Rejection has been the overarching theme of my 2022 – seasons, jobs and living spaces came and went, but the sting of rejection rang through all of this year’s transitions. Before I even reached the part of the year where I was traumatised and then unceremoniously dumped over Facetime, I’d sobbed on the bathroom floor for the better part of an hour, having been rejected from three (three!) jobs just that morning.
I’d spent the night – and days – before refreshing my emails with nervous compulsion. I had already received one politely worded and borderline apologetic rejection from a job I actually wanted. This was a small sting but felt like no big deal; I had three other final-stage interviews in the works.
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the way time decelerates to an excruciatingly sluggish pace when we’re awaiting News. The hours crawl by whilst we move frantically, refreshing emails or furiously checking the chat with a person you’ve just sent a risky text to. The night before I was due to hear back from these three prospective employers, I went to the cinema with one of my best friends to watch the new Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as a greasy incarnation of cinema’s darkest superhero.
It was a relief to put my phone on airplane mode for three (three?!) hours and stash the pending news away in the depths of my tote bag. However, as soon as the film was over, I reached hungrily for my inbox to swipe down and refresh only to be met with the disappointment of No News.
“But no news is good news, right?”
Not in this case it wasn’t.
I deliberately turned my alarm off that night, hoping to pass as much of the agonising wait by unconscious. I woke up to three emails, all prefaced with a sympathetic “Thank you so much for your time” which then abruptly shifted into “We’re sorry” and concluded with an aspirational “Let’s keep in touch.” I’d woken up even more unemployed than I had been the night before.
Feeling profoundly sorry for myself, I dragged my body out of bed and barely made it through my morning skincare routine before I collapsed onto the bathroom floor in an Unemployed heap, staring blankly at the beige tiles, wondering if this feeling was normal – if this was what one had to expect from their early twenties and The Real World.
I’d never truly experienced rejection before that point. I was a chronic overachiever at school, had successfully gotten into and been awarded a degree from Oxford, and had secured the first graduate internship I’d applied for.
Before this year I hadn’t even endured romantic rejection. I’d never been dumped and had never weathered the shitstorm of unrequited love. So this two-fold rejection extravaganza which dominated my Spring and early Summer shook me to my core. I was humbled.
And I hadn’t realised quite how vulnerable this gap in my emotional experience left me. Subconsciously, I must have considered myself untouchable (a typical – and unsavoury – trait of the Entitled Oxford Graduate, I know).
The fragility of my ego became blindingly apparent in the face of both my professional and romantic rejection. I crumbled.
I hate to use Twitter-speak in what ought to be a serious moment, an opportunity for self-reflection, but – ladies and gentlemen – I had entered my “flop era.” I’d gone from believing myself to be one of the most employable, fuckable, loveable people to grace this planet to just a regular person experiencing life in all its normalcy.
Because rejection is normal. Everyone experiences it. You would have to be IMMENSELY privileged (which, admittedly, some people are) to swan through life without encountering rejection in some form or another.
Whilst I knew this to be true, I didn’t truly understand the normalcy of rejection until recently. This epiphany dawned on me in one of the last places you’d expect to be cognisant enough to have such a profound realisation: a sex party.
Despite the number of people I’d locked eyes with as I tottered up and down the Many stairs within London’s infamous nightclub, Fabric, I had convinced myself that no one there could possibly fancy me – especially amidst so many leather-clad and liberated bodies. I had come with two couples: my friends from uni and their partners. I didn’t mind being a fifth-wheel; I could wander off with the security of knowing there were four people I could circle back to if I needed to.
But I felt in no position to wander off – at least not for the first few hours of the night. I used to have no issue approaching strangers in clubs, in fact I did it to excess and sometimes at the detriment of the night out. These days I find myself paralysed by all the things that could go wrong between two strangers on a dance floor.
What if they don’t fancy me? What if they’re there with their partner and I unknowingly start an argument? What is they think I’m a creep? What if they’re a creep? And so on.
I expressed these concerns to my friend. She, very wisely, simply said “but it’s fine.” We’re adults and mature enough to know that not everyone will fancy everyone – to be rejected shouldn’t be an affront to you personally. A number of highly specific factors have to align for two people (or one person and a job role) to be compatible enough to commit a night or more to one another.
Hearing her matter-of-factly tell me that “it’s fine” to get rejected – that there’s absolutely no shame in it – was the affirmation I didn’t know I needed. So, I got back on that dancefloor, unencumbered and uninhibited by my fear of rejection. And I had a wondrously sexy time as a result.
***
Putting yourself out there, be it for a job, a date, or amidst a crowd of sweaty bodies, is terrifying. Vulnerability is – unfortunately – a necessary pre-requisite to acceptance and success. Rejection is part of the essential process of elimination, that gradually gets your closer to where you need to be.
It’s true that you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince… But sometimes we are the frogs on others’ journeys to wherever they need to be.
I wouldn’t have the lovely job I do now without rejection. I wouldn’t have the lovely (rental) house I have now without the countless offers we had rejected (London, am I right?). I wouldn’t be fully enjoying the fruits of this city’s sex and dating scene without rejection.