REJECTION SUCKS!
“Well, it was really nice meeting you, bud, but I don’t really think we’re a match. Good luck to you though!” –or- “Yeah, it was fun! I’ll call you!” – and then the call never comes.
Sound familiar? We’ve all been there at one time or another. You know, that stabbing feeling of being unwanted that’s so hard to shake when it strikes. Yep -rejection! Rejection in all forms is a natural part of being human, from being declined for a job or being refused participation in a certain club. But as a single guy on a quest for a life partner, rejection is an inescapable given in the dating world as you search for a compatible counterpart. There is no way around it!
Now in this article, I’m not going to sugar-coat things and say “just get over it” or “it’s his loss if he doesn’t want to date you.” This type of common advice minimises the impact rejection really has. The truth of the matter is that rejection sucks! It hurts, it’s no fun, and it can be difficult to swallow at times. But while rejection can be a nasty experience, it is a fact of life that needs to be accepted and embraced in order to survive and triumph over its effects. There’s no easy formula for overcoming the fear of rejection, but what’s offered here are some tips for making the most of it and taking on a new perspective to help you forage on and prevent it from holding you back from accomplishing your relationship goals and dreams.
Why Rejection Hurts
Growing up gay in a homophobic society poses many challenges as we face our developmental tasks and build an identity. As gay men, most of us carried boat-loads of shame and fears of not being accepted for who we were as we grew up (and a lot of us still struggle with these issues as adults) because of the messages from society that said being gay is “bad.”
This prejudice and discrimination, coupled with the fear of not being accepted, can lead to extra-hypersensitivity when any kind of rejection is perceived. This can be even more pronounced for those men who experienced banishment from their families or suffered some type of trauma or abuse for being gay. Low self-esteem, the tendency to have a strong need for approval and to define one’s self-image around what others think of you can be additional culprits in making rejection seem insurmountable.
The Costs Are High!
For some single gay men, the fear of rejection acts as a huge barrier against their claiming one of their most desired goals – a loving relationship. This fear can manifest itself in giving up on dating, isolating oneself, avoiding risks that could result in positive life changes, a tendency to become desperate, needy, clingy, and a people-pleaser. Then there’s all the negative, pessimistic thinking, anxiety, potential to become co-dependent, fear of commitment, and presenting a false self to avoid exposing oneself and being vulnerable, which then leads to intimacy deficits, decreased social confidence, and sometimes it reaches dangerous depths of turning to things such as alcohol/drugs and sex to self-medicate against those feelings. The list goes on—yuck!
Consider: What does rejection mean to you? What are some of the losses and negative consequences you’ve endured as a result of your fear of rejection, if any?
A Mental Shift Is Required
A new mindset is mandatory for conquering the negative effects of a fear of rejection in the dating world. Most struggles with rejection stem from your self-talk, the chatter we all have going on in our heads all the time. What you think affects how you feel which affects how you act, and then they all interrelate with each other. You can create a self-fulfilling prophecy that if you expect rejection, it’ll turn out that way. A lot of our fears of being “dismissed” come from such cognitive distortions (negative thought traps) as catastrophising (blowing things out of proportion) and mind-reading (making unfounded assumptions). You can certainly miss out on golden opportunities for meeting Mr. Right if you expend all your energy on your worries and negative thinking, not to mention that your self-esteem will be undermined and you won’t feel comfortable in your own skin.
“…Dating is risky business and not for the faint of heart, but can be a rewarding adventure…”
Your job is to identify which thoughts help vs. hinder your cause; capitalise on those that boost your confidence and motivate you, and work at defeating those negative thoughts that keep you trapped in vicious cycles of self-defeat. Replace those negative tapes with more affirming statements; this will take a lot of consistent practice to internalise the new messages and counter the old ones that form your beliefs. Another option is to create situations for yourself that will prove your old negative beliefs wrong by demonstrating to yourself that you are capable of overcoming anything that acts as an obstacle to your success.
Tips For Coping With Rejection
The following are some ideas to help you reframe the way you think about rejection so it doesn’t seem so unbearable. Your negative beliefs can have a strong hold over you because they’re trying to protect you against perceived threat or harm, so some of these tips might inspire an “oh please!” or “yeah right!” attitude. Let your mind be open and pick and choose those that might best fit your personality and style. View any resistance you may feel as an indication that your self-protection mechanisms may have been triggered and refuse to be held victim by them any longer.
- View rejection as a success. The fact that that guy doesn’t want to date you is saving you a lot of time and energy in building something that wouldn’t have worked out anyway. You’ve invested nothing, your heart is safe, and now you can channel your energies into new possibilities.
- Typically, rejection has nothing to do with you; it’s a projection of the other person’s wants, needs, and life experiences. He doesn’t really know you. All he is aware of is what he saw and what you shared with him about yourself, but that’s not the totality of who you are. It’s more about him. It’s not your fault, so avoid personalising it and realise also that you are not Mr. Right for every guy you meet and vice versa. Most people you date will not be the right guy for you.
- Avoid attaching yourself to outcomes. Approach every date free from fantasy and as an opportunity to meet someone new. If something works out, then that’s an added bonus. Don’t mould yourself into a relationship just for the sake of being in one. Be the chooser!
- A fear of being alone is closely tied to fear of rejection. The more value you place on someone, the stronger the fear will be, so take the emphasis off of him and find ways to value yourself. Discover ways to be “happily single”, independent, and don’t put stock in being fulfilled in your life only if you’re in a relationship. Identify your strengths and recognise what makes you a “good catch.” Cultivate a positive self-image.
- Build your self-confidence by becoming the best “you” you can be. Invest in your personal growth, fine-tune your social skills, take safe and calculated risks, enhance your self-esteem and body image, develop a more balanced lifestyle with purposeful goals that will give you meaning. This will help take the focus off the other guy and put it more squarely on you and living your life to the max to where rejection won’t matter as much to you.
- Whenever you experience fe
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where do i start???. just some quick background info – closetted and been internet dating since march. seen 10 different guys, i’ve been intimate with 2.
i slept with number 2 after our 2nd date – spent a whole sunday with him and even spent sunday nite at his place, ‘fooling around’ like rabbits! he told me i was special, felt like he knew me my whole life! on tue i spent the nite at his place again, but since then he’s been very distant. he does not phone me, message me and when i do, it’s like pulling teeth.
it looks like splitzville again for me! i’m not interested in nsa sex and thought he was ‘the one!!’
reply where do i start . a good place would be to communicate your needs, in other words, ” I want more then a one night stand” a mojority of guys on these dating sites are here for sex. Nothing wrong with that, its time saving and cost effective.
Another aspect is the gay “relationship formulation” scenario – when sex becomes the basis of the relationship that is what you going to get. Change the repetitive behaviour pattern if you want something morre substantial.
Friendship and companionship is always a must have not a nice to have.
Frienship first. I was dating a guy. 4 months into the relationship he tells me “I am not attractive enough to warrant a physical relationship”
this after we had fooled around.
Sooo it hurt but i figured its probably better to be mates with a guy first. b4 jumping into a relationship thats doomed.
Friendship 100% good and thereafte consider promotion!. how did you choose? did you meet over the net or you knew each other offline!
friends. o yes i agree-friends first!
how honest are these guys?. are these guys on the net looking for sex!
part 2. about the article – at first it seemed like the normal jerk off self help mumbo jumbo. but the ‘tips for coping’ are helpful – thanks!
Useful. I also found this quite useful; sometimes just being reminded about some common sense approaches to things really helps.
Blame it on the clique. Nice article…maybe now we can stop blaming our loneliness on gay cliques?
Maybe those who have found their life partners could share their stories…
… where were you Saturday night? ;-). Hey there – this article helped me this morning dealing with something that happened Saturday night that I have struggled to get over.
It’s amazing how we allow complete strangers to make us feel less than zero just because we don’t have “that look” …
Thanks!!!
it’s official – I am dumped!. FYI – saw ‘my guy’ for breakfast and closure this morning – it’s over. What a comforting thought that as per him ‘its not me, its him.’ He’s very spiritual and a helluva nice guy, but I think that I’m too emotionaly draining on him – non scene, not out, newbie and as tight as barbie’s plastic p–s. It feels like a part of me has died, he was the guy I’d come out for! By his own insistance he still wants to be friends and I now a lot of you out there are goin ‘ja, ja’ but I know he means it. To the lucky guy who hooks up with him when he can commit to a relationship: Lucky you and take care of my guy the the beautiful hands and even more beautiful soul!
Community responsibility?. What I found most interesting about this article is that no responsibility is placed on the gay community for allowing this problem to get so out of hand that it results in “turning to things such as alcohol/drugs and sex to self-medicate against those feelings”. What I keep hearing is “it’s all your fault and you’ve got to solve it by yourself”.
In the “straight” community, there are (at least in theory) a circle of friends who you can turn to for support and understanding — and maybe even a “meet my friend” once in a while. “Players” are not respected in the straight community (at least they were not when I was growing up). There is/was a level of acceptable behavior and “slut” was not a long term desired quality.
Today it seems like the attitude of the gay community is “every man for himself”. There is no set of community values that says “being mean” and hurting people is not acceptable. [In fact, many times, the opposite seems to be true.] Your worth as a gay man is based on what? How hot you look? How bitchy you can be? How many people you’ve bedded? (OK, maybe that was an 70’s thing.) How drunk or high you can get? How healthy you look? How much you’ve given back to the community? How much you’ve reached out and supported others? How honest you are? What do we as a community respect?
What we respect is what we get, and God help the guy who doesn’t measure up. Want to know why people are “turning to things such as alcohol/drugs and sex to self-medicate”? Take a look at what we respect. And what we exact as the price for failure. Changing our values as a community might do a lot more good than all the “just say no” or “always be good” ads we could ever run.
My 2 cents.
Where have all the cowboys gone. This article is useful and I commend the author for his insightful commentry.
Having gone from beauty in my 20s to the beast in my 30s I’ve seen both sides of the story. I must tell you and being gay has turned out to be both the best and the worst thing to happen to me.
I love being gay, how it has fine tuned my personality and my manner – how it has shown me a side of life 80% of the population have no idea about and I would not want to go straight.
However all of us reading through these comments (because most of the culprits wouldn’t even read the article) know the absolute cruelty of the scene and the unattainable (for most) Men’s Health vision one is expected to project.
I never used to struggle to get into a guy’s bed but I am acutely aware that I do not interview well and so have rarely been past the first date where sex was not involved.
After about a year of trying earnestly to get into a relationship I basically gave up and now I don’t go out, don’t surf gaydar, and cling to my small circle of mostly straight friends.
I know I will never meet someone nice this way but the fear of rejection has kept me bound to this way of life. It’s lonley but you get used to it.
I can’t help but wondering, however, that there must be hundreds if not thousands of nice guys like me who if they were straight would be happily married by now but because they can’t bear the sight of (you know what) and fear rejection from men, are locking themselves into lives of lonliness because they’ll never meet each other.
These are the guys you see sitting alone in the movies, guys eating supper alone, guys who don’t fit in at the clubs because they don’t dance, or don’t have fashion sense or don’t do drugs etc. and thus don’t go. These are the guys who drink their fill from the font of internet porn and sooner or later know nothing else. This is me and it might be you.
It might be sad but it’s definitely true – I just wonder, how do we meet each other – you might be my neighbour but I’ll never know.
Somehow we need to figure a way out of this, find each other and finally live.
WoW. WOW, you have just blown it out the water. I don’t think that I will ever meet anyone anymore. I loev going out and I love having fun, but I have never had a meaningfull relationship in my whole life. I am going to be 21 in the end of August and I have had nobody to call my lover.
I have been out with friend to clubs abd places and people will come back with numbers and will come back with people who want to know them and I will come back with myself. I don’t know whether it is a case of always being at a wrong place all the time or what?
I would love to meet someone from anywhere who is interested in me and I in them. I have tried the internet and all you find there are people who want the Brad Pitts and the David Beckhams of this world. If not that then they are 50 years old, if not that then they want you to travel to another Province for a night of heated passion and that will be it. It is so depressing and really if I was straight I would never suffer as much. Wow again, I love the article.
There is this one guy, from a dating site. I can’t remember who he was but he had written “although my hopes are not always realised, but I alwasy HOPE”
Lwando
Well thank you. I enjoyed reading the tips you gave as it like they say (hit the nail on the head)