and is thus a good thing.  When there’s fear, experience shows that there’s usually good reason, and that reason typically is that she’s just not interested.   Most of us know this instinctually, and we’re reminded of it by the eruption of intense anxiety when considering approaching a lady who’d rather that we didn’t.  But we ignore this warning sign and press on anyway because of the “bad rap” society accords fear these days.  We seem to revere people more who successfully defy their fears, and think far less of those who succumb to them.  But sometimes, it’s right to yield and those who do are thus the more wise.  Approaching a lady who obviously finds us unattractive is one scenario in which we should listen to our fear and leave her be; lest we injure ourselves psychologically. 

When we make the conscience our guide, we need not become experts in reading body language to know better, because it already does know better   While learning about what the various body language cues mean might very well help us more fully appreciate the wisdom that’s already built into our conscience, it won’t make us anymore adept at correctly interpreting the signals; not if we listen to our fears and stop when our conscience instructs us to.   

Yet many of us, to assert our machismo and defy our fears among other reasons, insist on disregarding her subtle yet quite clear, non verbal communications; we approach her anyway.  But doing so virtually never wins her, and it may cost us dearly by netting us bad reputations in the singles community as overbearing and pushy jerks.  Obviously, this complicates our efforts to find desirable people who will go out with us. Ignoring our conscience therefore, can make us insensitive to and defiant of her wishes, which endears us to no one. 

Truth be told: We need not push her to speak her answer when her answer is already obvious, and should be obvious to any right-thinking man.  Don’t keep pushing once you should already know; lest your feelings get hurt more than they already have been.  If you feel afraid to ask her out, then don’t.  Period. Listen to your conscience when it speaks through the voice of fear, for it really does know best. 

Try-Again Rejections 

Sometimes however, women reject us though they actually want a date, and they do it for non manipulative reasons.  Perhaps they’ve experienced love at first sight for us, but are afraid to get involved with a new lover because they were badly hurt by the last one, and wish not to risk a so-soon repeat of that experience.  Or, maybe they fear how a new relationship, though desirable, will impact their career or home life that they’ve worked for years now to establish.  They may even have children, and though they may like us immensely, they want to move slowly to see if we can be trusted around their young.  In these cases, their resistance may appear at first as rejection.  But it’s not.  It’s more of a cautious yes than a definite no. 

We should be able to sense the difference between definitive, irreversible rejection, and cautions acceptance.  There’s a difference between her saying no because she detests us, and no because she wants to be careful though she likes us very much.  In these cases, it makes sense to subject ourselves to rejection a second, third, or fourth time. 

So in spite of what I’ve said above, there are times when it’s smart to keep pressing forward, even when you get “no” early on.  Again, reading her nuances and listening closely to her voice tells the true and whole story.  Still though, when she’s unwavering in her denial of our invitation, our best bet is to pack it in and move on to another, as we need not (nor should not) have to coax someone to love us. 

While some judicious risking makes sense, the rest is silly, and it’s that unneeded and generally fruitless part of rejection that I’ve attempted to explore in this post, and hope to discuss more fully in subsequent writings.  I’ve found through bitter experiences in my own love quest, that when it comes to rejection, playing  against  the odds too often gets you hurt in big ways. So I encourage more of a play-it-safe approach; one that just as effectively gets the job of ringing out interested ladies done, yet goes more with the odds rather than against them.  Gamble only when the odds favor you.  The rewards are just as worthwhile, and the pain and damage to the self-esteem when risking more intelligently (good risk management), are greatly reduced.  Thus, our overall confidence level rises, increasing the chances of connecting with women we truly wish for.  Enduring needless rejection is one handicap that no one needs in the love quest. 

More later.

Tom Hesley

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