Nothing like a nice rejection which makes a person think and reflect.
What Is Rejection?
Very simple, it’s just that you got a no. Another way to view rejection is just that your expectations of a situation were not met. You had some exceptions and an outcome in mind which was turned down by the other person. The other person said no while you hoped and excepted a yes.
Another way to view it is since you created those expectations it just means you were wrong. And since you were wrong it means it’s your own fault. That way you can take full responsibility of the situation and then learn and grow from it. You can also question yourself whether those expectations you had were reasonable or not.
Understand that the goal is not to forget about rejection but, instead to remember it in order to analyse and learn from the experience.
The solution to not feel too bad after a rejection is simple. Just don’t have too high expectations or expect to get rejected. That way you can get pleasantly surprised if you receive good news and not be too sad if you get rejected. You can still be hopeful but don’t have high expectations. And also, the earlier you find out the better because it saves you time and energy.
Don’t wait to ask someone out. If you delay, it might negatively affect other parts of you life, like your sleep, because you will constantly be thinking about it.
Why Does Rejection Feel Bad?
My guess for why it feels bad is because you had done a lot of imaginative future planning in your mind of different things you wanted to do together. And when you get rejected it feels like you got robbed of all these experiences. This could be the reason why a person can feel a bit empty and lost inside after a rejection.
You were probably also in positive state while you were doing the future planning, like you were all happy and excited. The total amount of positive emotions committed probably also affects how bad you will feel when rejected. The more emotions committed the worse it will feel.
The solution to this is to not do any imaginative future planning with people where the relationship is not confirmed or with people you don’t know. The future planning can for example be that you are playing out different scenarios and then kinda living in them in your mind. The more you do this the worse it’s going to feel if you get rejected. All this future planning is just a waste of time really. Try to catch yourself when you start to do it and then stop.
Similarly, imaginative conversations with the other person you have in your mind should also be avoided until the relationship is confirmed. Not saying here that preparation and planning is wrong. Im a hard believer in planning. I think that “if you don’t plan then you plan on failing” is true. Just saying that having conversation with yourself that involves the other person is a waste of time.
Another recommendation is to not check social media because this will lead to a lot of imagination of how the other person is which will eventually lead to future planning. The goal of checking someones social media should be to just verify that they are a good or decent person. As soon as this is accomplished we shouldn’t check more. Social media can be a bad representation for how the other person is. You wanna see reality and the other person for how they are and not let social media give you a false image and set false expectations.
Having expectations of the other person is fine and a good thing since you need to have a standard. If they are not met it just results in a little bit of disappointment. It also proves that they were not the right person. It’s the fantasising and playing out different scenarios of the other person that can make a rejection difficult.
There is this famous stoic quote from Seneca: “We suffer more often in imagination than reality”. Similarly, our imagination can cause us to suffer more than reality.
Meaning of “We suffer more often in imagination than reality.”: For example if you have an important presentation to make then it’s normal to think about it all the time. This thinking can make you nervous and stressed which makes you suffer unnecessarily and this is all done by yourself in your own head. The reality is that the presentation in itself is probably not that bad but the overthinking leading up to can makes the whole experience so.
How to Deal With Rejection
Most things are fine, as long as you learn something from the situation.
Advice 1
You want to be with a person that likes you. If they rejected you it means they did not like you. That means you also don’t wanna be with them. Ask yourself “Do I want to be with a person that does not like me?” You have to accept reality for how it is and the reality is that you got rejected. People who goes against reality will eventually always fail.
Advice 2
Another way to view it is that you did not get rejected but the relationship did. The two of you were not just compatible. Maybe the two of you weren’t looking for the same thing from the relationship. For example person A wants a serious relationship while person B wants someone to spend the weekends with. If this is true then there is no reason to be sad since you can’t control what other people wants.
Advice 3
If you still want to complain and feel bad about yourself then ask yourself: “When I look back at it in the future, am I gonna be happy with my current behaviour or would It be better if I just accepted the situation and moved on?” or “Is this a good way to spend my time, energy and attention.” Accept that dealing with self-doubt, overcoming rejection and unexpected challenges are just part of life.
Disappointment is mostly caused because we lack perspective. Everyone has made mistakes or have things turn out in a way they did not like or plan for. It probably felt bad when it happened but many times we can look back and see that it was not that bad. Later we were probably a bit thankful that it happened because of the lessons learned. Taking a longer view and changing our perspective can make a big difference.
You shouldn’t be to worried about results as long as you tried your best and did everything you could that’s within your control. The result is usually not within your control. If you tried your best and things still didn’t work out then you should be ok with it.
Advice 4
If you still want to complain and feel sorry for yourself you can always just get some perspective in life. Remind yourself that there are people living with no access to clean water and other living in like 40°C with no air conditioning. Think of the good things you have and be grateful for them.
Advice 5
Maybe you are not ready yet to move on. You might think that you are ready but you could be wrong. Don’t judge yourself or feel bad because you can’t move on. What you need to do is to just embrace and feel those feelings. Just accept and allow them to come. Don’t react to the feelings just feel and look at them. Eventually your mind will get tired of this because there is only so long you mind can hold on to something. You will feel like you have had enough and just can’t have the same thought over and over again. After this you can accept reality and move on.
Final Thoughts
Dealing with rejecting is a skill that can be trained and learned. The more you get rejected the easier it will be to deal with it. The first time you get rejected it’s not going to feel good. The 5th time it’s going to hurt a little. The 10th it’s almost not going to affect you at all. This is true for all skills in life, the more you do it the easier it becomes.
In my opinion, it’s almost always worth asking someone. Regret is much worse than a rejection. If you regret something you will keep thinking about it and waste a lot of time and attention while a rejection is much easier to move on from because you did what you could. Plus, you asking them out is like you are giving them a compliment saying that they are desirable and attractive.
Setting high expectations of situations and experiences is something that I think should also be limited because it can be that those expectations are not met. What would have been a good experience becomes bad because of the high expectations.
Think some of advice in this article only applies to early stages dating and not in a long term relationship break up. The difference is in early dating you are just losing a fake reality while after a long-term break up you are losing something real.
But I think living too much in your own head and playing out different future scenarios is overall a bad habit and not good for happiness. Planning and believing in unrealistic and unreal things is a waste of time, especially if it involves other people.
