It is a fact of life that when we make social overtures to other people, we face the risk that people will sometimes reject us. The only people who never experience rejection are those who never interact with other human beings.
Otherwise, everyone occasionally experiences situations in which they are rejected. You might get turned down for coffee, for a dance, for a party, a relationship, or even for marriage.
Rejection is never fun to experience, and for some people, it’s not easy to overcome.
There is a big difference in the way that shy and lonely people experience rejection, and the way that socially confident people experience the event. For most socially confident people, being rejected is a relatively trivial experience that is soon forgotten, whereas for people who are shy and lonely, rejection can be a long lasting, emotionally traumatic experience.
Those people who are very emotionally sensitive, who lack confidence and self esteem, or who are very shy:
· tend to fear the risk of rejection far more than socially confident people do
- are more likely to experience rejection as a very painful and humiliating experience.
- often assume they are entirely to blame if they are rejected
- are likely to interpret social rejection as proof that they are somehow at fault, or defective.
- are more likely to imagine rejection where none has occurred
- are more likely to avoid social interactions if they believe rejection might occur.
- are more likely to believe that if they have been rejected by one person, they will continue to be rejected by everyone else, for the rest of their lives.
How does a person with healthy self-esteem deal with rejection? They might think to themselves, “Gee, it’s too bad my invitation wasn’t accepted. Oh well. Maybe it was bad timing" Or they might decide, “Maybe that guy is just a jerk I’d never like anyway. I think I’ll call up Roger instead and ask him to go to the game with me".
When socially confident people make a friendly overture, they assume they will probably be successful. They are very focused on the positive end result they want – more friends, more options, a more vital life.
A person with healthy self-esteem realizes that taking occasional social and emotional risks is a necessary part of developing relationships. If someone turns them down, they don’t take it personally. They just move on and look for someone else who will be more receptive. It doesn’t occur to a socially confident person to think that the reason they were rejected is because they are deeply flawed or inadequate.
In fact, socially successful people tend to take all the credit for their social successes for themselves, and when they do encounter a social fiasco, they usually assign the blame to the other person! This is the opposite of how shy and lonely people often react. Shy and lonely people tend to grab all the blame for themselves if their social overture is rejected, and if their overture is accepted they may believe the other person made a mistake in accepting them!
Here is a brief summary of steps you can take to overcome your fear of rejection:
· Remind yourself why you want to overcome your fear of rejection. Remind yourself that your goal is to have a happy social life.
· Change what you say to yourself about rejection. Don’t tie your self worth to whether or not you get accepted or rejected by other people.
· Take a series of baby steps when developing new relationships.
· Look for signs of receptiveness in the other person.
· Deliberately set out to collect as many rejections as you can
· When you are out making approaches to other people, tell yourself that it’s just practice, it doesn’t count.
· Make many, many social approaches to other people.
This article is taken from the new book by Royane Real titled "How You Can Have All the Friends You Want" available at http://www.royanereal.com
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