How do you cope with rejection?

[MissCreativeSpirit]

I use to be the one that breaks up when I was a teen. But now men can be standoffish and so emotionally unavailable that it feels like rejection.
I have really decided to make sure men are emotionally avail. from now on right from the get go or I do not want to see than again/get intimate, etc.

[LadyMay]

I'm the same!

Never settle for less than you know you deserve!

How to cope with rejection hmm??? After a two year relationship which ended recently because he was afraid of commitment all I can say is the only thing that keeps me through the pain is the care and love I have for myself and remembering there is always better out there. I do feel rejected, abandoned, hurt, etc, but in a way it is a blessing, a gift if you think about it. It allows growth for the future. Not that it's ideal, but as I like to say there is always a silver lining to every cloud.

Hold on in there. You will find the right guy. As for me I'm kinda thinking on becoming female-exclusive as a bisexual ha! Probably won't happen, but I'm tiring of men lol.

[ocean breeze]

I can come off as standoffish even when someone shows interest. Its usually for the best.

Must admit I haven't had "long term" relationships - the current one is probably the longest - but that's because I seem to anticipate when things are going astray, when my expectations aren't going to be met or I can't meet his. Or simply as often happens, cracks appear in what we'd hoped for. (Work is always a contentious issue as I freelance). No point keep putting effort into a pretence of, say, love, when you know it probably wasn't love in the first place; and keeping on to avoid the inconvenience of returning to square 1. So I've already kind-of let it go...which I recognise makes me part of the problem. I start getting restive.

It works both ways though. I've had to close out on relationships.

Weird...I've been dumped but it sometimes seems to affect the guy more than it does me - probably because I anticipated it. One thing's certain: I'll never go back with someone who ended it. It never works.

If I've ever felt rejected (as a person) I've buried myself in creative stuff and know there are always more fish in the sea.

[Altair]

Men and women have their differences. Instead of blaming this on men it could perhaps be useful to understand men's perspectives. The average man gets rejected a lot more than the average woman, and this is part of what makes us more emotionally distant over time.. as boys most of us don't start out that way, believe me. If it happens an X number of times you start to get more cynical and capable of distancing yourself from said feelings. Men are most of the times still expected to make a 'move'. This entire issue could be easily remedied if we actually had genuine equality.

I see you make a lot of threads about men, like at least one every day, and I really think it's for the best if you were to drop your interests and desires in a relationship for now, and just become happy with yourself and what you do in life. A special someone, man or a woman, isn't going to magically make our lives better. Be mindful about what you send out, because you don't want a wrong man in the wrong context in your life to make this observation.

[A human Being]

Bless you, MCS, like most people I've felt the sting of rejection so I can definitely sympathise. We humans are social animals by nature (it's how we've survived this long), so we're pretty much biologically hard-wired to feel the need for acceptance and belonging - and when we don't feel that we have that, it can feel like too much to bear. It can put some people off relationships for life, it's just that painful.

The key, I think, is to be with the feeling of rejection, to allow it completely. Which sounded simple enough in theory, until I actually tried it for myself and discovered just how reactive I was to painful feelings - only thing that works for me (and I must stress that this is a work-in-progress, I'm not quite there yet) was meditation with the simple objective of keeping my body relaxed and still. Which, I appreciate, sounds about as sexy and interesting as unbuttered toast, but sitting in that state of non-resistance allows emotions, energetic blockages, etc., to gradually move and dissolve. As much as anything, what's really required is a willingness to feel these emotions, as painful and uncomfortable as they can be (there's a good video on the subject here, which you might find of use). Patience and perseverance are indispensible virtues, too, because the vast majority of us have developed so much unconscious resistance to these feelings over the course of our lives, and that doesn't tend to break down overnight.

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

Weird...I've been dumped but it sometimes seems to affect the guy more than it does me - probably because I anticipated it.

Not that surprising to me, we geezers do tend to deny our emotions even to ourselves, and they often only surface in the face of some crisis (like the end of a relationship, for example, even if we were the ones to end it).

(Not that I'm speaking from experience, of course - heavens no!)

If I've ever felt rejected (as a person) I've buried myself in creative stuff and know there are always more fish in the sea.

Certainly better than wallowing in the emotion, though distraction doesn't tend to resolve the issue - it only makes it unconscious. Not that I'm criticising, mind, if I've learnt one thing over the past few years it's that humans suck at letting go of painful feelings, it's actually what makes us so dangerous as a species.

[MissCreativeSpirit]

I honestly say, I can resist rejection and then manifest relationships. This is how things went with my x husband.

[Anne]

A human Being -

Many thanks for your honest, insightful post on this thread, with emphasis on the helpful ways of meditation
re blockages and rejection.
“as sexy and interesting as unbuttered toast” lol.. I must agree with you there, but a valuable release nonetheless...

I also agree with your statement that humans suck at letting go of painful feelings. Our world would be so amazing if we could all just let that *stuff* go!
On one hand our frailty creates great works of art including all genres, but on the other hand it creates too much suffering.

[A human Being]

Originally Posted by Anne

A human Being -

Many thanks for your honest, insightful post on this thread, with emphasis on the helpful ways of meditation
re blockages and rejection.
“as sexy and interesting as unbuttered toast” lol.. I must agree with you there, but a valuable release nonetheless...

I also agree with your statement that humans suck at letting go of painful feelings. Our world would be so amazing if we could all just let that *stuff* go!

And thank you for your kind comments, Anne And you're not wrong, our world would be a radically different place if we could let go of these feelings - a valuable release, as you say, as arduous as inner work can be.

On one hand our frailty creates great works of art including all genres, but on the other hand it creates too much suffering.

This is a very insightful point, too, couldn't have said it better myself. I think the truly great works of art offer us an opportunity for catharsis, which is a tremendously valuable thing, it's just unfortunate that our culture is mostly geared towards deflecting our attention from the unmet pain that's at the root of our suffering.

[Winter Song]

Originally Posted by Altair

Men and women have their differences. Instead of blaming this on men it could perhaps be useful to understand men's perspectives. The average man gets rejected a lot more than the average woman, and this is part of what makes us more emotionally distant over time.. as boys most of us don't start out that way, believe me. If it happens an X number of times you start to get more cynical and capable of distancing yourself from said feelings. Men are most of the times still expected to make a 'move'. This entire issue could be easily remedied if we actually had genuine equality.

I'm a woman, and I agree with this.

I also think men also have a much harder time recovering emotionally when a relationship ends, because they tend to put all of their emotional eggs in one basket (the woman they're with), while women have a wider network of people they get emotional support from (friends, mother, sisters, or even strangers on internet support groups). Men tend to tough it out alone after a breakup, so it takes them longer to get over the loss, and they're going to be much more cautious in the future.

I could go on; there's a lot I've observed about men in general over the years, and while dating again in my late 30s and 40s, but the gist of it is that men in their 40s aren't going to plunge in headlong and profess their undying love like teenage boys and early 20-somethings do. If a man in his 40s is serious about wanting a long-term relationship, they want a woman they know they can trust, and who they can count on, and they're going to hold back until they're sure they've found one.

However, keep in mind that a lot of middle-aged men have been burned too often or too badly to not want to commit again at all. They'll do casual relationships because they still want sex, and don't need to be in love with a woman in order to enjoy it. As long as the relationship's tolerable they'll say or do whatever they need to in order to keep a woman on the line as a sex partner, but they're never going to commit, no matter how much sex or affection or nice things a woman does in order to get him to do so.

I've learned the hard way that if you're a woman and you're doing all the pursuing and trying to get him to commit, you're wasting your time. If you have to force it, it's not happening. You cannot make people love you, and if they don't already love you, you need to go find somebody else who will.

I see you make a lot of threads about men, like at least one every day, and I really think it's for the best if you were to drop your interests and desires in a relationship for now, and just become happy with yourself and what you do in life. A special someone, man or a woman, isn't going to magically make our lives better. Be mindful about what you send out, because you don't want a wrong man in the wrong context in your life to make this observation.

What I'm seeing is desperation, and a need to be with somebody, anybody, even if means having to settle for somebody who isn't quite right and force them to fit your needs. And that's a horribly unhealthy way to approach relationships. Anybody who is good and desirable enough to have other choices, and has a decent sense of self, isn't going to put up with that because it's not love.

To get back to the original question: How do I cope with rejection (especially as a 40-something woman surrounded buy gun-shy men)? I just move on. I don't waste my time and energy on men who aren't interested, because that just keeps me from finding someone who is.

Besides, I reject men all the time for one reason or another, because I'm not attracted to them, or don't want what they want. Why shouldn't they reject me for similar reasons? Just because I find a man attractive doesn't obligate him to want me in return. It's a two-way street. A relationship is a co-creative act, where both of your desires happen to be a good enough match. If there's no match, there's no relationship. That's a hard thing to face sometimes, but so is life; pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and move on.