Necessary Verses Needless Rejections

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From audio journal episode   AJE-2010-05-07-19-30.

  • Some folks experience getting rejected more than others (what authority ever said that life is fair?).  But in the end, we’ll all experience at least a little rejection; whether in love, career, or any other pursuits.  These experiences may make us afraid of rejection in love, and the level of fear we perceive depends on the sorts of experiences we’ve had and how traumatizing they were.  Our experiences and how we interpret them are unique to each one of us.  So some may find rejection more difficult to maneuver through than others.  So just because one person can easily rise above this fear does not mean that all others should (or in fact, could) press on through it to win their love quest. 
  • Many will even experience a sustained string of rejections, as have I.
  • In 1995 while living in my own home in Ohio, I encountered compassionate rejection from [Melinda], who may have liked me especially, but brushed aside my campaigns to step up our relationship, because of her doubting mother (according to [Melinda]).  Her mom thought that she deserved better than a vision-impaired lover, and pointed out how much extra work [Melinda] would have to do when raising our children, because of the fact that I do not see well.  But I would havedone my share, and even gone above and beyond in areas like home maintenance.  The only extra responsibility [Melinda might have had to shoulder, would have been to be the default family chauffer, and do all the driving.
  • [Melinda] understood this and realized that being designated the default family driver wasn’t so bad.  But her mother was relentless in her zeal to steer her daughter toward someone more “able-bodied.”   So, to keep the peace with her family, [Melinda] avoided romance with me.  I got rejected; though she hinted that we might get together down the road.  Twelve years later in fact, we almost did.  But our rebirth was short-lived due to issues that had grown up between us during those intervening years, that had nothing to do with her mother.    
  • Still though, there’s a difference between the definitive, stay-away-from-me-for-good rejection, and the I-must-reject-you-even-though-I-do-not-want-to one like the one [Melinda] used to reject me. 
  • So, when rejections like these attempt to conceal (but nonetheless betray) a strong desire to say yes, it’s good to try again, now and then.  She may in fact say yes the next time.  As long as she never calls me a reject, I may try again though with a history of rejection now established, I’d probably be more afraid of rejection in the future.  So I might not try again.  So to the ladies: Be careful to whom and how you say no. 
  • I experienced this too, with [First Love].  She said once that she hated me, and berated me publicly for daring to speculate that she might like me.  But a couple weeks later, she said that she   really did   enjoy me, and apologized for her bad mood fourteen days earlier. 
  • They display revulsion to conceal their affection and thereby protect themselves.  They hide their weakness with exaggerated appearances of strength; veiling it with outward bluster and disdain.  Thus the song:  You Always Hurt The One You Love. 
  • So a strong negative reaction to a date request could actually signify deep feelings of attraction.  At times,   NO can mean YES.  But don’t count on this being the case, because it usually isn’t. 
  • It’s convenient to assume that getting rejected always means to stay away forever.  We avoid lots of pain that way if we proceed with that assumption.  After all, if what happened in the past is the best predictor of what’s likely to occur in the future, then if someone rejected us before, they’ll probably do it again if given the opportunity.  This is generally true.
  • But not only might the enthusiasm of someone’s rejection mean that they actually regard us highly.  It’s also often true that when a received rejection hurts us deeply, that we deeply desire the rejector.  The more the rejection hurts, the more we wish that they’d say yes instead. 
  • If someone behaves too strongly like they hate us, they may in fact actually like us very much but wish us not to know that. 
  • So, a single rejection does not necessarily mean that she’ll never say yes; just that she won’t be saying yes now or in the near future.
  • Respect her NO, but don’t take it as absolutely definitive and ever-lasting. 
  • So, a single rejection does not mean that she’ll   never   like me; she just does not want to get involved with me at this moment.
  • In my younger days, I’ve sworn to never again approach a rejector; even a one-time rejector.  Sometimes, that’s best.  Sometimes, it’s not, as indicated above.
  • Now if they were to ask me never to approach again, then their rejection could very well be permanent; they’ll likely never change their minds. I can then black-list them with high confidence that I’ll not be missing a thing by foregoing all future unsolicited communications with them.  They’ll probably never say yes if they’ve said no in this way. 
  • But usually what happens is while the vast majority of women do say no to me, when pressed, they will not go on to say further that I should never check back in.  Not even married ladies would do that. 
  • My feeling on getting rejected – my fears of it and the resulting strong wish to avoid it – are colored by how much I’ve allowed it to hurt me.  The more it hurts, the more I fear it, and the more I fear it, the less I try. 
  • I got rejected so often that I’ve grown supersensitive to it because I’ve interpreted it in more hurtful ways, ways that overly disparage myself.  I’ve taken it more personally than not when in fact, only a small portion of it could rightly be attributed to the choices I’ve made.
  • Thinking through rejection like this does tone down its sting, desensitizes me to it, and accordingly, lessens the fear of risking it again.
  • If rejection didn’t hurt so much, then we need not work so strenuously to avoid it; we could in fact, be a little more caviler about the dreaded no; so long as we don’t become so cocky and carefree that we ignore others’ wishes. 
  • We can’t avoid rejection totally if we’re gong to ever be happy in love.  So the best strategy is to predict it, minimize it, learn from it, and above all, keep moving despite it. 
  • Like all shades of gray, picking and choosing which situations deserve a follow-up and which should be left alone can be quite challenging.  Often, women’s views on this differ from men’s.  This makes the topic of getting rejectedhard to write about, because in order to adequately express the moderate approach to it, we must write much more than it would take to say simply to avoid all rejection or that a rejection always means that the rejecter never wants us to ask again.
  • My understanding of getting rejected is not yet complete, and still contains some apparently contradictory points.  But I have faith that these can be eliminated by mastering the gray view of all of this; the moderate one.
  • I began writing about it with the notion that certain types of rejection indeed do predict future rejection.  But now, I’m not so sure. Perhaps some can.  But today, it seems that these are the exception rather than the rule.
  • I know my feelings for women are generally static (once I feel a certain way about them, I’ll likely feel that same way forever), and as such, initial impressions do not usually become more favorable over time.  If they think I’m plain at first, they’ll still think I’m plain at last.  You cannot earn someone’s passionate love.
  • Also, I suspect the same to be true of women. Specifically, if they, upon meeting me, think I’m not attractive enough to date, then they’ll probably never change that opinion no matter how much they come to know me as just a friend.  At times, I’ve waited years (decades) for ladies to come around.  But it never happened, and in the interim, I wasted lots of money on them to mention emotional energy.
  • So we might infer from this that when someone acts toward us like they hate us, that they’ll probably keep hating us, and thus, rejecting us, no mater how many times we ask them out, no matter how long we’ve known them. 
  • But is she really dead set against me?  Are her feelings necessarily as fixed as mine tend to be?  Perhaps not; definitely not in many cases.
  • However, sometimes, I must acknowledge that people do change; though I’ve never observed this sort of drastic transformation within myself.  That is, I don’t believe that I’ve ever come to deem a lady as Miss Universe after years of knowing her, when her stature repulsed me at our initial meeting.  Once ugly, always ugly.  Though over time, I may come to know her as an exceedingly nice and trustworthy person, her consistent behavioral goodness never changes how romantically attractive she appears to me, no matter how long it lasts or how nicely she acts.  Regardless of her effort, she generally will not overcome my first impressions; no matter what lengths she does to try.
  • But not everyone else is like me.  Some people can in fact be impressed later by qualities that did not surface initially.  So, they may reject me once.  But then, with equal legitimacy, decide later to accept me. 
  • So it’s often the case that a NO now does not mean NO tomorrow; though I may be too humiliated after one rejection to want to risk another anytime soon.
  • Having faith in human diversity makes risking rejection less emotionally risky therefore.  
  • Because people’s feelings are often in constant motion, they could very well despise me today, yet embrace me tomorrow.  After all, it works the other way around all the time.  That is: They often have liked me at first only to hate me later. 
  • So it’s hard to tell from a single rejection in love if she means it forever, even though we might wish it did, as an excuse to avoid future rejection from her. 
  • The thing is: You can’t tell for sure after just one rejection, or five, or ten rejections over twenty years how she’ll respond the next time you ask.  But I admit that the more times she says no, the more likely she is to say no again. 
  • But though I acknowledge people’s changeable feelings, I still think it foolish to wait around for someone’s feelings to change.  Why?  Because there’s no guarantee that they’ll change. 
  • Sure.  In light of the above, checking back every five or ten years is prudent.  But it’s not good to put our lives on hold until she says yes. 
  • [Carlene J] said no to me ten years ago, primarily because she was married happily as it turned out.  But if her situation ever changes, I may yet secure an afternoon with her in a Jacuzzi.  I still desire her, and she may change.  So I ought to check back every few years when I can. 
  • She may say no.  But I owe it to myself to keep tabs on her, in unobtrusive ways of course, just in case the tides would turn toward me. 
  • I felt a bit ashamed for asking because, as it turned out, she was in fact happily married.  But the outcome of the asking does not determine the appropriateness of the asking to begin with.  So though I did learn that she was happily married, there should have been no shame in my asking her if this was in fact the case.  I had to be sure, so I asked her for  me.  If I’d succumbed to my fears and said nothing, the far worse agony of not knowing would have poisoned my life in those days.
  • As it turned out, she knows that I like her in romantic ways, and hopefully, if she’s ever in a position to accommodate, she’ll seek me out.  Or, I’ll renew my request should our paths ever cross again.  But I’ll not expend energy trying to find her, nor will I wait around for her to surface again. 
  • Since I have no way to get hold of [Carlene J], I’ll have to be comfortable with the notion that if she has good memories of me from so long ago, then she’ll find me again, should her circumstances change to favor me. 
  • I’m okay either way though.  True, if we had been able to get together back then, what fun we could have had.  I’ve dreamed of that scenario often through the years in fact. 
  • She was great, to be sure.  But there are many other great ladies  like her out there.  So even if I never bump into her again, I’ll still be able to experience that similar greatness with others.  Thus, there’s no urgency to locate her before I grow too old or anything. 
  • To improve my chances of finding said greatness, I’ve created an account on Facebook; the strategy there to make friends with many women, and silently keep an eye on their relationships statuses.  When one I adore becomes single or widowed, I’ll pursue her.  But don’t worry.  I’ll wait until after she’s taken an appropriate amount of time to mourn the end of her last relationship.  Once that time passes, I’ll poll them.
  • I get too many shameful rejections if I invite people who are married for some fun in the afternoon sun.  Only approaching single or otherwise unattached ladies is one sure-fire way to reduce the amounts of needless rejection one incurs. 
  • Sometimes, it may be appropriate to approaching a married person; but only if they make it abundantly clear beforehand that they’re unhappy in the marriage, that they full well intend to leave it, and that they’d welcome an approach from me.  They may communicate these sentiments through body language.  So, I watch for these signs.
  • But it’s tough to find any universally definitive, leave-me-alone-forever types of rejections.  Normally, I’d think that getting rejected by a happily married person signals as clearly as it can be signaled, that they’d prefer I never ask them again; at least, while they’re married.  But that’s not always the case either. 
  • At this point, I’ve decided that good hard and fast rules about accurately avoiding all needless rejections are hard to come by, because every situation is different.  There are some good general rules; but not many that apply all the time in every similar situation.  So, we are, to a certain degree, blind when it comes to love questing, for there are few certainties, and those that we do manage to discover, do not remain true indefinitely.
  • In short, there are only so many precautions we can take to minimize the amount of humiliating love rejections we incur.  Playing the dating game is painful and debasing; at least, until you win.  Then, the victory makes all of the negative precursor worthwhile.  I hope. 
  • But a reasonably useful rule might be: Don’t ask again tomorrow if you’ve been turned down today.  Give it a few years, at least.  It seems that the more time that elapses between now and the last time we were rejected by a particular person, the more likely it is that they may change their minds.  But this changing is generally a very slow process.  So don’t count on it happening next week, next month, or even next decade.  In fact, I wouldn’t count on it happening ever.  But just make sure that you account for the possibility that it can happen in your dating strategies, and try again if circumstances change enough to justify renewing the attempt. 
  • Sometimes, it’s best to never approach again.  Our hearts know these situations, and alert us to them when we’re considering entering into one, by generating sensations of fear and anxiety.
  • Sometimes, our fears wisely instruct us to stay away.  In fact, this is usually true in my opinion.
  • Don’t defy love rejections.  Always respect them, even though vast numbers of them create feelings of intense hurt and frustration.  Keep in mind though that rejection does not make you a reject. 
  • After a few (or more) tries, it’s just best however to not try anymore.  I chose this course with [First Love].  She rejected me for nearly a quarter century, and at the end of that time, I was no closer to wining her heart than when I started.  Now, some long-term pursuits do pan out.  But it’s key to recognize the unfruitful ones early and end them before we’ve wasted very much time and resources.    When you’re afraid of rejection, your body may be trying to alert you that the pursuit you’re considering will in fact turn out to be fruitless. 
  • I suppose that how attractive we deem the lady to be, determines how much love rejection we’re willing to endure.  If she’s attractive enough, there’s no such thing as needless rejection.  But the prettier she is, the more afraid of her rejections we’re likely to be. Since historically, I tended to ask out most often the girls who were the most pretty to me.  So I got rejected most by these sorts because of this, and have thus grown to fear approaching these sorts most of all.  Unfortunately, it’s come to pass that, who I like the most, so too do I fear the most. 
  • But resolving this paradox is critical however in order to move beyond the stymying effects of rejection, and to actually begin to enjoy the company of the people we desire most.  But I’ll deal with that angle in other posts later.   

Take care.

Tom Hesley

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