You wanted it very much, but the other side did not.
And that is only half the blow. Because not only did the other side not want you — in most cases they preferred somebody else over you.
Rejection is a vicious kick straight to the stomach. I do not know anyone who goes through the ritual of rejection with a smile. I simply do not.
It makes no difference whether it is a romantic rejection or a refusal after a job interview. Rejection is such a dismantling experience because it catches us a minute and a half after we entered a very, very vulnerable position — we showed openly, to somebody else, that we badly want something or someone.
Which is to say: having finally agreed to give up the pose that we are perfectly fine, having finally stopped playing it cool, and having admitted the embarrassing fact that the other person holds in their hand an asset we very much need — love, approval, a job, money — they then say no.
And we are left with a pain and an insult that go nowhere, and in most cases we have no idea how to process the experience.
I will try to help here. Not only as somebody who has studied it, but as a former young man well supplied with rejections. Here are three points for thought.
One. Remember that in most cases whoever rejected you does not actually know you.
I am not rushing to legitimise wounded formulations of the "if he doesn't want me, that's his problem" variety.
I am pointing at one realistic angle. We are always forced to measure one another quickly and superficially, for purposes of romance, employment or renting a flat.
The trouble with quick, superficial measurement is that it is quick and superficial. Whatever was rejected, it was not you. It was a thin sketch of you, assembled in an hour, by someone with their own preoccupations.
Two. The pain is disproportionate because the stakes are ancient.
Being turned away by the group was, for most of human history, a mortal danger. Your nervous system did not get the memo that this is now a dating app. It is responding correctly to a situation that no longer exists.
Three, and the useful one: the alternative to being rejected is never having asked.
People who are rejected often are people who ask often. The ones who are never rejected have generally arranged their lives so that no answer is ever required — which protects them beautifully, and costs them everything.