We have all been there at some point in our lives:
Rejection. Rejected by a tall, dark haired Guido, rejected by a snarky manager
at a corporate job interview, rejected by the popular, pretty people at school.
It happens sometimes in life. The boy you like doesn’t always like you back and
conflict resolution doesn’t always work super successfully. People yell at you,
call you creepy, and hurt your feelings.
Rejection is painful and the truth is that things don’t always
pan out as planned. Sometimes, that couple you were sure wasn’t that serious ends up getting married.
Probably in some cute, little, stupid ceremony on some perfect, crystallized,
sandy, stupid beach. You know, with some lit up tiki torches and tropical
flower arrangements? People love that romantic garbage: Love, flowers, years
worth of betrayal, tainted romance, all that noise.
The point is, on the other end of those disgusting adorable,
perpetually doomed marriages is some poor rejected sap. Someone who put all
their eggs in one basket, someone who was sure that the feelings were
undoubtedly mutual, someone who was planning for a future of coupledom.
Coupledom filled with carriage rides, expensive Chianti, and train rides in
Europe. But instead, that someone was rejected, their feelings thrown out like
garbage at an amusement park.
No mandatory exit therapy, no parting gift, no whiskey roadie,
no, “Here’s looking at you, kid.” Nothing but cold hearted rejection. Like a
big, bloody stamp.
REJECTED.
I’m good at walking
away. Rejection teaches you how to reject. –Jeanette Winterson
But although rejection is a terrible feeling, something like
agita or a shot of Jose Cuervo, it can provide a weird brand of passion for the
wounded. Because if you get knocked down enough times, eventually you get back
up with guns blazing. You get back on that horse and you just keep trying,
reinventing yourself and incessantly pushing yourself to do better. Like Eminem
or Julianna Margulies, for example.
Or sometimes, it makes you grumpy and uncaring, and therefore
unable to feel the pain of your impending rejection. You just keep trucking, no
matter who rejects you, because the only person you care about impressing is
yourself.
I had this friend who had this stupid prophetic idea that he
was going to die on, or before, his twenty-ninth birthday. He had this ludicrous
idea that he was in the same talent crowd as Heath Ledger, Amy Winehouse, and
Jimi Hendrix. I was thinking to myself, The
only thing you have in common with those people is that, pending your
proverbial death at twenty-eight, you’ll all have died when you were
twenty-eight. Listen, I know that sounds mean, but seriously, who lives
their life like that? “I’m going to die at twenty-eight and can therefore treat
everyone who cares about me like garbage.” What is wrong with people?
Anyway, the point is, he was so busy being totally convinced
that he was going to die at twenty-eight (or thereabouts), that he never cared
about the influence he had on anyone else. I remember once (… I mean, there was
a lot of alcohol. It’s fuzzy…) I said to him, “You’re so goddamn mean to
everyone, you’re going to die miserable and alone. And probably not at
twenty-eight. You’re probably going to live to be like ninety because you’re so
goddamn terrible.” He grumbled something about there being a really good woman
to man ratio and that if he pissed off one girl to the point that she stopped
talking to him, he would just go to the bar and find himself a new one.
(God, I know. Now that I’m reading this again, I’m totally glad
that we haven’t spoken since 2007. The guy was, and probably still is, a
complete tool.)
Everybody said, “Follow
your heart.” I did. It got broken. –Agatha Christie
But this tool, he might have had the right idea about
rejection. I mean, he was basically un-hurtable because he was only concerned
about himself and what he wanted. The rest of us, well, we could sit in syrup
and let the bees get us.
That mentality, though, that doesn’t work for all of us.
Some of us don’t have leathery man skin. For some of us, rejection is an act we
never want a role in. For some of us, being on the wrong side of a breakup can
be a serious kick in the teeth. For some of us, the dissolving of a
relationship is devastating. Like terrible, gut-wrenching, refuse to get out of
bed except to refill my alcoholic beverage, devastating.
I have this other friend who was in this mildly dysfunctional
relationship with a tall, dark and selfish manchild. They had really good times
together (a few of them, anyway) but she didn’t realize that he was actually
seeing someone behind her back. When she confronted him, she was surprised to
learn that he had some meager reason why he was maintaining a relationship with
both of them.
Moby Dickulous.
And she believed him, under the utterly laughable, misguided
impression that she was the better liked of the two girlfriends. (I swear to
Christ, how ridiculous? How is that a consolation? He gets sick of one and then
calls the other? How does anyone ever earn any rank in that kind of situation?)
I’m sure you can guess how that turned out. (They probably
got married on that stupid fucking beach I was talking about earlier…) My
friend was devastated, began to eventually believe that she was worthy of this
kind of life disruption. She went to bed intoxicated by alcohol and woke up the
next morning with the thudding realization that she had been rejected.
Rejected for a woman a foot taller than her, someone who her
ex claimed “wasn’t nearly as pretty or personable”. And yet, the allegedly
pretty one with the personality got rejected.
What the fucking fuck.
Moral of the Crazy: Being dumped or rejected is just
terrible. Even those people who claim that they don’t care about being rejected
are miserable liars because being turned down or thrown away is a huge blow to
the average delicate ego. Even if it’s a person who you don’t particularly care
about, it’s still hard to swallow that they don’t want you.
I mean, hello? Have they met you? Have they seen how awesome
you look in dark colors? Heard you sing harmonies to, oh, I don’t know,
EVERYTHING? By ear?! Tasted your sauce? Watched you pour wine? Seriously, what
is WRONG with these people?
But sometimes, probably most times, you can get through it.
There is the option that you could turn into a stone cold prick who cares about
nothing except getting drunk and insulting people. Not a bad gig if you look
like Jon Hamm…
But for those of us who don’t, for those of us on planet
Earth, for those of us who would prefer to just take the high road, reinvention
is just a new pair of pumps (and a new, fun color MAC lipstick) away. Or if you’re
Miley, an… interesting haircut, a molestation of Robin Thicke, and a foam
finger away.
I guess the moral is to not let those people who reject you
get under your skin. Because I can almost promise that the idiot stick figure
they left you for will soon grow tired of their insufferable demeanor. And then
it won’t be long before she hits up the MAC store.
But mostly because, let’s be real: Who would be stupid enough
to let you go?
A big, dumb idiot. That’s who. So, good riddance.
It’s easy to cry when
you realize that everyone you love will eventually reject you or die. –Chuck Palahniuk
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