You are going to get Rejected!

Be a man – deal with it or go have a whinge!

“Hi, how are you doing?” [- No response -]
Girl with the red silk scarf just walks away.

“Hi, how are you doing?” [- No response -]
Girl with the blue cocktail dress looks at you but then just walks away.

“Hi, how are you doing?” [She says, “Go away!”]
Girl with the black knee-high boots responds but does not give you any eye contact.

“Hi, how are you doing?” [She says, “Fine.”]
Girl with the white trench-coat responds but then proceeds to walk away.

“Hi, how are you doing?” [She says…

“Hey, I’m great. How are you tonight?”]

It is a fact of life that you’re going to get rejected at one time or another. Unless you’re living under a massive rock, it wouldn’t be the rollercoaster of life if you didn’t. Not everything is going to go your way so if something goes wrong, you can either deal with it or you can go have a whinge – I prefer the former. Now if there’s any situation where rejection is as common as the common cold, it’s in the dating arena. You can get rejected left-right-and-centre because we live in day and age where a simple “Hey” can go unnoticed.

When a “Hey” goes unnoticed it spells absolute arrogance in my mind – that’s a-r-r-o-g-a-n-c-e. Perhaps I’m getting a bit fired up here like when I forgot to press the “Save” button when I finished writing up this article (Yes, I had to re-write EVERYTHING!) but it these type of women (and men of course) who make it difficult for a lot of people to find their partners. I don’t want to make this a personal vendetta so let’s look at this from an objective point of view as to why a simple “Hey” can go unnoticed.

Objectively, there could be multiple reasons as to why a “Hey” can go unnoticed. For example, she had a terrible day at the office, she’s not in the “mood” or that an ulcer in her mouth prevents her from speaking. At the same time, she could be shy, tongue-tied or even nervous – fair enough. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s very important to be considerate of the other person by understanding the reasons behind her lack of response but then there are those women who just completely ignore you because they think that they are better than you. With that said, never ever beat yourself up if you get rejected in a situation like this. There are things that you can control and there are things that you can’t – concentrate on what you can.

There are a lot of things that you can’t control and as shallow as this might sound, she might not like your freckled manly-cheeks, she might not like your facial hair growing on your manly-chin and you know what, she might not like the fact that you’re manly-Asian! Simple business/life 101, you can’t please everyone so concentrate on what you can.

So how can we avoid being rejected?

Quite frankly, you can’t – there’s no such thing as a 100% success rate. Why? Because you can’t control how the person reacts. No matter how smooth you are or how strong of a communicator you are, there will always be people who could not care less about you. That’s just how it is. Is this the be-all-and-end-all? Absolutely not! The true test of an individual’s ability is to get up no matter how many times he/she falls – that’s what’s important!

So it then begs the question, is dating (and maybe some other instances of life such as job hunting) a numbers’ game?

Yes, because that’s just the way it is. If you want to meet new people, be prepared to get rejected until you’re eventually successful. We all know that rejection is tough to swallow, it’s painful and it hurts – we’ve all been there. It’s actually very heart-breaking as a matter of fact if you are constantly being rejected.

Now this is not limited to the dating arena, when you apply for a new job, the human resources manager, the line manager or the senior manager will not hire you because quite frankly, they “think” that you are not good enough – it’s the same thing. Call it a game or call it whatever you want but if you want to get a new job, you’re going to have to keep applying until someone recognises the skills that you can offer. Let’s broaden this again, your boss may not like your business proposal or your client may not interested in one of your products – are you going to give up or are you going to come up with new ideas and products? The same applies to dating, when you go searching for a girlfriend or a life-long partner, not every girl is going to think you’re one hell of a guy.

You may think that you’re one hell of a guy and that’s great to be comfortable in your own skin but it is how others perceive you that is also something that you need to take into account.

So how do we deal with rejection? As Elayne Savage puts it ever so clearly on the title of one of her books, don’t take it personally!

I’ve lost count as to how many times I’ve been rejected for a job and I’ve lost count as to how many women have completely ignored me. I know this is very common sense but the best way to deal with rejection is to just concentrate on what you can. She’s living her life and you’re living yours – her actions may be justified or they may not be. What’s certain, however, is that you’re going to have a very tough time in life if you over-analyse and question everything that you do. At the end of the day, concentrate on what you can and don’t let rejection engulf you – every rejection brings you one step closer to success because you learn from the past experience and you constantly adapt.

Just remember, when dating / life hands you the hard end of a titanium reinforced stick that has metal spikes protruding from its base, you’ve got two simple choices – you either deal with it or you let it beat the fudge out of you.

So what are YOU going to do?