Vulnerability is great! Anyways…
I’m in a strange mood right now. I was just rejected as a Facebook friend by a woman I’ve never met. I’m surprised at the amount I’m being affected by such an objectively trivial event. I’ve never met her. It’s a Facebook friend rejection. What is wrong with me?
The Story
My parents went to Olive Garden and must have talked to their waitress. She goes to UNC Charlotte and so my parents mentioned me (I graduated from UNCC last year) and that I was moving back into the area and to look me up on Facebook. So she did and sent me a friend request along with a message explaining the situation.
I replied.
She defriended me afterwords.
I can only guess as to the reason for the defriending – but it happened. My response to her was not anything crazy, I assure you. I wasn’t coming on to her or anything of the sort. Still, I figure I must’ve said something that she didn’t like.
This is affecting me because I found her to be attractive. My thought afterwards: “It’s as if she is speaking on the behalf of every woman I’m attracted to out there, and I’ve been voted out as a candidate.” Devastating news, isn’t it? See how my mind amplified that to an unbelievable size?
I am very intrigued by this irrational overreaction. Honestly, I actually have a pretty high “batting average” with women I’ve pursued, but the number I have pursued is very small. When you have a small number of attempts, the stakes are raised. This is a key reason I tend to amplify any hint of rejection in this area.
EDIT: Considering the typical behavior of humans my age, I want clarify that “batting average” in no way refers to scoring sexually with a woman. I am a virgin. I simply meant reciprocal interest.
The Rejection King
I was talking to one of my best friends (a cousin of mine) the other night about women (men do this sometimes). He said that there was this guy that decided on his own accord to be rejected by 75 women in one day. He stood at the bottom of an escalator and just asked female after female out to dinner.
There are so many fish out there. There are more fish than women, but there are still a decent number of women out there (women not pictured).
His goal was to gain the courage to be able to ask a girl out that he liked. After being served up some rejections (and probably positive responses too – to which I don’t know his response), there was a woman that came down the escalator that he really wouldn’t mind taking out to dinner, which made him very nervous. He decided instead to just go ahead and call the girl he liked. He had reached the equivalent difficulty on the escalator, so he figured why not just ask her out.
He experienced more rejection by women in that one day than I have in my lifetime. It is much better to be in his shoes. Raising the stakes is rarely a good thing unless they need to be raised (like in the 4th quarter). If the stakes are high, then you will try to be so perfect that you’ll end up terrified of making a mistake. When you’re trying to be perfect, you’re not trying to be yourself – which is not genuine and not good for relationships.
I have found that it really is best to lower the stakes. It looks something like this…
Ok, say I am attracted to a woman – that doesn’t mean I have to be perfect around her. I can simply talk to her without any ulterior motives of making her want to marry me. This way I’ll get to know her and we can possibly develop a friendship – the valuable cornerstone for all personal relationships.
This is easier to say than to practice, of course. When your stomach is full of butterflies and subsequently moves up into your throat while you’re trying to seem smooth, it gets difficult to concentrate on a conversation. This reaction should ease as you realize that even the most attractive people are still flawed humans like the rest of us.
My next step of course is to actually meet women (I do want to find a life partner after all) so that I can be rejected in person instead of via Facebook. Since I learned something through this experience, I wish I could “like” the defriending I received. I didn’t see a like button for that. Come on Facebook!
If you thought you could escape without a bigger life lesson, you were correct until I realized the life lesson. This real life example speaks of the importance of making an effort to do currently uncomfortable things to get what you truly desire out of life. The more times you experience failure in an area, the more you’re going to learn. In addition, each new failure or rejection will have less sting than the last – like in the failure king example.
I think most people know this, but for me – I didn’t “get it” until I tried living it. I’m stepping outside of the safety lines by focusing on this blog instead of my “career.”
Imagine a fisherman who casts his line in the water once every 4 years. He really wants a fish. If he doesn’t catch a fish on that cast, his failure is amplified because he fishes so rarely. He tries infrequently enough to scare him, but not frequently enough to teach him. He isn’t willing to fail initially and so he fails incessantly.