“Lots of emotional critters live under the rock of cognitive dissonance” I wrote a friend in a recent g-chat session. Fear of Rejection is one of the inhabitants under my rock. Lured from hiding by three rejections in a relatively short span, he crawled into other spaces of my mind all weekend.
The disquiet of each rejection is borne of the fact that each should be irrelevant:
- A woman who gives radio silence after two dates which ended in her expressing fondness is a woman made unsuitable by that behavior.
- A restaurant owner who is more than an hour late and completely unprepared for an initial meeting would make a painful client.
- Some stringy haired harpy who is pissed at me for reasons I neither know nor should matter to me is, well, a stringy haired harpy of dubious standing for friendship.
All of these were justifiable causes for my rejection irrespective of the other person’s thoughts. Yet, their rejection has stuck in my craw long enough for me to vent to friends, and write this post. As natural as the human desire for all forms of affection may be, we all know better when we should know better. People tell us how to treat them with their actions more than their words. Their actions have told me that I need waste no more energy on the rude, the disrespectful, or the stringy haired harpy*.
*Yes, I enjoyed typing that one more time. I guess petty can crawl from under the rock sometimes too.
Posted by restaurant refugee 
