"Rejection is part of life"

[Mary Terry]

Younger women treated me like garbage today all day, just like old times at Bryant Park and the libraries. Getting, up and leaving when I sat near them. Giving me resting faces all day. Only the old people sat near me and smiled. Just like old times. Just about destroy myself esteem.

Tony - you are middle aged now and will become an old man in due course. Think about that. Young women rarely want to hook up with significantly older men unless they're looking for a sugar daddy to support them.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

What's a sugar daddy?
I heard it's a pro wrestling or a old school or rap song?

Also, no fault of my own, I look over 15 years younger than my age. No one believes I was born in 1977.

I actually don't like it now that I mingle a lot with millenniums, Gen z and are actually friends with them.

 

[Judge]

What's a sugar daddy?

The ultimate sugar daddy- the shriveled up old man who Anna Nicole Smith married. Oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall. He was 89, she was 26. Upon his death, Smith ended up in quite a legal fight for his estate.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

The ultimate sugar daddy- the shriveled up old man who Anna Nicole Smith married. Oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall. He was 89, she was 26. Upon his death, Smith ended up in quite a legal fight for his estate.

I remember that.
That's kind of extreme. Okay maybe a 50 year old man married a young 20s woman the youngest. But damn that's a big age gap and a big red flag.

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

yeah, however its a fact that men deal with rejection far more than women ever will, thats a fact, yet people think thats a good thing

 

[velociraptor]

yeah, however its a fact that men deal with rejection far more than women ever will, thats a fact, yet people think thats a good thing

Guessing you're not employed or you would have noticed what women have to deal with in the workplace. It is very uncool and unfair to them.

 

[8398]

I wouldn't like being told that either (depending on the context) because, I think there are people who are more prone to getting bullied or rejected, no matter what they do. And it hurts.

 

[NB79]

My charisma stat i think is -1, so i can't seem to make friends much.
Socializing is an ability i don't have it seems, so i think it got worse because of not using it, what you don't practice gets worse lol.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

yeah, however its a fact that men deal with rejection far more than women ever will, thats a fact, yet people think thats a good thing

Agree . Sorry for siding to the dark side. I woke up. You're right. Women get advanced all the time. But men get tons of ostracized rejection.

 

[FeatherBird]

Sounds like a problem I used to have. It gave me the motivation to learn coping methods.

The world isn't going to change just because you have the hurt feels. If you want to fit better and have more fun then the onus is on you to change yourself. Sorry, but that's just how it is. I didn't like hearing this from an AA sponsor decades back, either.

Here's the thing: There's no one-size-fits-all formula of "if I do xyz, whoever I ask out will accept my askout"

Everyone's different. What one man/woman finds off-putting, another man/woman might like. That being said, if you get rejected 100%/nearly 100% of the time across the board like I do, that means my target market in general finds me repulsive.

It has nothing to do with hurt feelings. All I'm doing is stating facts. Learning to be ok with rejection won't get my askouts accepted at a higher rate (so I fail to see the point of learning to cope with rejection)

 

[FeatherBird]

It is, but it never gets any easier until you feel more confident in yourself. That's the key because you won't and can't be liked by everyone. I've shrunk my world a lot to avoid rejection, but that gets lonely after a while. It's hard to navigate. My fear comes from always feeling like I’m second best. I want to be someone’s favorite, but I never am. I always end up wondering why they don’t like me as much as I like them.

I generally am in the same boat as you (they don't like me as much as vice versa)

And in the few cases where they do like me more, they turn out to be so unbearable to be around I have no choice but to break it off.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

Everyone's different. What one man/woman finds off-putting, another man/woman might like.

Agree. I found one who I connected to 3 weeks ago. Everyone even here said it would never happen.

 

[FeatherBird]

I wouldn't like being told that either (depending on the context) because, I think there are people who are more prone to getting bullied or rejected, no matter what they do. And it hurts.

Yeah. Even though we'll never be liked by everyone, the sheer percentage rate at which I've been rejected would suggest I'm destined to (in the vast majority of cases at least) be rejected no matter what I do.

 

[FeatherBird]

My charisma stat i think is -1, so i can't seem to make friends much.
Socializing is an ability i don't have it seems, so i think it got worse because of not using it, what you don't practice gets worse lol.

What I've noticed is: At social events, everyone else mingles with ease, yet I'm lost.

It's like they have some instinct (or know some secret) that I don't.

 

[Judge]

What I've noticed is: At social events, everyone else mingles with ease, yet I'm lost.

It's like they have some instinct (or know some secret) that I don't.

Yes. Reminds me of the stress of having to attend business parties. When so many relative strangers seem to bond so easily. Or at least that's how it always appeared to me. As if it was some kind of "alien ritual" that I was not privy to.

Walking up to someone I knew I could do, though at parties it still seemed very contrived and awkward for me. But approaching total strangers just to appear social on behalf of my employer...that was something I always dreaded.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

What I've noticed is: At social events, everyone else mingles with ease, yet I'm lost.

It's like they have some instinct (or know some secret) that I don't.

Agree. Ever been to social anxiety meetup groups, introvert groups? They are almost the same experience as regular neurotypical groups they claim their for social anxiety, but it's the same thing I go to them, and they are socializing with everyone else while I'm sitting there by myself the outcast every single time so that's a bunch of BS saying that people and socialize easily I'm always the outcast every single time, so I agree with that statement.

 

[Hypnalis]

What I've noticed is: At social events, everyone else mingles with ease, yet I'm lost.

It's like they have some instinct (or know some secret) that I don't.

Not quite an instinct, but this is the result of the general ASD characteristic deficit in the knowledge, skills, and experience needed for social interactions.

It's hard work and time consuming to address that deficit, but significant improvement is possible.
It's equally valid not to address it of course, but then you have to accept the status quo.

It has nothing to do with hurt feelings. All I'm doing is stating facts. Learning to be ok with rejection won't get my askouts accepted at a higher rate (so I fail to see the point of learning to cope with rejection)

I don't understand the quote above in the context of the OP. Note that I'm assuming that the person who said you need to learn to accept rejection is your therapist - i.e. that you were implicitly asking for input.

It's almost completely binary.
* If you "ask people out", you'll get rejected sometimes, perhaps almost always.
* You can reliably avoid being rejected by not asking, but with the obvious consequence.

What might you get if you ask a specialists? There's no straightforward answer to that, but here's a simplified and highly-polarized perspective:

If you force an answer from a "compulsively positive talk therapist" you'll be told "Just wait, and sooner or later it will work itself out". Which might feel nice in the moment, but it near-useless advice for almost everyone (NT and ND).

Or, if you're lucky enough to have a realistic therapist, they should recommend things like:
* General self-improvement
* Work on your social skills, with a slight bias towards interaction with your preferred romantic target category/categories
* Acceptance of the inevitable negative side-effects of pursuing your objectives

It's always an option to "shop around" for someone who tells you what you want in the moment. Which is highly unlikely to lead to positive results, but if you're not going to follow a therapists' advice, you might as well select for feeling good while listening to it.

 

[Judge]

Agree. Ever been to social anxiety meetup groups, introvert groups? They had the same thing as regular neurotypical groups they claim their for social anxiety, but it's the same thing I go to them, and I am lost it one socializes what everyone else, and I'm sitting there by myself the outcast every single time so that's a bunch of BS saying that people and socialize easily I'm always the outcast every single time, so I agree with that statement.

Admittedly, some circumstances *might* "break the ice" easier- and faster for some, but not everyone.

No guarantees that even among introverts they can all magically spill their guts out to total strangers, even if and when they share the same barriers to being more social.

I went through a period in my life where my social anxiety would pop up regardless of whether another person was like myself or not.

Ultimately an issue that was resolved by my doctor in prescribing a particular beta-blocker to subdue my symptoms. Of course much later it was found to be a potentially dangerous medication given certain cardiac issues.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

No going to introvert groups where everyone is socializing and yet again I am sitting by myself is not an introvert group but a bunch of fakers.

 

[Judge]

No going to introvert groups where everyone is socializing and yet again I am sitting by myself is not an introvert group but a bunch of fakers.

Not fakers. Just people who may find some select circumstances reassuring, even comforting. Good for them. But in your case and even mine many years ago, that was simply not enough. Without the right meds I may have ended up like you well past your present age.

That it ultimately took prescription meds to get past my own severe degree of social anxiety.

Though as in the case of all such medications, you have to be extremely aware of their benefits and drawbacks . That you have to go in "eyes wide open" to any consideration of drug therapy prescribed and administered by a qualified medical professional. (Not a mere therapist.)