"Rejection is a Blessing" - by Erin P.

Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum

Help Support Loneliness, Depression & Relationship Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

beans

Well-known member
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
325
Reaction score
1
"In my early 20′s I had an acquaintance named Adam. The first thing I noticed about Adam was his self-confidence. He would very easily approach girls at a party, ask them to dance or ask them if they wanted a drink, and if they said no, he would shrug and move on to the next girl instantly, with no break in his stride or confidence. I watched him get turned down over and over again, but he kept at it until he found a girl who took him up on his offer.

He was highly social, a life-of-the-party kind of guy. He was moderately good looking but not drop dead gorgeous. He carried a little extra weight around his mid-section but was also muscular. He sort of reminded me of a young Captain Kirk.

We often ended up at the same parties, and I continued to watch him move around and interact with people. I wasn’t sure if he ever felt rejected, but if he did, he didn’t show it. So one day some friends and I were over at his house just hanging out and I decided to find out if his confidence was all an act. At the time, I was suffering from social anxiety and really low self-esteem, and I wanted to improve in this area so I figured I would learn from someone who had seemingly mastered it.

Here is roughly how our conversation went:

Erin: Adam, you seem to have really good self-esteem.

Adam: What do you mean?

Erin: Well, I’ve seen you at parties and you just walk up to girls and ask them to dance or ask them out on dates, and even when they say “no” you just keep right on going to the next girl.

Adam: (shrugging) Yeah. Why would I stop just because someone said “no?”

Erin: But don’t you feel rejected? Don’t you wonder why they didn’t want to dance with you or go out with you? Don’t you worry that there’s something wrong with you?

Adam: Ah, I see your problem. Let me explain my philosophy. I approach girls I’m interested in spending time with. If they don’t want to dance or date me, I assume there’s a situation or circumstance on their end that makes my offer unwelcome. I don’t take it personally.

Erin: You mean, you don’t assume it’s because there’s something wrong with you?

Adam: No, there could be a lot of reasons a girl says “no” to me. Maybe she’s tired, she has a boyfriend, she’s busy chatting with her girlfriends and doesn’t want to be bothered, her feet hurt, she doesn’t want to drink, etc. I never assume it’s because there’s anything wrong with ME. In the absence of direct evidence, why would I assume there’s something wrong with ME? The way I look at it, she’s not saying no to ME, she’s saying no to my question. There’s a difference.

Erin: What if she tells you she thinks you’re a troll or ugly or disgusting?

Adam: Then I assume she has a distorted view of reality and I probably wouldn’t want to date her anyway. If she’s that critical and harsh, then I’m glad to have weeded her out before dating her.

Erin: So you never get rejected?

Adam: I get rejected all the time, it just doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I never take it personally. I take it as a sign of incompatibility and move on until I find something I can connect with. I don’t invest my entire sense of self-worth in getting one single girl to go out with me. That would be silly. There’s no way that every girl on the planet will be a match for me. So I’ll keep going until I find someone I connect with who wants to connect with me.

I remember having a huge shift in my thinking after our conversation, and I realized that rejection is about beliefs. You can adopt the belief that if someone rejects you then it means there’s something wrong with you. Or you can adopt the more empowering belief that if someone rejects you then it means they’re rejecting the situation, not you.

In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, why not assume the rejection was based on circumstance, instead of on you?

What if you adopted the belief that rejection is a blessing? After all, rejection helps you quickly weed out people or circumstances that are not a vibrational match for you. It’s easier to move on when you are not stuck wondering what you need to change in order to get approval from someone with whom you’re not really a match. Check them off your list and move on to the next person or circumstance.

Don’t chase approval. Be who you are, be confident in yourself, and go out and find the people and circumstances that are a match for you!" - Erin P.
 
Easily said, not so easily done. Sure it can be done but for people like us it'll take a ton of work.

For people liks us.....We can't expect to be like that guy overnight. We'll have to slowly change our ways, step by step. Slowly start incrementing our social life and interactions until we reach that point.
 
Ak5 said:
Easily said, not so easily done. Sure it can be done but for people like us it'll take a ton of work.

For people liks us.....We can't expect to be like that guy overnight. We'll have to slowly change our ways, step by step. Slowly start incrementing our social life and interactions until we reach that point.

Yeah but this article isn't really a step by step program to be counter rejection. It is just telling you how this guy perceives rejection. A lot of us don't want to get rejected. Why? Becuase it feels bad. Why do we feel bad? Because we associate rejection with ourselves. When this guy is saying it has nothing to do with him. It could be a ton of other reasons. Like he said, people rejected his invitation, not him. How you embrace rejection will affect how you perform the next time you're around people and it will affect your next action, etc. It's a dreadful cycle.
 
Why is it always the goddamn adams?
Theres short adam, theres best friend adam and sister's friend adam, best friend adam has a nice girl friend, short adam has a lot of friends and people to hang with and sister's friend adam has both.

Should I just change my name to adam?
Maybe that'll fix it.....
 
beans said:
Hi Lonelies,

This is an article written by someone else. Not me. Please tell me what you think of it?


"In my early 20′s I had an acquaintance named Adam. The first thing I noticed about Adam was his self-confidence. He would very easily approach girls at a party, ask them to dance or ask them if they wanted a drink, and if they said no, he would shrug and move on to the next girl instantly, with no break in his stride or confidence. I watched him get turned down over and over again, but he kept at it until he found a girl who took him up on his offer.

He was highly social, a life-of-the-party kind of guy. He was moderately good looking but not drop dead gorgeous. He carried a little extra weight around his mid-section but was also muscular. He sort of reminded me of a young Captain Kirk.

We often ended up at the same parties, and I continued to watch him move around and interact with people. I wasn’t sure if he ever felt rejected, but if he did, he didn’t show it. So one day some friends and I were over at his house just hanging out and I decided to find out if his confidence was all an act. At the time, I was suffering from social anxiety and really low self-esteem, and I wanted to improve in this area so I figured I would learn from someone who had seemingly mastered it.

Here is roughly how our conversation went:

Erin: Adam, you seem to have really good self-esteem.

Adam: What do you mean?

Erin: Well, I’ve seen you at parties and you just walk up to girls and ask them to dance or ask them out on dates, and even when they say “no” you just keep right on going to the next girl.

Adam: (shrugging) Yeah. Why would I stop just because someone said “no?”

Erin: But don’t you feel rejected? Don’t you wonder why they didn’t want to dance with you or go out with you? Don’t you worry that there’s something wrong with you?

Adam: Ah, I see your problem. Let me explain my philosophy. I approach girls I’m interested in spending time with. If they don’t want to dance or date me, I assume there’s a situation or circumstance on their end that makes my offer unwelcome. I don’t take it personally.

Erin: You mean, you don’t assume it’s because there’s something wrong with you?

Adam: No, there could be a lot of reasons a girl says “no” to me. Maybe she’s tired, she has a boyfriend, she’s busy chatting with her girlfriends and doesn’t want to be bothered, her feet hurt, she doesn’t want to drink, etc. I never assume it’s because there’s anything wrong with ME. In the absence of direct evidence, why would I assume there’s something wrong with ME? The way I look at it, she’s not saying no to ME, she’s saying no to my question. There’s a difference.

Erin: What if she tells you she thinks you’re a troll or ugly or disgusting?

Adam: Then I assume she has a distorted view of reality and I probably wouldn’t want to date her anyway. If she’s that critical and harsh, then I’m glad to have weeded her out before dating her.

Erin: So you never get rejected?

Adam: I get rejected all the time, it just doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I never take it personally. I take it as a sign of incompatibility and move on until I find something I can connect with. I don’t invest my entire sense of self-worth in getting one single girl to go out with me. That would be silly. There’s no way that every girl on the planet will be a match for me. So I’ll keep going until I find someone I connect with who wants to connect with me.

I remember having a huge shift in my thinking after our conversation, and I realized that rejection is about beliefs. You can adopt the belief that if someone rejects you then it means there’s something wrong with you. Or you can adopt the more empowering belief that if someone rejects you then it means they’re rejecting the situation, not you.

In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, why not assume the rejection was based on circumstance, instead of on you?

What if you adopted the belief that rejection is a blessing? After all, rejection helps you quickly weed out people or circumstances that are not a vibrational match for you. It’s easier to move on when you are not stuck wondering what you need to change in order to get approval from someone with whom you’re not really a match. Check them off your list and move on to the next person or circumstance.

Don’t chase approval. Be who you are, be confident in yourself, and go out and find the people and circumstances that are a match for you!" - Erin P.


LOL Spoken like a true narcissist.

Narcissists have the best self-esteem, because nothing is ever wrong with them or their fault etc.

I'm only kind of joking. If only would could siphon off a little of that over-bearing self-confidence for the rest of us or change our mindset a bit so that we realize that true, it is NOT always about us. It's not always me, the person, being rejected because I am a hideous excuse for a woman or a ***** from hell or whatever. It truly could be totally on his end. Maybe he just doesn't like redheads. *shrug*

I think it's good not to wrap up our entire notion of self-worth on what other people think about us, but yes, that can be hard. I think that we will always crave some level of acceptance and validation. Some people crave it all the way and become too dependent on outside validation, others seem to shun it and become remote and disengaged.
 
Everyone wants (and needs) validation. There are some of us, like Adams, that can not show that need for validation and in the process, ironically, receive validations.
 
Ak5 said:
Everyone wants (and needs) validation.

Yeah, sure. But just because a girl doesn't pay attention to you doesn't mean she is not accepting you or giving you validation. It just means she is not interested in you as a lover. There's a difference.

Nobody likes people who needs their validation because it shows insecurity and that you don't even like yourself first who why should anyone else like you?

Just saying.

People just feel weird if you want or need them to accept you. And I think people generally accept each other as a person but don't expect all the girls that you like to accept you as a lover or a potential bf.

It is natural to desire validation but it's a problem when you don't get it and beat yourself over it and think something is wrong with yourself big time.




tangerinedream said:
beans said:
Hi Lonelies,

This is an article written by someone else. Not me. Please tell me what you think of it?


"In my early 20′s I had an acquaintance named Adam. The first thing I noticed about Adam was his self-confidence. He would very easily approach girls at a party, ask them to dance or ask them if they wanted a drink, and if they said no, he would shrug and move on to the next girl instantly, with no break in his stride or confidence. I watched him get turned down over and over again, but he kept at it until he found a girl who took him up on his offer.

He was highly social, a life-of-the-party kind of guy. He was moderately good looking but not drop dead gorgeous. He carried a little extra weight around his mid-section but was also muscular. He sort of reminded me of a young Captain Kirk.

We often ended up at the same parties, and I continued to watch him move around and interact with people. I wasn’t sure if he ever felt rejected, but if he did, he didn’t show it. So one day some friends and I were over at his house just hanging out and I decided to find out if his confidence was all an act. At the time, I was suffering from social anxiety and really low self-esteem, and I wanted to improve in this area so I figured I would learn from someone who had seemingly mastered it.

Here is roughly how our conversation went:

Erin: Adam, you seem to have really good self-esteem.

Adam: What do you mean?

Erin: Well, I’ve seen you at parties and you just walk up to girls and ask them to dance or ask them out on dates, and even when they say “no” you just keep right on going to the next girl.

Adam: (shrugging) Yeah. Why would I stop just because someone said “no?”

Erin: But don’t you feel rejected? Don’t you wonder why they didn’t want to dance with you or go out with you? Don’t you worry that there’s something wrong with you?

Adam: Ah, I see your problem. Let me explain my philosophy. I approach girls I’m interested in spending time with. If they don’t want to dance or date me, I assume there’s a situation or circumstance on their end that makes my offer unwelcome. I don’t take it personally.

Erin: You mean, you don’t assume it’s because there’s something wrong with you?

Adam: No, there could be a lot of reasons a girl says “no” to me. Maybe she’s tired, she has a boyfriend, she’s busy chatting with her girlfriends and doesn’t want to be bothered, her feet hurt, she doesn’t want to drink, etc. I never assume it’s because there’s anything wrong with ME. In the absence of direct evidence, why would I assume there’s something wrong with ME? The way I look at it, she’s not saying no to ME, she’s saying no to my question. There’s a difference.

Erin: What if she tells you she thinks you’re a troll or ugly or disgusting?

Adam: Then I assume she has a distorted view of reality and I probably wouldn’t want to date her anyway. If she’s that critical and harsh, then I’m glad to have weeded her out before dating her.

Erin: So you never get rejected?

Adam: I get rejected all the time, it just doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I never take it personally. I take it as a sign of incompatibility and move on until I find something I can connect with. I don’t invest my entire sense of self-worth in getting one single girl to go out with me. That would be silly. There’s no way that every girl on the planet will be a match for me. So I’ll keep going until I find someone I connect with who wants to connect with me.

I remember having a huge shift in my thinking after our conversation, and I realized that rejection is about beliefs. You can adopt the belief that if someone rejects you then it means there’s something wrong with you. Or you can adopt the more empowering belief that if someone rejects you then it means they’re rejecting the situation, not you.

In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, why not assume the rejection was based on circumstance, instead of on you?

What if you adopted the belief that rejection is a blessing? After all, rejection helps you quickly weed out people or circumstances that are not a vibrational match for you. It’s easier to move on when you are not stuck wondering what you need to change in order to get approval from someone with whom you’re not really a match. Check them off your list and move on to the next person or circumstance.

Don’t chase approval. Be who you are, be confident in yourself, and go out and find the people and circumstances that are a match for you!" - Erin P.


LOL Spoken like a true narcissist.

Narcissists have the best self-esteem, because nothing is ever wrong with them or their fault etc.

I'm only kind of joking. If only would could siphon off a little of that over-bearing self-confidence for the rest of us or change our mindset a bit so that we realize that true, it is NOT always about us. It's not always me, the person, being rejected because I am a hideous excuse for a woman or a ***** from hell or whatever. It truly could be totally on his end. Maybe he just doesn't like redheads. *shrug*

I think it's good not to wrap up our entire notion of self-worth on what other people think about us, but yes, that can be hard. I think that we will always crave some level of acceptance and validation. Some people crave it all the way and become too dependent on outside validation, others seem to shun it and become remote and disengaged.

I think I got what Adam is saying. Note that Adam isn't obese or hideous. So that's why he said that if a girl thinks he's ugly or a troll, he would not want to be with someone like that.

If a girl said that about him and he still is crazy about her (like some guys do) then he really does have a poor self esteem.
 
I understand all that, what I don't like about this is that it's not easily done. It is as a big cycle.

Loneliness --> Depression --> Low Self-Esteem --> Your unAdam-like, you think it's a problem with you --> You stop talking to people --> Loneliness --> Depression. And so on.

Outgoing/Confident Person --> Make friends/keep friends --> High Self-Esteem - Your Adam-like, you don't think it's you, but it's the other person --> You talk to more people, possibly make a girlfriend/boyfriend --> Outgoing/Confident Person --> Make friends/keep friends. And so on.

Breaking out of our vicious cycle is the hard part. Good things lead to good things, bad things lead to bad things.

:club:
 
Ak5 said:
I understand all that, what I don't like about this is that it's not easily done. It is as a big cycle.

Loneliness --> Depression --> Low Self-Esteem --> Your unAdam-like, you think it's a problem with you --> You stop talking to people --> Loneliness --> Depression. And so on.

Outgoing/Confident Person --> Make friends/keep friends --> High Self-Esteem - Your Adam-like, you don't think it's you, but it's the other person --> You talk to more people, possibly make a girlfriend/boyfriend --> Outgoing/Confident Person --> Make friends/keep friends. And so on.

Breaking out of our vicious cycle is the hard part. Good things lead to good things, bad things lead to bad things.

:club:

I did say its a cycle and I am part of it. This is not about Adam. If you think it is about how cool Adam is then you're missing the point. I don't think there any of us are any different from Adam. He just chose to look at rejection in a different way and did not take it personally. Adam gets rejected just like all of us do. But a lot of times, it is how you respond to things that gets you depressed --> sad --> lonely ---> no confidence and the cycle continues.
 
Ak5 said:
That's my point, we're not him. We're different.

I said that its not about him and its not about comparing yourself with him. Maybe that's why you struggle with this. You compare yourself and think something is wrong with you. Even in this post you do that when there is no need to.


 
This is a paradox.


Anyway: Easily said to be like that, not so easily done. One thing is what you say, one thing is what you do. You can say "I don't give a honeysuckle, it's not me" and then tomorrow when you actually are in a social situation, you think its you and you only. Again, takes time and practice to change.

Hell even I admit it, when things do go wrong I do believe it is me! Am I working on changing that? Yes. Will it happen overnight? No. Will it eventually happen? Yes.

The idea is not to "evade" the problem and forget about it, the idea is to tackle your problem head-on. :D

This is my point, that you are missing.


The only thing we can do is mentally prepare ourselves.
 
Ak5 said:
This is a paradox.


Anyway: Easily said to be like that, not so easily done. One thing is what you say, one thing is what you do. You can say "I don't give a honeysuckle, it's not me" and then tomorrow when you actually are in a social situation, you think its you and you only. Again, takes time and practice to change.

Hell even I admit it, when things do go wrong I do believe it is me! Am I working on changing that? Yes. Will it happen overnight? No. Will it eventually happen? Yes.

The idea is not to "evade" the problem and forget about it, the idea is to tackle your problem head-on. :D

This is my point, that you are missing.


The only thing we can do is mentally prepare ourselves.

Sure.
 
Ha, I always assume it's me, in every situation, mainly because of my appearance. If only the Adams of this world could share some of their mojo...
 
Its really simple...so dont over think it.

Sometimes when a woman dont respond to u..its becuase shes on the rag or whatever...which really donst have anything to do with you.

Its all in ur head....
If u believe its going to be hard..then youll make it hard....
Old unwporkable ideas and beleifs??

Even though Im not looking for someone @ the moment.( I just got out of a relationship last week and moved.lol)
all kinds of beautiful women were being
nice and friendly to me today....

A lot of it has to do with the mind set
I was feeling ok about life in general. I was very lax and easy
going today...which made it easier for
people to apporach me.
Its not a big deal
to me becuase beautiful women talk
to me all the time.

@ the sametime...having had sucess
with women and having been with
plenty of beautiuful women. I know
Im capiable of being with a hawt chicks.
I have confidence it that.
.

Before going out in the public today.
I cleared my mind of negative thoughts
and emotions. .

I believe and know its easy for me
to make firends or meet beautiful
women.

 
That is a great way to perceive rejection, but yes, it is far easier said than done.
 
Ultimately it does have a lot to do with depression and self-image, and goes far beyond rejection; individuals with a poor self-image tend to blame themselves whenever anything untoward happens to them while people with an aggressive self-image tend to always blame others whenever anything untoward happens.

Did you get a bad grade because you were a bad student or because the material was stupid and the teacher was incompetent? Your answer has as much to do with your perceptions and your self-image as the reality.

I attempt to find a middle ground - that the truth usually lies in the middle; rejection is something that one can to an extent mitigate or minimize through the appropriate approach, for example, but to a greater extent, accept that there are also factors beyond my knowledge and control. Above all things, I avoid blaming myself; I try to own up responsibility for mistakes and learn from them without letting them become crippling self-criticisms.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top