Rejection fallout/vent post

[Trickster]

Dealing with some rejection fallout here, so this is kinda a vent post. I went out with someone who I kinda liked, but wasn't super into last weekend. We went out, did a bunch of things together, and I ended up spending the night at her apartment. While I wasn't super serious about her, I thought that I could keep on dating her just to see where things went. A couple days later I texted her to ask her out, and she didn't respond all day. I also gave her a phone call, and she also didn't respond.

Even though I wasn't that into her, her not responding still bothered me, and I felt myself slip sliding into bad old cognitive habits - wondering what I did wrong, etc etc. Eventually she did get back to me but sent me a pretty cold message something along the lines of "Thanks for the message. I've been very busy, and I'm not free this weekend." At this point I was like, well, I'm done playing games really so I just asked her outright " do you want to see me again? If not, then that's okay, just let me know." And I haven't heard from her since.

I still can't shake that assy feeling of rejection though, and that I've messed it up somehow. While before I'd mostly focus on replaying all my actions and thinking of possible reasons why she's behaving the way she is and what I could possibly do to change this, now I know better than to go down that rabbit hole. Still, no matter how much I tell myself to focus on my own feelings, I can't help but feel wounded by rejection and I feel as though my confidence is hurt. I guess my question is how do you deal with this? I know repression isn't the right answer, but I've always been bad at dealing with this kind of rejection.

[Creatine Dreams]

I would offer you advice, but I am dealing with a similar thing right now.

And I am not that experienced.

But I do think that writing your thoughts down like you just did helps.

[The Notorious PhD]

Hey Trickster,

I'm not experienced either, but here are some random thoughts that might help you:

1. Don't let her "cold" response throw your confidence off too much. By that I mean accept that she rejected you, but don't read too much into how she said what she said because you'll just end-up mind-fucking yourself. Rejecting people freaking sucks man, and sometimes women are cold simply because they themselves feel awkward doing it. I forget which chapter, but Mark talks about this in Models and it might be helpful for you to read that. I've lent my copy to a friend, but maybe someone else can chime in with the chapter.

2. Borrowing from David Burns' Intimate Connections (a CBT-based dating book), right now you're reasoning from emotions. As in, you think because you're feeling crappy that somehow means that you are crappy. That's just not true. You're just experiencing an emotion, and it will go away. It says very little about you or your identity or how cool/awesome/adequate you are. Very little. Virtually negligible.

3. Everyone gets rejected now and again, and for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with them. In fact, if we didn't get rejected, trying to get women wouldn't be as much fun. Hurray for rejection because it makes this fun.

4. Come on now, buck-up. It's just a girl, and it's so cool you got to spend some time with her. There will be many more.

[CharlesB]

I still have problems also with this, but I believe ,this problem will get solved on it's own when we'll start to realize that we are not responsible of other people's reactions.
The problem is that we read forums and blogs to help ourselves become better socially , but at the end we always forget that we can't control other people ,their behavior and their emotions towards us.
Like mentioned on the previous post ,we must also learn to live with our emotions as hard as it could be sometimes. That means being able to identify them , and accept them.(but not the thoughts that might pop up with them).

[SeXyBaCk]

I doubt anyone else here can offer you some magical pick-ya-up phrase that will shake the icky feeling you're experiencing in an instant, and neither can I. My advice is rather than trying to work through this or figure it out, just ignore it. You say yourself you can feel yourself slipping into a bad habit, stop thinking about this. It's not a question/riddle/puzzle and there's no answer to it.

I'll break it down for you: You went out with someone, you had fun and that was it. Neither of you were really feeling potential for a deeper connection is my best guess. Your aim isn't to please every woman you hang out with or date, your goal is to select someone compatible to you, right? This girl is doing you a favour by knowing exactly what she wants and being mature enough to voice and enforce it. Otherwise you might be tempted to pursue even though there's nothing there you're after.

You're going to shrug this off. Easter weekend is coming, get out there, go to the gym or track bleed your lungs out...meet some friends for a beer, see your family, surprise your mother with some gift. Feel the love.

Get up, get your gear, tie your sneakers or call a friend, it's that simple.

[Tim]

If you're not that into her... I wouldn't worry about it.

And by that I don't mean it's going to be easy to just drop it and forget about it, more that it's just something you have to accept as best you can and then go on.

I could write more but I just reread Sexyback's post and he nailed it. Just do something else. If all you feel is disappointment or anger, go run it out. That will help, I promise.