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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   4718 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 24, 2023

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I tried some "rejection therapy".

Spoke to some girls on my walk home. 2 average conversations. 1 great conversation. 1 really bad conversation.

0 numbers.

Im not going to lie, the great conversation was a really cute pharmacist I would have loved to get to know more. "Im seeing a guy" felt like a small death. Part of me wishes it wasnt a just a white lie which it most likely is. On net it was a good experience, the rejections gave me more energy not less.

I can see this working out. Not in that anything will come of it directly, but even after 4 attempts social interacrions that felt daunting in the past feel like small fry now. It can be a valuable skill when I will really need it.

I plan to become numb to rejection within a few months. Im gonna do the whole a rejection a day thing.

"Im seeing a guy" felt like a small death.

Back when I was doing this sort of thing, I was genuinely happy to get this sort of response from a girl. Particularly when it was after a great conversation and connection that was pretty unfalsifiable in terms of being genuine. I felt that I had been acknowledged as a man and as being attractive. Her being unavailable was irrelevant. Really encouraging.

I had the same feeling when I was involved in a long term relationship and had a similar conversation with a single bridesmaid at a wedding. I was in a different country at the time. Same great conversation and acknowledgment of each other as attractive and I was upfront about being in a relationship. No hard feelings at all on either side.

Don't let this sort of response get you down at all. It's not the same sort of 'rejection'.

I felt that I had been acknowledged as a man and as being attractive.

I don't think it implies an acknowledgement of attractiveness (only lack thereof).

I'm under the assumption some girls will entertain the conversation just because and the signal for attractiveness is actually giving the digits.

There is a fraction of girls that will sustain an engaged conversation with indications of interest with a man they do not find attractive purely for attention/out of boredom/maintaining social harmony, but I think that percentage would be relatively small. In my examples above, I have experience enough to know that this was (almost certainly) not the case.

Conversely there are girls that will have conversations with men they find attractive, show genuine interest and who will still not give out their number (for whatever reason). Actually having a boyfriend/husband, but being flattered by attention is a really mundane and common scenario that I would be surprised that most men haven't come across.

Getting a kiss/phone number/sex as the only determinants of attraction (while the metric of choice among Lotharios) is a pretty poor thing to base your self esteem around.

Edit: After thinking about it, the time's where I did feel bad after finding out she had a boyfriend is usually when the girl was hiding that fact in the conversation for one reason or another. Then I'd realise she either didn't know how to tell me, or kept the conversation going without telling me for attention. Feeling lousy after the conversation is probably a good way to tell the girl wasn't attracted.

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