Harlan Jacobsen Copyright © 2003

Part 6

Rejection:  Good or bad?

Are these rejection myths stopping you?

By Harlan Jacobsen

               REJECTION SAVES TIME AND FEELINGS.  If you don’t reject someone you don’t care for, you have a problem.  If you reject someone and they are upset, they have a problem.

               How do you reject someone at a dance, for example, when they pull up a chair and they camp with you.  Say, ‘I came to meet and dance with a lot of different people and when you sit there with me all evening no one asks me to dance because they feel you and I are getting married (that word scares them).  Why don’t you catch me for a dance later?’

               Another example—They keep calling to ask you out and you give them the typical ‘I’m busy.’  Wrong.  For the right way we recommend what we call a Sandwich—3 nice positive things about them, The Zinger (limitation), and one more positive.  Let’s say you have been dating someone and you want to end it.

               1.  First positive—You and I have had some great times together and I enjoy being with you.

               2.  Second positive—You are certainly a fun person and have a great sense of humor.

               3.  Third positive—I have a great deal of respect for you and what you are doing.

               4.  Zinger—But I have decided that our relationship is not going anywhere and as a result I am going to stop dating you.

               5.  Last positive—You are one of the nicest people I have ever dated and I would like to always keep you as a friend.

               How can they not agree and say yes to that?

               Another example:  if someone says, ‘I’D LIKE TO HAVE YOUR PHONE NUMBER.’  You give him the Dial-a-Prayer number or your number when you have no intention or desire to ever date them.  WRONG.  Instead use this:  —’You seem like a nice person and probably fun and good to know, but I really can’t keep up with the people calling me now.  So I am not giving out my number any more for a period of time.  It is a compliment you asked.  Thank you.’

               Should you give out your phone number?  No, not unless you can hardly wait till they call or you have nothing else going.  SHOULD YOU ACCEPT SOMEONE NOT TOO BAD AND GIVE OUT YOUR NUMBER WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING ELSE GOING?  Yes, you should.  You don’t have to marry them.  Remember author George Bach’s thing that 80% of big relationships there was no initial attraction.  Get some things happening.  PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.  Not only practice rejecting but practice accepting and rejecting later after it is apparent it is not up to your expectations.  Some of us are actually AFRAID OF BEING ACCEPTED; you unwittingly ask for rejection when you are:

               Afraid of being hurt again,

               Don’t want to give up your freedom,

               You don’t want to try to live up to someone’s needs, demands and responsibilities.

You don’t have to pretend you like camping out or hockey or whatever when you don’t.

               Quite often singles come into a group and say, ‘Lets’ go.  There is no one here’ despite the fact that there are 50 people there.  They reject everybody.  Nobody is good enough.  All Creeps.  Until I really meet someone special I reject everybody.  Eighty percent of the specials you’ll never get to meet that way, according to Bach, because you won’t know they are special.  Like the artist that says, ‘Boy, all these scenes are imperfect.  Something wrong with them all.  I’ll never paint until I find the perfect scene.’  After years and years of looking and looking, one day he finally found the perfect scene to paint.  What happened?  He didn’t remember or know how to paint.

               You need to be mingling and practicing with all of us imperfects so IF Mr. or Ms. Perfect should come along you will really know how to paint.

               WHEN YOUR EMOTIONAL BATTERY IS RUN DOWN, YOU CAN’T HANDLE REJECTION SITUATIONS AS WELL, so if you’re at the rundown emotional stage because of divorce, for example, get on to how to charge up your batteries.  Date the receptive ones, those really interested in you.  Find someone who likes you, with whom you can’t fail.  It will help your low self-esteem, spark up your battery.  Find a lot of great people who like you and your low self-esteem gets up to high self-esteem.

               ONCE YOU KNOW YOU ARE OKAY, whether that’s by others or by getting yourself together, then you don’t have to have other validate you as okay.  Otherwise when they unplug from your battery (and they all will) your emotional battery will be flat again.

               You can learn to be real.  You don’t have to pretend you like camping out or hockey or whatever when you don’t.  You have time confusion when you are in a low, run down emotional battery state.  You think it will always be this way.  You want an instant relationship.  Your aloneness seems to drag into an eternity.  You want everyone to accept you right off.  You’ll spend $30 on a hairdo, do everything you can think of because you say, ‘They just have to like me.’  You go out and you get rejected and then you give up.  You feel it’s better to give up than go out and get rejected again.  So you stay home and buy a pussy cat.

               YOUR EXPECTATIONS ARE WRONG.  You need to be and know you will be rejected by nearly everybody but not always everybody.  The more you are rejected the closer you are to getting to the law of averages and those few who do accept you as you are.

               YOUR BALONEY —OR UNREALISTIC REJECTION EXPECTATIONS— ARE:

               1.  EVERYONE SHOULD LIKE ME.  That’s wrong.  Only one of 500 will really accept you.

               2.  ONCE SOMEBODY ACCEPTS ME THEY SHOULD ACCEPT ME FOREVER.  That’s wrong.  Everything is temporary.  To expect otherwise is wrong.  People accept you one day at a time.  They change, you change.  If it lasts one hour, one day, one week, one year, THAT’S GOOD, for however long it lasts.

               3.  IF I WAS DESIRABLE OR ANY GOOD PEOPLE WOULDN’T REJECT ME.  Because you are usually rejected you decide you must be no good or defective.  Rejection usually has nothing to do with your okayness.

               4.  BECAUSE THEY REJECTED YOU TODAY THEY REJECTED YOU FOREVER.  Wrong.  Rejection is temporary.

               5.  REJECTION WILL ALWAYS BOTHER ME.  Wrong.  You can change your programming to where rejection is your friend and you welcome it.  If you have read the previous two articles, this one and the final installment next issue, practiced rejecting and being rejected, you will soon discover rejection is not longer a problem for you.