Rejection hurts. (Robots, don’t read. You won’t understand.)
If I were a robot, I'd be a flying one.
Being single can be very tiring. We were recently talking about smsing someone after a first date if you don’t want to go out again and one of the reasons some people were for it was that it isn’t really a rejection anyway.
Yeah, if you’re a robot.
I dunno… Am I the only one who feels a pang of pain no matter who rejects me when or how? Of course the better they know me, the more painful it potentially is, but in general, being told you are not wanted by someone, even if you aren’t crazy about them, touches something inside. I’m yet to figure out a way to be immune to this.
Theoretically if you’re very sure of yourself and your worth, being rejected shouldn’t hurt because it has nothing to do with you. Here’s a shocking piece of news: I’m not there yet. 
Seriously, I’m asking you, do you feel at least a tiny bit of pain any time someone rejects you? Is there a difference between guys and girls?
Photo by Max Kiesler on flickr.
Deena
Vera Resnick
God, yes!!!
I have no idea how it is for guys but I can tell you I feel a pang whenever I’m rejected, even if it’s only after the first date.
This is not to say that a first date is a wedding, or that if I would like to see a person a second time it means I’m in love. And leaving the self-esteem issue aside (“What, I’m not interesting enough to ask on a second date? Or am I just not pretty enough?”), which I completely relate to, I think that after a few years of dating what really bothers me is that it’s become such a market. I could write and write about this, but the sum of it all is that I feel like I’m a piece of meat, and the person in front of me is sizing me up, and if I’m not exactly what he’s expecting then he’ll simply go look elsewhere – many of them will not even bother to sms. There’s something very demeaning in that. No one looks at dating as a process – it’s a means to an end. They don’t try to get to know you better, they don’t ask themselves – is this a person I can have a relationship with? No, they come with a prepared checklist and if something in the checklist is missing – well, there are other fish to fry and this one is just not worth the effort.
I don’t know – maybe it’s me who’s wrong about dating. Maybe I should come with ready-made expectations. But if I stop feeling even just a little bit of regret after being rejected, even after the first date, I know it’s time for me to stop dating for a while.
Tamar, you say it so well. I also think maybe there’s something good in feeling the bit of hurt even after just one date. Reminds you you’re human. And everything you wrote about the meat market makes me think that people aren’t viewing each other as human but instead as objects.
Exactly… I don’t want to sound bitter but often I do feel like an object… The only man I dated in the past 3 years that I can say was sensitive and kind is a psychologist. Oh, not my therapist…
I was once set up by my grandmother (yes!) and her good friend to date the friend’s grandson. A doctor, of course. After weeks of trying to coordinate our schedules to make a date, he finally called me one night and asked if I had dinner plans that night and if not, did I want to say to heck with trying to plan and just go out. I had rehearsal and homework, but I said yes to a quick dinner. We had a nice time, and he was a very nice guy, but I knew there was nothing there. Still, I had enjoyed myself, so when he said he had a good time and “we should do this again”, I agreed.
And that was the last I heard from him until he showed up at my grandmother’s memorial service a year later, with his tall, blond trophy wife on his arm.
I knew from the things he said at dinner that I was totally not wife material for him. I could never be the “chief of staff’s wife” or fit into the social strata he was aiming for. Still, his rejection hurt (only a little, but still), his lack of any contact made me wonder why he couldn’t even call me when he knew I’d be out and at least leave a nice rejection message. And I felt like his showing up with the trophy wife was just rubbing salt in the wound. But again, all this was over a guy I did NOT want to be with. So yeah, it doesn’t matter. It still hurts.
Well girls, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one! (Not that I want anyone to be in any pain.)
Heck, I feel rejected even when no other single is rejecting me, just when a friend talking to me goes over to another single friend to suggest someone for him, now if this only happened once I’d tell myself that they just happened to know someone appropriate for him, but they seem to treat me like I’m neuter. There must be a middle ground between setting people up with careless abandon like the Roman matron in the gemara, and utter neglect.