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Q: I was just rejected… again. Every girl I’m interested in is not interested in me. They think I’m sweet or whatever, but they see me as a friend. I try to stay positive and not blame myself, but there has to be something I’m doing wrong or something wrong with me. I feel like there’s no point in putting myself out there if I’m just going to get rejected. I’m in my mid twenties and have never had a girlfriend or even kissed a girl. I can barely get through a lot of AS articles because they are (justifiably) centered around sex and/or relationships. It’s something I want so badly, but I don’t know what to do.
A: Hi Myrtle! (I’m going to call you Myrtle.)
First: rejection sucks, and you probably feel pretty shitty about it, but there is nothing wrong with you. You are a deeply wonderful deeply flawed human just like every other human, and that is okay, you are okay. Take a deep breath and imagine yourself as awesome until you start to believe it. (I recommend power poses.)
Now for the advice: if you approach people feeling like they’re going to reject you, you increase the chance that they will before you even open your mouth. The things you think will happen can inform your entire way of being in and moving through the world and so can inform what happens in your interactions with other people. Assuming rejection before it even happens almost certainly makes you look and act less confident and self-assured, which can make you be less confident and self-assured, which can detract from your hotness.
This is some hippie bullshit, but you have to put the energy you want out into the world if you expect to get it back.
Instead of believing that you’re just going to be rejected if you ask someone out, believe that you’re going to be successful instead. Lie to yourself if you have to — speaking personally, confidence-related lies to yourself get easier with practice until you hardly notice you’re doing them, even if you start off feeling like dirt. Believe that you are going to talk to a girl and know that you are a person capable of asking someone out and a person someone is capable of saying yes to. Don’t assume she’s going to say yes — this is not a fine line, consent is the most important and you should not act like or pretend it’s there when it’s not — but know that she could. Believe that you are a person people want to go out with and make out with and you will find a person who wants to go out with and make out with you.
Obviously this is really hard to do in practice or a lot of advice columns would not exist. When you start trying to make yourself think like this you might even feel more discouraged, because it might not work immediately, and then where are you? You are in exactly the same place and no worse off, that’s where. You mention that you want sex/a relationship so badly in the same paragraph as you mention there’s no point, but if it’s something you want, you shouldn’t let being rejected in the past stop you from being rejected — or maybe, probably, not rejected — in the future.
I love you. You got this.
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