More Rejection Means More Fear, Not Less
Some advise that in order to get over the fear of romantic rejection, that you should actually seek out as much rejection as you can. Well, experience shows that, unlike the fear of riding a bike or bungee jumping from a high peer, the fear of romantic rejection does not go away by practicing getting rejected over and over. In fact, getting more of what you fear (romantic rejection in this case) may indeed make you fear it more; not less, depending on the outcome of the actual rejection experiences. Indeed, the costs of focusing only on increasing the numbers of romantic rejections received, are psychologically high and can have long-lasting, fear-increasing effects. Such costs are:
- Too much wasted time and excessively hurt feelings. Why ask a lady out when you’re virtually certain that she’ll say no anyhow? If she says no once, then she’ll probably never change her mind; at least not because she’s had a sudden change of heart. Indeed, there’s little to be gained from conducting these futile exercises in rejection except the shame of being stupid enough to repeat them. When something shames us enough times, we develop a strong aversion to it; we build up more fear for it and thus, avoid it more. So getting over the fear of rejection is not best accomplished by repeatedly defying our rejection fears.
- Needlessly frequent and traumatic rejections. It’s one thing to simply be told no. That’s humiliating enough. But it’s quite another (and more painful thing) to be told no with the added message that she thinks you’re a fool, particularly when you have indeed acted like one by ignoring her wishes that she’s communicated to you through her body language.
- Loss of a good reputation. Asking the same woman out too often can make you into a stalker in her eyes as well as her friends’. When getting rejection numbers up are the only focus, we often forget who we’ve already approached particularly when contacting hundreds of women in a night on the town. Women talk crassly about tactless men, who appear to be not only insensitive, but on the make as well.
- Missed opportunities to learn from rejection. If you don’t stop after each rejection to consider what happened and learn from it, you’ll be little more likely to get a Yes the next time. And who wants to keep repeating the same mistake? True gamblers are never content to just sit back and play the game; lossy hand after hand. They’re constantly looking for ways to improve their odds of winning, and the high stakes force them to think hard after each hand lost how to reduce the chances of that happening again. Those seeking mates should also be forever on the look-out for new angles, and ways to avoid needless romantic rejection while pursuing every legitimate opportunity for love that they can.
- Wasted resources such as needless money spending. Often, guys buy ladies drinks and other gifts, even when they strongly suspect that she doesn’t like them. That’s a real waste besides playing right into the hands of those gold-digging bad girls that we’ve heard so much about in recent years. Yet these fellows do so hoping to melt her heart. While such strategies might work on the so-called gold-digging lady, they will not on any woman whose only agenda item is to exchange love with a desirable man. All the gifts in the world will not make her love you if she’s not attracted to you in the first place.
- Less time for other pursuits. If we’re constantly out in the bars working the numbers, we’ll miss out on other, perhaps more enjoyable pastimes. To me in the 1990s, bars were a necessary evil that I had to endure in order to meet women. I didn’t like them, but couldn’t think of any other places where so many available and desirable ladies congregated. I would have much rather spent that time attending ham radio club meetings, shopping for CDs and books, and tinkering with computers. However, these activities weren’t often frequented by sought-after women. Yet now that I’m aware of the futility of meeting someone in a bar, not to mention the fact that I don’t drink anymore, I find these days that I make very much more time for hobbies than ten years ago. This was good because having true hobbies of passion can temporarily distract occasionally from the pains of romantic rejection.
- Too many dead-end relationships. When all we care about are boosting the rejection numbers, it’s easy to become entangled in a relationship with a lady who isn’t the best for us. That is: Without careful prior consideration of the woman’s desirability, we can end up approaching ladies who look great from afar but cease looking so good as we move closer. But by the time we realize that she’s not for us, we’ve moved too close emotionally and physically because we were so interested in defying our fears of rejection that we missed key signs of incompatibility between she and ourselves. I’ve on occasion glanced women across the room that seemed perfect. Then I rushed over (before someone else would snag them) for a dance. Sometimes they’d say yes and next thing I knew, I’d be on the dance floor looking at her before me and wondering where her charm had gone that had been so plain but a few moments ago. I’d have headed off more situations like this if I’d only slowed down and focused more on figuring out if she was someone I really wanted instead of just defying my fears of rejection.
A strategy to reduce these costs of needless romantic rejection is to take five minutes and observe each new attractive lady from a distance. Let her see you looking at her, and watch for a reaction. If she turns away in disgust, then she’ll almost surely reject you. So don’t even bother moving closer because not only will you irritate her, but you’ll needlessly humiliate and injure yourself too. This will deepen your fear of romantic rejection and make it harder for you to approach women in the future. I’ve seen arrogant men talk to beautiful strangers on buses when it’s obvious that she wished to have nothing to do with them. This makes these men look pathetic and ugly. Only those with no conscience at all would be unscathed by this sort of rejection; rejection that they asked for by ignoring her signals. So don’t just approach anyone. Well-consider both your feelings and hers before approaching and in this way, can you truly reduce the trauma of romantic rejections, and the fear of them as a result.
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