The Fear of Rejection

Rejection

re·jec·tion

[ri-jek-shuhn]

Isn’t it the ugliest word you have ever read?

(Ok, well it’s not the ugliest. It isn’t as bad as moist. Nothing is as bad as moist. Moist. Ugghhh I actually shudder every time I hear that. Moist.)

Well then I guess one could conclude that the worst thing one could ever hear in one’s life would be ‘moist rejection’.

“Hello there, at present I am wet, in fact I’m moist, and you are fired.” = moist rejection.

Before you judge me as a severe psychotic and conclude that you’re not to read any further, I’m going to trail off that moist path and continue with the intensity of the word rejection. Rejection. The idea of being rejected is possibly up there with losing a limb. I loathe it. I lose sleep over the thought of it. I will do anything and everything to avoid that horrendous feeling, when you have poured all your might into an idea of something working, and the recipient of these efforts simply says ‘no’. How harsh, how callous, how ruthless that no feels.

Of course there are many different kinds of rejections one can face.

1. “We’re very sorry, but we have no tables left for a booking tonight. But we do have some available for tomorrow?” I’m hungry now, a-hole. Stomach filling will not be postponed.

2. You added Lolita Leggings on Facebook and weeks later view her page and realise she never accepted. Lolita’s a slut anyway.

3. “I’m sorry, your credit card has been declined.” Meh. Deal with that pearler later.

4. “I’m sorry, you do not meet the requirements needed for this position.” Ouch, okay.

5. “Uh, nah I don’t really want to dance with you, thanks though.” Oh. My. God. I cannot feel my legs.

6. “I’m sorry, I just don’t like you like that.” OH MY HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I CAN’T BREATHE. My heart is NOT working. I will just walk over to this corner in the dark and DIE.

I have recently been riding a very long train of rejection. Lucky for me it hasn’t had anything to do with numbers 3, 5 or 6. (P.S. Lolita, I hate you and I only wanted to stalk your lame photos.) No, my rejection is fundamentally stemming from attempted career advancements, which ought to be filed in the simple ‘ouch, okay’ category. But this nature can only apply to the first, let’s say, 500 rejections. Once that number of rejections escalates to 1000, you sort of begin to think that you cannot bear another rejection. That if you hear the word ‘no’ again in your life, you might just keel over.

So, rather than keeling over, I have conjured a number of uplifting solutions to deal with the horrific life experience that is rejection.

1. Make a booking at a restaurant. For tomorrow. Then call back, tomorrow, and cancel. Rewarding.

2. Add Lolita’s boyfriend on Facebook.

3. Buy several credit cards and watch your money evaporate muhahahaha

4. Apply for ten jobs you don’t want. Cunning lines such as, “I’m sorry, I’ve accepted an offer as an astronaut instead” may be used here.

5. Wait for feeling to return to legs. Use legs to stomp on said person who will not dance with you’s toes. Now he can’t dance. Or walk.

6. There is nothing you can do to deal with the rejection of a prospective partner. It sucks. It hurts. It lingers. And the only thing you can do to overcome this agony is completely erase any pain from your memory. Or at least that’s what I do, and I would thoroughly recommend this mechanism. So, from memory, I have never felt such rejection. HA!

P.S. One should be aware that the ramifications of the above suggested solutions may outweigh the expected result of satisfaction. But one valuable lesson someone once told me is this:

Never expect rejection.

It never makes rejection suck any less. And if you expect it, you’ll never try.

It's the fish John West reject that make John West the best