The Rejected Status

"The whole experience of being left out is one of the basic driving forces of human experience."

Dear Journal,

I was reading an article in Newsweek about rejection and the side effects that it may have on a person. That it can lead to lower intelligence scores, weakened immune systems, acts of aggression or anti-social behavior.

The reality is it hurts to feel excluded or rejected from someone we care about like a close friend, to someone we could care less about, like a co-worker you only say hi to, but of course it’s going to hurt more from someone we know.

Like when I hangout with my previous co-workers, all I hear is them going out together or what’s happening with each other; even personal things in their lives. It’s easy for them to do that because they’re part of each others life.

Of course I feel excluded, I’m not going lie about it, because I’m not in that group. It’s hard to try and talk with them about events that you were never part of. So I just sit there, put a smile on my face, and pretend everything is fine.

Even when people ask how I am, I know it’s difficult because we’re not in each others life. You can only ask so much before stopping the conversation.

Anyway, the article goes on to describe a paradox of sorts, that the more we feel rejected the more we “push away our connections”, that it is like a self-protective mechanism.

We become less social and withdrawn to avoid feeling rejected, how minor it may be.

We feel like we’re the only ones who are left out, that everyone else is so popular or so independent that it doesn’t even phase them.

But I think it does, but most won’t admit to it because we’ve been taught to brush it off, and if we don’t we’re considered weak.

One solution according to the article for fighting feeling left out is to extend an invitation, instead of waiting for one to come.

People feel so embarrassed to take social risks. It never occurs to them that almost everyone feels the same way. But chances are, they do.

I do this a lot, I wait for people to ask me to do things, instead of asking them.

I hesitate to avoid rejection like what the article said. Even if it’s something minor as asking a friend if he wants to go jogging with me or asking a friend if she wants to grab dinner.

It’s a small request, but that rejection is there still.

That’s one of the reasons I just stop, I mean why try to have or continue a friendship when the other person isn’t interested in it.

We make memories and history with friends by doing things with them or by simply asking how they are. Without that history there’s nothing much to it, you’re basically acquaintances where you see each other because of some event that brings us together.

Rejection .. it sucks, but you can’t dwell on it too much. Otherwise it starts to kill you emotionally and physically. 

– A